First Day of Preschool

After a summer that involved a lot of staying at home while Charlotte napped, we are all thrilled to have school start. Nicholas will be going Monday and Friday mornings and Wednesdays until 2:30.

Does he look old or what?? He picked out what he wanted to wear, and chose the shirt Tom bought him last time he was in Prague. Think he's missing his daddy?? (Tom's been in Belgium all week and comes back Saturday afternoon)

Off he goes! This is one of the aides that takes the children from the cars into the school. It's so great that I don't have to get out every morning with both kids to take him in!

It Has Arrived! Charlotte's First Tooth

The first pictures of the tooth that arrived yesterday afternoon. She's been sick all week, so she's not in the best mood to be photographed!

I think there are more on the way soon!

Nicholas is Four! Really! - Birthday Celebration Part 2

What a wonderful birthday! When Nicholas woke up, he immediately asked if it was Monday. I said yes, and he shouted "That means I'm FOUR!!". After a short morning nap for Miss Charlotte, we headed out for miniature golfing with Nicholas' friend, Sam, whom we haven't seen since the end of school. They're great little buddies and had such a fun time with each other. The boys played lots of mini golf and "Fire Ball" (known to the masses as skee-ball) and had a high quality arcade-food lunch (the pizza was actually pretty good!). It was Nicholas' first time with Fire Ball and miniature golf, but he loved, loved, loved both of them. For the first hour or so there was not a single other person there so the kids had free reign over the entire place which was awesome. Such fun. A special day for a special boy!

Nicholas tries out "Fire Ball". Charlotte wants a turn too!

(check out that carpet, huh?)

If there's any boy who can pull off pink Dora shades, it's Nicholas

Yea Sam!

I have to believe those teeth are coming soon!

Yes, Nicholas brought his own trusty putter. He couldn't understand there would be a place where you play golf with somebody else's clubs!

Sam's little sister, Hannah, is a few months younger than Charlotte, so the girls had a little play time too, although most of that time was spent with Charlotte trying to pat/touch/poke/grab Hannah. I guess the "aggressive affection" is present in both kiddos!

Buds - Nicholas and Sam

Nicholas is Four!! (Almost) - Birthday Celebration Part 1

Nicholas turns four this Monday, but as Tom will be gallivanting around Belgium starting Sunday, we had our big family celebration today. It all started with Nicholas awaking to our traditional birthday door decorations:

What could be downstairs??


A bicycle!! (and lots of other presents)

After opening a few gifts and eating breakfast (our only decent meal of the entire day), he was off trying out his bike. He worked at it a little inside (it was actually a little trickier than we thought it would be for him), but he really wanted to take it outside. He didn't realize the thrill of getting to ride the pristine bicycle inside the house. Never again will that happen!

To continue the festivities, we had cake for lunch! Nicholas had requested strawberry cake (at least it had fruit!). He also wanted it to be pink with sprinkles, both of which I planned on doing, but somehow forgot and he didn't seem to mind.

Check it out!

Nice job, Nico!

Charlotte got into the celebration too.

After lunch, it was off to Busch Stadium. Tom (thank you, Emerson!) had gotten the most amazing tickets to the Cardinals game. They were second row right next to the on-deck circle. It was really incredible. The section (called the Cardinals Club) also has a huge indoor restaurant/bar area with a full buffet setup. Crazy. And full food service at your seats. Did I mention it's all "free" for the low-low price of $180 a ticket?? Again, thank you Emerson!! Our attendant would come by and ask about every 5 minutes if she could get us something. Nicholas had nothing inside at the buffet except crackers, but took full advantage of the food outside. During the 7 innings we were there, he had a huge soft pretzal, a bag of Cracker Jack, part of a hot dog, part of a strawberry fruit popsicle, 2 pink lemonades and a bag of Dibs ice cream nuggets. Sounds like something out of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, huh? For all the fabulousness of the seats and the service, it was CRAZY HOT, and we were CRAZY SWEATY. But after an hour or so (and a few trips inside the Club for some air conditioning!) the shade moved our way and it was very comfortable.

We've had some great seats before, but never this good!

Our view

It's Albert Pujols! It's Albert Pujols!

This is the only picture with a hat on Miss Charlotte. There was much screaming and flailing, so out of consideration for the other fans (and the players!) I opted for a slathering of sunblock all over her head.

Serious game face. Pink lemonade #2.

Seriously tasty pretzals.

The happy family on our way out. Doesn't look like part of a baseball stadium, does it??

Much more celebrating to come in the next few days, but it was an awesome day. I'm not sure how we're going to top this for birthday #5!

Oh yes, oh yes, it's humid!

Despite the reasonable 87 degrees today, we had about 90% humidity. I don't deal well with humidity, but out of love for my son we ventured outside after naps this afternoon before dinner.

Nicholas golfed.

Charlotte ate grass.

Charlotte was happy.

Then the tide turned.

We all just needed some cold water. Look at that sweaty boy! He's sporting his new pink water bottle from REI.

We have a big day planned for tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Dominoes!

Nicholas has a small set of jungle animal dominoes, but this morning during Charlotte's nap we whipped out our adult set.

Looking over our work.

It's a masterpiece!

