Winter Wonderland

Tilles Park, a few blocks from our house, is host to Winter Wonderland every year. Each evening between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day you can drive through or take a carriage ride to see the light displays. It's a St Louis tradition, even though in our non-native opinions it's a bit overrated! But both our kids love looking at lights, so we couldn't pass it up. Charlotte likes them just about as much as baby dolls and animals...which says a lot.

This Is How Much Nicholas Loves Golf

Our Outdoor Girl

Gobble, Gobble

Who knew we could combine turkey and dessert?! Next year we just need to work for a little better eyes.

Happy....Thanksgiving?

No your eyes are not deceiving you. We celebrated Thanksgiving by going to the Botanical Garden's annual holiday train show.

The detail of the scenes is pretty incredible.

Nicholas' favorite part of the show. The skiers actually went down the slope.

The Year of the Frog

We were having one of those days where we needed to get out of the house after naps, and also a day where the temp was a balmy 55 degrees, so we loaded up the wagon in the car, drove to the zoo...and discovered that somewhere between home and the zoo, an arctic gale had begun to blow. Two words....wind chill. It is never good to drive to the zoo, park the car, then realize that the zoo is not such a great idea. So instead of leaving, we left the wagon in the car and decided to explore all the indoor zoo activities. Turns out that for the Year of the Frog (who knew?) the zoo has a huge amphibian exhibit on display. Indoors. Yea!

We found a log that was great for standing on...


climbing through...

and jumping off!

Our favorite frog - the African clawed frog

Nicholas saw these frogs and said "Mama, we could sit on these and you could take our picture!"

We then headed off to the indoor portion of the Children's Zoo. Charlotte fell in love with the guinea pigs and the little foxes (somehow I got no pictures!). The foxes were barking at each other...and Charlotte was chiming right in with them. She does love animals!

GEICO is sponsoring a traveling exhibit of geckos. Think it looks like this one?

After all this indoor fun, we said goodbye to the zoo and headed for home. We'll be back!

In Case You Had Doubts Due to the Number of Recent Princess Posts...

We've listened to a lot of kid music in the kitchen lately, but the last few days we've been listening to Keith Urban. Even Keith Urban can get old after hours and hours, so I dug out a few CDs that I thought Nicholas would like. I brought out a Dixie Chicks album and reminded him that he likes the Dixie Chicks (he likes the song "Ready to Run"). He said very seriously "Oh yes. I LIKE chicks." Enough said.

What's He Hiding??

He really, really, REALLY wanted the princess Pull-ups at Sam's today.

Who could resist that face??

Career Night at the Kings

Nicholas explored two career options this afternoon/evening:

#1 - Professional Pizza Maker - After lunch today at Dewey's (where the kitchen is glassed in and viewable to all those who want to watch the pizza making magic), Nicholas spent the whole way home pretending his stocking cap was a pizza that he was dipping in "powder" and flipping it around the car. The "pizza" then went into the fridge at home. After dinner tonight I pulled the cap out of the fridge only to have the whole thing play out again at home...although the kitchen offered much more room for high tosses.

Working the dough...

It's up!

And caught!

#2 - Hair Stylist - Nicholas was playing with his tool set when it occurred to him (I guess) that the toy power drill was similar in sound to the clippers that Shawn had used to cut his hair. He proceeded to try to use the drill on Charlotte's head. I nixed that, but told him he could use it on himself or me. He then got a spray bottle and brush and went full blown into stylist mode. When I referred to him as Nicholas, he told me to call him Mr. Shawn....and he called me "Mr. Mom". At the end he said "You were so patient!" and gave me a pretend cookie, which is what Shawn did the other night. I think Nicholas will be sadly disappointed when he realizes that cookies do not always follow haircuts. But maybe in his salon they will.

Tooth #5

Our Fall Family Photos

Our photo collage arrived today. I decided to go that route since there wasn't a single picture that was fantastic of all of us. But I think the collage turned out nicely! (If you click on the picture above it will expand so you can see it more closely)

Hand, Foot and Mouth

Our house has been invaded. By Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. It's another childhood illness (like Fifth's Disease which Charlotte had last December) that luckily sounds a lot scarier than it is. Nicholas was complaining about his mouth hurting last night, and again this morning, so we went to the pediatrician this afternoon. The nurse took one look and knew right away what it was. Basically he's got a bunch of (painful) little sores in his mouth and a few spots on his hands and feet. Only one, on his heel, seems to be bothering him. I've checked out the internet, and the pictures are MUCH worse looking than what he has, so I guess we're lucky in that respect. But we're also at the beginning of a few days of this, so we'll wait and see. Unfortunately it's wildly contagious, so we're expecting Charlotte to come down with it as well. In the meantime we're sticking close to home, and sadly missing school and Isabella's birthday party on Saturday. Both she and Nicholas are disappointed about that!

