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Drew's School Supplies

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Candy Making
Today we had some company. Friends from church called and asked if she could bring over their daughter and son for awhile in the morning so she could go clean at an office. So while the boys kept each other entertained, Morgan helped me make some of the candies for Drew's party. We worked on the peanut butter filled chocolate bricks. YUM!!!

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Playset Roof
The boys playset finally has it's wood roof installed! With the large group of kids that will be here on Saturday for Drew's party, we thought it would be safest to have the wood roof up to help prevent some from falling over the top rail. So last night, John and his friend Gerald were out there using flashlights to finish it up. All that is left to install at this time is the parascope and the telescope. John is leaving off the rock climbing wall and fireman's pole for fear of Zach falling off them and breaking something.

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Freezer Paper Screen printing T-shirts

For Drew's birthday party with friends, I decided to try out a fun little craft I had read about. I am SO pleased with how it turned out!! And I can't wait to try it with some other designs :)

Supplies:

Freezer Paper (waxy on one side & plain paper on the other)

X-acto knife or cutting machine

Pattern

Fabric Paint

Sponge Brush

T-shirt

Iron

Using the freezer paper, cut out the design you want to print on the t-shirt with an x-acto knife or cutting machine. Make sure that the waxy side of the paper is down. After you have cut out your design. Place the paper (waxy side toward shirt) on the t-shirt and use a warm iron to press it on (you can also iron on an additional piece of freezer paper inside the t-shirt to prevent the paint from bleeding through....I just placed a piece inside after I ironed on the stencil paper on the front). Make sure not to use a back & forth motion to start with or you might lift the paper and end up with wax on the iron. Once you have the freezer paper attached to the t-shirt, use you fabric paint and sponge brush to paint in the stencil area. Allow to dry until the paint is just tacky. Then carefully peel off the freezer paper. It will come off pretty easily and will leave no residue! It really is THAT simple!! And it was pretty cheap to do. You can purchase a large roll of the freezer paper at most grocery stores and I found plain t-shirts at Michael's for $2 each.

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Potty Training!

Today we started hitting the potty training seriously with Zach. I put him in training underwear and took him to the bathroom every half hour through the day. There were still quite a few accidents throughout the day...so I have a feeling this is going to be an ongoing battle for awhile. The thing Zach was the most excited about was getting to run around without any pants on! lol

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Helping with PM Class

This evening, John & I helped in the 3-5 year old class during the PM service at church.

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Friend's Bday Party

This afternoon we all attended Drew's friend, Logan's pool party. Here is the bday crew showing off their muscles ;)

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Drew LOVES Legos!

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We Love Crafts!

Drew & I share a love of doing crafts...and it looks like Zach might be joining us soon. :)

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Happy 33rd Birthday, John!!
...and the annual Dairy Queen ice cream cake :)

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Bubbles at VBS

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"Crocodile Dock" PreK Class & Chatter Chipmunk too!

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"Crocodile Dock" VBS Begins!

The Vaction Bible School at our church began this evening. We were very surprised to have 22 PreK students this year. It looks like it will be a hopping week for us. :)

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Craft Helper

Thankfully Drew loves to do crafts and I was able to draft him to help me do the samples for each day. :)

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Sick Little Zach

Poor little Zach woke last night around 11pm with a 104.5 fever out of the blue! So it was a night of repeated baths to try and get it to come down a little. Today he spent the whole day resting in Mommy & Daddy's bed. He looks so pitiful...just laying there sleeping off an on between cartoons.

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Preparing the Crafts for PreK VBS

The crunch is on to get the Vaction Bible School crafts all preped for next week! I am really neglecting keeping the house picked up as I focus most my time on getting these done. :)

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Preparing for VBS

After church this evening, I stayed around to help prepare the PreK room for next week. I will be helping in the PreK (3& 4 year olds) room and am in charge of the crafts for the week. :)

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Drew's Birthday Invitations

Late tonight I finally finished Drew' invitations for his bday party! Since he is having a Lego themed party (really wanted a Lego Star Wars one, but I convinced him to go with just Lego theme for his friends party...and then we would do a Star Wars theme for the family party), I created some "Lego" invitations.

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Big Boy Bed - Take 2

After returning home, we decided to try Zach out of the crib again. When we tried this about a year ago, we fought him all night long for about a month to try and keep him in his toddler bed (converted crib). We finally gave up at that time and decided he must not be ready for the switch and converted his bed back to a crib. This time around, we switched him directly to his full size bed.....and he LOVED it! Tonight was a little rough though, but at least we only fought him for the 1st two hours of the night instead of all night to get him to stay in bed :)

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Driving Home

After a little more than a week, we are headed home on a rainy Sunday morning.