Uh oh. Here comes Charlotte.

Shocker! One goes in her mouth!

Budding Republican?

Nicholas watches two things on television: Little Einsteins (just Disney channel commercials) and sporting events (unfortunately lots of commercials). Even with sporting events however, Nicholas rarely sees them due to the beauty of Tivo. But there are the times where I'm upstairs feeding Charlotte and Nicholas is watching Olympics when it happens. And here's the proof... We're sitting around, watching Olympic coverage together. A commercial begins. I fast forward. While on triple fast forward speed, a John McCain commercial comes on. (On a side note, it's kind of fun to live in a battleground state as opposed to California just for the entertainment of dueling commercials!) Nicholas points to the screen for the 1/2 second he can see McCain and spits this out: "That's John McCain. He approved the message." So far no such recognition on the Obama side. Another reminder to Mama about the scary/exciting brain=sponge property of being almost four.

Luckily Not a Problem

So we're sitting at lunch today at the kitchen counter. Out of the blue, Nicholas comes out with this:
"Mama, I didn't like being in your tummy" (keep in mind there has been NO recent conversation about pregnancy, babies...NOTHING)
"Why not babe?"
"Because I didn't"
(Walked right into that one...I'll try a different approach) "What's the reason you didn't?"
"It was dark and scary"
"Well alright. Good thing you aren't in there anymore, huh?"

????

Tom is Introduced to Niki

We couldn't pass up a family outing today. We can't believe this August weather! Since Tom had missed out on our Botanical Garden trip earlier this week, we went back so Nicholas could show Tom the highlights. Somehow I didn't realize the Garden closed at 5:00 on Sundays (we got there at 4:30), so it was a really quick trip! Besides a look at the Niki exhibit, we discovered a new indoor exhibit called Exploring Trees, which is traveling through St Louis until September. Super cool. It has a tree you can climb around in, a slide that takes you into a pool of leaves, a green screen you can "fly" in front of pretending you're an insect on the move. Way too much to do in the 15 minutes we had left! We'll be back before it is gone. Charlotte enjoyed the part where she sat in a birds nest. But of course she had to sample the twigs. Tasty. What's a girl going to do when there are no available bark chips, grass or gravel?

Aaah the patented cheesy grin

Kings of the Jungle (haha)

These are for chewing, right?

A Date With My Guy

It's been forever since Nicholas and I have gotten to do something together without Charlotte, so we went today to see the Dinosaurs Alive IMAX movie at the Science Center. He thought it was the coolest. I actually learned a few things myself. Did you know that they now think that velocoraptors had feathers? Or that paleontologists protect fossils en route from the dig to the museum by encasing them in paper mache made from plaster and toilet paper? There's your trivia for the day. Anyway...afterwards we sat and had some lunch (which included sharing a bag of Doritos...a total treat for us both) and watched the Ball Machine. It's tough to describe. It's a three story tall ball mover with conveyor belts and slides and loops of track that the balls follow. Most of the time it's run by human power with a big mouse wheel you run on. Nicholas could watch it for hours. While we were heading home, Nicholas said that we should take Daddy and Charlotte to see the movie. When I replied that I thought it might be a bit scary for Charlotte, he said that maybe I could watch Charlotte because he wanted to show it to his Daddy. Cute, cute... Especially since Tom is spending two weeks of August out of town, it's nice to hear that his son is still his biggest fan.

Nicholas checks out the Ball Machine (I know...it's tough to see)

Turtle Park Fun

Despite having lived in St Louis almost 3 years, and driving past this park probably 100 times (it's directly across the highway from the zoo), we have never stopped and gone in. Today was the day. It opened in 1996, donated by a local woman. There are three huge concrete turtles named after her kids (Richard narrowly beat out Tom as Nicholas' favorite turtle) and four small turtles named after her grandchildren. Nicholas will never turn down an opportunity to climb something.

This turtle is named Tom

Richard had quite the tail

Charlotte captured in a rare moment where she WASN'T trying to eat the grass

This turtle was more Charlotte's size

Buddies

And now she's trying the taste of gravel

More gravel!

Well It's Not Chihuly But...

Another beautiful day....another outing. Today's destination was the Missouri Botanical Garden. Besides having a really cool Children's Garden (which is basically a huge playground of caves, tree houses, slides, climbing things etc), they're having an exhibit of outdoor sculptures by a French artist named Niki. They're huge mosaic pieces, most of which are made to be touched and climbed upon. Nicholas was in heaven, although when asked by Tom tonight if he preferred Niki or Chihuly (who had an installation at the Botanical Garden last year sponsored by Tom's company), there was no question. Chihuly will always be his first love. :)

I must mention that today we discovered Charlotte's love of eating bark chips. That's a first...

This one is aptly titled - "Cat"

On a side note, besides her first taste of bark chips, Charlotte had her first kolache today. If you don't know what that is, you are surely missing out. Hers was filled with scrambled eggs and cheese.

Nicholas quote of the day -

"Mama, that man had a bug in his mouth!" (while pointing out the car window while we're at a light)

"What do you mean, babe?"

"That man had a bug in his mouth, so he opened his door and spit it out"
Nice. Really nice.