Tuesday Happenings

Charlotte LOVES dancing. She'll dance sitting down, standing up, in her carseat, while being held....anywhere. It's incredibly adorable. Tonight, since Tom is in Budapest, we were grabbing a quick dinner while out doing errands, and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (a Def Lepard hit from my junior high days) started playing. Charlotte was rocking out in her high chair. There's something totally bizarre about my little baby raising the roof and grinning from ear to ear to that song.


After dinner we headed over to see Shawn, my hair guy, so he could cut Nicholas' hair. It was Nicholas' first time at a non-kid-centered haircutting place. Miss Alisha, whom we've been going to at Cool Cuts for Kids since we've lived in St. Louis, is no longer there (as I was informed this morning), so we decided to step it up and go for the big time. I think Shawn was a tad bit nervous (he does a few kids...I just don't know if they're 4), but after about 30 seconds, Nicholas had won him over. Nicholas was telling jokes, and was being....well, four years old. And four is fun for those not used to the hilarity of their everyday conversations. Shawn learned about the Cat class, our trip to Target this afternoon, how Nicholas eats lunch at school but only on Wednesdays, how much he likes candy, Daddy's trip and other vital topics. It was really cute. Nicholas did refer to Shawn as "Miss Shawn" which made everyone smile. We'll definitely be going back!

Security Violation?

Nicholas loves loading his carry-on suitcase onto the carousel, then waiting and watching for it as it comes around. We usually have to drag him away once we have retrieved our luggage. I'm sure it's some kind of airport violation, but it sure does keep him occupied!

Albuquerque KingFest '08

OK I just made up that name as I was writing this post, but I think "KingFest" is the perfect title for the trip we just took to Albuquerque. Tom's twin brother, Tim, lives there with his wife, Carrie, and 4 kids. Tom's parents, Steve and Kathy, also drove over from Tucson to be with us. It was the first time the whole gang had been together in a few years, so it was really special. It was crazy and fun and heartwarming, and everything that a great family get-together should be.

I turned over almost all photographic duties to Steve and Kathy (I took a grand total of 7 pictures on my camera). Between their two cameras there are HUNDREDS of pictures, so I may update this post when we get all of those. But this will have to tide us over!

Our family arrived on Thursday morning and spent the day letting the kids play in the house and in the backyard. Nicholas loved having boys around to play with. Charlotte spent her time trying to attack Ryan or their dog, Bella...in the most loving and adoring way, of course.

Various adults spent much time pushing Nicholas and Jordon on the swings. Andrew on the other hand is a very capable solo-swinger.

Nicholas seemed to perpetually have either a batting helmet or a bicycle helmet on.

Thursday night Steve and Kathy arrived. The next morning we had pictures done with a professional photographer. Kathy had gotten the cutest coordinating outfits for all the grandchildren. We were a fine-looking bunch, I must say. We'll get those pictures in a few weeks, but we have some that Steve and Kathy took from the shoot (keep in mind that in most of these we're looking at the professional's camera...which bodes well for those pictures!):

The cousins - Charlotte, Jordon, Emily, Ryan, Andrew and Nicholas

The rest of the weekend was crammed with a Thanksgiving celebration, Christmas presents and lots of family, food and fun.

The gang in our Christmas PJs courtesy of the grandparents

One funny moment - Nicholas was sleeping in Emily's room (painted pink...he was in heaven) and woke up Friday night around 3am. He proceeded to color me a picture, and go down the hall to get a book out of his suitcase. This is not a normal occurrence, by the way. I can't think of this ever happening in his entire life. Tim heard him and went in there to get him back to bed (Tom and I were blissfully unaware of all this). The next morning, when we were talking about it with Nicholas, we asked who had told him to go back to sleep. His reply? "You, Daddy. With your shirt off." Apparently topless Uncle Tim can pass for Tom at 3am!

We had such a wonderful time...and we hope for many future KingFests!