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Photo Shoot with Family

On our last day at my parents' house, my brother and his family came over so I could attempt at getting some good pictures of them and as well as some of little Miss MaryKate. I still have SO much to learn about photography and thought of SO many things I should have done differently or tried after the fact....but I think I ended up with a few that are worth keeping.

And a couple extra pictures of little Miss MaryKate...

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Visiting Great-Gma Stroud

After many plans getting canceled do to the boys being ill or Gma being ill during our past trips to the St. Louis area in the last 6+ months, the boys & I (along with my parents) were finally able to get up to visit my dad's mom (she is in her mid-90's and living in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's). Drew seemed a little overwhelmed with the experience of the nursing home & was very quiet and not wanting to interact. Zach wasn't nearly as shy. He would try to share things with Great-Gma and was very concerned every time she coughed.

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Magic House - St. Louis Children's Museum

John, the boys and I visited a very PACKED Magic House. With the crowds, the boys didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time at some of the stations they really wanted to...which caused for some meltdowns. Hopefully we will get the chance to visit again soon when it isn't so busy!

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Trips to the Airports

John's World Series of Poker Main Event experience was cut shorter than he hoped, so instead of flying back on Saturday, he got back this afternoon around 4pm. I had forgotten to get a picture at the terminal, so I attempted to snap a quick picture of the "Welcome to Missouri" sign that is located on the interest ramp.

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Grant's Farm

The plan this morning was for Drew, Zach, my Mom and I to head out to Grant's Farm..only problem was Drew had a HORRIBLE morning. So, to try and make an example of it, my Mom offered to stay home with him while Zach and I went. It started off well with Zach being very laid back and actually quiet on the tram ride into Grant's Farm. The rough times came when he screamed the whole time on the carousal...then continued with him asking for something to eat every few seconds (which included some big screaming fits). lol Despite my mom trying to give me a break from it all, looked like I couldn't escape the fits for the day ;) In between the fits, he did have fun feeding the goats (almost had one throw-up on him though) and the llamas...and of course himself!!

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Visiting Great-Gpa & Great-Gma Carey

This morning we went over to visit with my Mom's parents. The boys had a blast playing with their dog, Buddy (or in Zach's case tormenting the poor dog!). Then the video games came out. Drew and Great-Gpa played some Mario Karts and Chicken Shoot, while Zach crawled up in bed with Great-Gma and played on his Leapster. I am so thankful for the time we were able to spend with them!!

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Eskomo Kisses with MeMe Stroud

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Happy 4th of July!
Today was the annual 4th BBQ at my parents' house with family & friends. And this year brought a first...the first time we have held most of the day inside and the first time we didn't have a huge fireworks display. It was still an enjoyable afternoon being together. Drew did have the small bag of fireworks we had brought with us: smoke bombs, snakes, snap-pops, morning glory sparklers, parachutes, and little tanks.

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Millenium Hotel & VP Fair Fireworks

After arriving at my parents' house this afternoon, I was told I needed to pack my things for an overnight stay. John had arranged for him and I to spend the night at the Millenium Hotel next to the St. Louis Arch so I would finally be able to view the VP Fair fireworks!! The above picture is the view from our room. He had also arranged for us to be having dinner at the rotating restaraunt "The Top of the Riverfront" during the show so we looked straight out at the display. Having grown up just west of St. Louis, I had never experienced the annual VP Fair fireworks display and have said more than once I would love to see it in person some day (have watched it numerous times via TV)...only problem was I dreaded dealing with the HUGE crowds and the heat. John's plans solved both of those problems :) What a smart man!

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I've made it through half the year and I'm still keeping up with the daily picture taking. Woohoo!! Maybe I just will make it through the whole year after all ;) Now if I could only be better about keeping up with posting here....lol

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Kindergarten Testing

We finally received the results of Drew's Kindergarten testing in the mail today. I'd say he did pretty well ;) Especially when you consider that they say most kids score in the 25-75 range!!

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TRU/BRU
We now have a Babies R Us in Springfield! After months of remodeling, the boys and I visited it after running some errands....what was I thinking taking 2 kids into a toy store!?! I would say I lost my mind during that stop...but evidently I had lost it BEFORE I entered the store ;) And I have to say that it is a good thing they didn't open the BRU until after I had my kiddos or it could have been a dangerous thing for our budget! lol