Just thinking back...

My sisters, brothers-in-law, and sweet nephew Owen were in this weekend. We had so much fun! Owen is 3 months old now and I LOVED playing with him, seeing his precious smile and hearing his baby noises! It got me thinking about my little ones. Time goes so fast, it seems like just last week one of mine was 3 months old!!

(FYI - This is no longing for a new little one of my own! I'm loving being an aunt of a baby and I LOVE that my little ones are growing and learning every day!)

I just thought I'd take a little walk down memory lane and check out Charlie and Piper at 3 months and then compare to where they are now. Hope you guys enjoy the look back too!!

(I do kind of wish I could take my babies out of these pictures to squeeze them and kiss those little cheeks, just for a minute or two!) :)

Ahhh...time flies!!

I cannot believe how quickly this summer has flown by! We have so much catching up to do! Again, I have lots of pictures to share, so I'll just start adding captions to let you know what's going on in the pics!! So...starting way back in May when Charlie was promoted from the 3-year-old class at preschool...

The last day of school was field day.


They had someone making balloon creations for the kids. Charlie chose a sword. Stephen and I found his "sword" a little bit disturbing...you may be able to see why.


"Unfortunately" the sword popped and Charlie was more broken up about it than we were!

At the end of field day, they had a picnic for all the kids and their families. It was all very nice and Charlie had a great day of playing with his friends.



At night, they had a promotion ceremony for the kids...Charlie made it to the 4-year-old class!! :)
(I think he put on his cap by himself.)


I just tried to put these pictures of Piper down farther on the post, but it wouldn't let me. So, a little break from Charlie to see a couple pics of Piper playing dress-up...

(Piper also wanted to wear Charlie's clothes today, so she was in the mood for role play I guess!)


Ok, and back to field day. They had a fun parachute for the kids to play with. (I used to love those days in gym class!!)

Ok, so to heck with correct order...this one is a picture from the family birthday party we had in Louisville for Charlie and Piper. They had lots of fun and got tons of cool stuff! (I promise I wasn't mad...just my default frown!)


This one is back in Cave City...I just thought it was funny to see the way Charlie was enjoying his lunch!


This is the Father's Day card Charlie made for his Daddy. I told him how to spell the words, but he did all the writing himself...didn't he do an awesome job!! (Just in case, it says "happy father's day"!)


("love Charlie") I was very proud of him!


Okay, back to the birthday party...a Costco cake!!! YUMMY!


Now just some pictures from playing in the backyard...these moments have been kind of rare here lately with the heat advisories and all. Soooo hot, yuck!







I hope everyone has been having a great summer. I love summer and the long days. I just can't believe how quickly it has gone by! Oh well, we've got lots more fun things to look forward to. In August, we've got a trip to see Gran and Pawpaw in Dyersburg, Stephen and I are taking another short trip to see the Cardinals (yippee!!), there's a back-to-school bash at church, some get-togethers with fun friends and lots of other stuff like that! Whew! Y'all keep cool!

Grown-up trip!!

I just realized that I had worked on this but never posted it!! So, here it is! Stephen scored some tickets to a home game of the St. Louis Cardinals (whoo-hoo) so back in mid-April, mom and dad took the kiddos and the hubby and I headed west!! We made the trip early on Monday and stayed 2 nights in a hotel. We splurged and got a MUCH nicer hotel room than we usually do. It was worth it! We walked everywhere and had a great view of the arch - I'm talking it was literally a football field from our window!

The game was scheduled for Tuesday night but unfortunately (we thought) this was back during hurricane season in St. Louis (I know there aren't hurricanes in St. Louis, but that's what it looked like). Remember when the St. Louis airport was beat up on by some serious storms...we had the pre-show. Anyway, the game got rained out and we were bummed - just for a minute. We were told that they would play the game Wednesday afternoon and anyone with tickets for the rained out game would be given a seat the next day. So, we made a quick call to my mom to ask if it was ok that we return at a later time on Wednesday (she said it was fine, of course) and we made plans to come back to the stadium the next afternoon after we checked out of the hotel.

OK, here's the super sweet part...when we returned the next day and tried to get to our seats (way up high) there was an usher standing there blocking the way. He told us that that section was closed and that we could sit ANYWHERE WE WANTED!!! Needless to say, we were giddy! We marched ourselves WAAAAAY down to the row right above the season ticket section (the $14,000 per year section)!! It was incredible! Unless we happen upon another situation like this, I don't think I'll ever get to sit in seats like that at a ball game again! I loved it so much and we had a blast!! Sadly, the Cards lost, but I think that would've been the only thing that would've made the day better. (Well, unless I would've fought the guy behind us for the foul ball that he literally dove to snag after it landed under the seat next to me...I was totally bummed, but I got over it!)

Well, I've rambled on enough. We did so much other cool stuff in the city too, but I'll just let the pics with some short captions speak for themselves! (Mind you, the pictures are in no particular order, definitely not the right order chronologically because blogspot always beats me!)

A couple of shots of us at the game; it was a beautiful day!



We went to the Science Center in St. Louis and got a picture of the T-Rex for Charlie!


We were this close (ok I zoomed a little, but just a little) to one of our faves, Albert Pujols! AND...he hit a home run this time, the first time I've seen a Pujols homerun in person!!



This building was amazing. It is the courthouse where ex-slave Dred Scott's freedom was bought by his former owner. Also, some of the famous Dred Scott trials were held in this building. It was so interesting and also, very beautiful!




And of course, the St. Louis arch.


I took a picture of this building as we were walking through the city, just because I thought it was so cool. Later, we found out it used to be a post office. Fancy!


We ate dinner one night at Ozzie Smith's restaurant. Here's Stephen with all 13 of Ozzie's Gold Gloves. He was lovin' it!


On our first day in St. Louis, we took a tour of the Stadium. It was so great...very interesting to see behind the scenes. Stephen was proud that he could answer all of the guide's trivia questions, but upset that there wasn't a prize! Here we are in the Cardinals dugout!





Right on the field!


Here's a shot of the arch and our hotel (the round building) from the field...nice digs, huh?!?!


A great city!

We had so much fun on our trip, but of course were thrilled to get home to the little ones once again! Hopefully, this won't be a once in a lifetime experience. We treasure the times we get to be away together, no matter how few or far between they are. Also, we're looking forward to the day when Charlie and then Charlie and Piper can come with us and last through a whole game and maybe one day appreciate it as much as we do!

There are moments...

...that make it all worthwhile.

Smile for the camera!

We got Charlie's 4 year and Piper's 2 year pictures made this week in Louisville and I couldn't wait to get back here and post them! I think they turned out so well! The pictures I've posted are a little rough because they put the unedited versions on the cd that came with our package...but you still get the idea. I put some of the "outtakes" on here too because I thought they were funny. Enjoy!