Our Little Gymnast

Our little gymnast continues to practice her skills every Wednesday. It is amazing how her balance and upper body strength has improved! I am so glad she loves doing it!

Chugga, Chugga Choo Choo

Joey has become infatuated with "choo choo's." The other day my mom and I were out running errands and we ended up at Toys R' Us. They had an amazing 50%off sale on all train track sets. We found a set for Joey that was so fun and so cheap! He and Livi love playing with it!

Rocking away

Livi and Joey love the rocking chairs that Grandma Heiple gave them. I always catch them in the toy room rocking away. Joey also loves the "choo choo" train I got him. I can't believe that the man we bought it from carved this by hand!

Slides, swings, and cars...oh my!

The other day Livi, Joey, and I were driving home after gymnastics class and we drove past the Elementary School playground. Simultaneously they started yelling, "slide, swing, car..." Needless to say they desperately wanted to stop and play so we did. I love bringing them to that park. It has developmentally appropriate equipment for both of them. Not to mention it was an absolutely gorgeous day!

A Busy Friday

This Friday turned out to be a very busy day for Livi, Joey, and I. Our day started at 8:00 A.M. when we headed north towards El Paso. Our van check engine light came on when we were in St. Louis, and our mechanic suggested we take it to our dealership to have it fixed. So my dad was nice enough to meet us at the dealership and bring us out to the farm where we loaded up in his car and borrowed it for the day. We also hung out with dad and Uncle Dave, and we were able to meet Dave's new girlfriend. After a yummy lunch, we loaded up and headed to our next destination...Metamora!

We went to visit Grandma Heiple and go to the Old Settler's Fair downtown. It is a nice little fair, a lot like the "Sparks in the Park," and "Corn Festival." Livi and Joey went on a few rides and got spoiled by mommy and Grandma Heiple. Grandma H bought them beautiful rocking chairs. They are the perfect size for them and were pretty inexpensive. I bought Joey a hand-carved wooden train. He loves playing with it; and I bought Olivia new hair bows and headbands. They had a great time...thank you very much Grandma Heiple, for the fun afternoon!

After a quick stop at Dairy Queen, Livi, Joey, and I loaded up the car again, and headed to Bloomington for the Relay for Life. My Aunt Kelly and Uncle Rick have headed up a team every year for the past few years. Livi and I participated a couple years ago, and all three of us did again this year. It is always such an amazing, sad, and inspiring experience. To see all of the cancer survivors, their care takers, and hear their stories is amazing. To see them walk that track showing their strength is inspiring, and to know that some of them are still fighting the battle and losing is sad. Our family and friends have been touched with this awful disease. My Uncle Dan, Great Grandpa Dwyer, Great Grandma Donna, Uncle Bob, Cousin Edson Dressler, Mal Pancoast, friends Joe, Ty, Pat, Landon, Nate, Marita, Diane, several of my Uncle Rick's family, and my friend Jay's mother. Some of them lost their battle with cancer, and some of them are alive and loving life. We walk to honor them!

Thank you to Kelly and Rick for including us in your team!

These are some of the honorary bags for our family and friends, I did not find them all.

The survivor walk/our friend Joe in the middle.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, the Heiples loaded up for the last time and headed south. It was a fun, but very busy day. We all slept well!

A Sign of Hope

Wow...the past two days have been a complete bummer and disaster. Let's see we have had our air conditioner break, the dishwasher die, the kids' car DVD player act up, the cable box go out, the van check engine light come on, and the cherry on top is that Joey has been running a temp since Tuesday night. I tell you what, after the dishwasher died today I completely gave up!...but then God gave us this beautiful rainbow right outside our window to show us everything will be o.k.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!!

For Father's Day weekend, Livi, Joey, and I surprised Jason with tickets to the Father's Day Cardinal game. Since we would be in St. Louis, Jas and I decided to make it small family getaway!

We had a good time at the game, but boy was it a hot one. We lasted a couple of innings sitting in our seats, but then we needed to get Livi and Joey to the shade. We walked around the stadium and then ended up at the family pavilion play area. What a blessing!!! They could play and climb all over the equipment and it is in the shade!

After the Cardinal game we walked down the street to our hotel. We booked a room at the Millennium only a few blocks from the stadium. The very first thing we did was go swimming to cool off. Livi was elated when she discovered she could reach the floor of the pool in the 3ft. area. That was all that she talked about the rest of the night!

We swam for about an hour and then headed to our room to get cleaned up for dinner. Jas and I packed the double running stroller so that we could walk around downtown St. Louis for dinner and fun. We ate at Max and Erma's, a restaurant very close to our hotel and with delicious food. After dinner we walked down to the waterfront and let Livi and Joey see the "March" aka Arch and play in the park. Then we walked down the street and found a fun little water park. Olivia and Joey LOVED the water park! They were soaking wet by the time they were done :). We continued to walk all around and ended up at the stadium. It is so lonely without the enthusiastic Cardinal fans, but it was nice to be able to see all of the statues up close without all of the people surrounding you.

We eventually made it back to the hotel and surprised daddy with a yummy cookie cake and cards for Father's Day. We had two kids on sugar highs for quite awhile, but finally got everyone in bed to get a good night's sleep for Mondays activities.

Monday morning Joey and Livi woke up bright and early at 6:30 A.M! So I took them down to swim in the indoor pool to let Jas sleep in. After swimming for awhile, we all started to get ready for the day. We headed out early to the St. Louis Zoo. It was going to be a VERY warm day and we wanted to visit the zoo before the heat wave. I think Livi and Joey's favorite animals were the penguins and the elephants. Joey kept calling all of the penguins "fishies" because they were swimming all over the place. After riding the "choo choo" around the zoo and eating lunch, we headed out towards The Magic House.

The Magic House was A LOT of fun! It is a really nice and clean children's museum. Olivia and Joey ran all over the place from exhibit to exhibit. I think Joey's favorite exhibit was the huge train set, and Olivia'a favorite exhibit was the mystery exhibit. It had hidden entrances and a fun air duct maze that leads to a large spiral slide. The whole Heiple clan loved the Presidential exhibit. Livi and Joey sat the President's desk, held a televised press conference, and sang patriotic songs. Really when it came down to it, they loved talking in the microphones!

After spending the afternoon at The Magic House, we packed up the car and headed home. It was a great getaway, and so nice to have time together. Happy Father's Day daddy, we love you very much!

A sure sign of a fantastic getaway!