Just some fun pics....

 Anna finally had her first trip to the dentist.  I was pretty nervous because any level of pain for her is not usually tolerated very well, to say the least.  She has been deathly afraid of the dentist for a long time until just  recently when a dentist came to her school and put on a little magic show.  Oh, thank heaven for that dentist. Ever since then, she has begged me to make her an appointment.  She did awesome!  Seriously.  Not even one peep came out of her.  Of course, we had to document with pictures.  You only have your first trip to the dentist once.

 She really liked the special glasses she got to wear.  I think she thought they were pretty cool.

 We have also tried to expand our camping supply from nothing to something.  I let the kids pick out their sleeping bags and let me tell you, they're a hit!  Anna and Andrew love to play "camping".  Josh is going to take Andrew to the fathers and sons camp out this year.  Anna is pretty bummed she can't go, so hopefully we'll be planning a trip shortly.

 Have I ever mentioned how incredibly obsessed Andrew is with Spiderman?  Like, totally and completely OBSESSED!  I think it's really cute.

 We had our youth fundraiser a few weeks ago.  It was a hit.  I was in charge of decorations.  Let's just say, I'm glad it went well but I'm even more glad it's over!  The youth did an awesome job and raised enough money for camp.  Success!!

Visitors and a Birthday

 A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law and her two boys, along with my mom, all came to Saint Louis.  We had a great time visiting with each other.  The kids LOVE playing together.  We got to go see a few sites while they were here.  The only bad part was that they couldn't stay longer.
Here are a few pics from the zoo.

 Anna is really into curtsying lately.  It's more of a curtsy/bow.

 I think that Daniel is the only one looking in this post.  Ha!

 We had a picnic after the zoo by our art museum.  It was a great day for a picnic.

 Josh celebrated his 29th birthday while they were here.  Josh is seriously the best man alive.  I love him so much.  It is a good day when we get to celebrate him.

 Birthday breakfast in bed.  ;-)

 There's the birthday boy!

 We went out to eat Thai food that night.  It was really delicious.  The kids even loved it.

More Pics

 Still catching up here.  I thought I'd do this much quicker than I actually did, but once again, life has been crazy busy.  I just finished a big event though so hopefully we'll be able to breathe a little more....and catch up on some much needed blogging.  Some of these pictures are kind of old.  Enjoy anyways.

 We did a little Easter egg hunt for the kids in our living room.  They loved it of course.  We had a really great Easter.  Anna understands all of it pretty well too which makes it much more meaningful for her.

 It had been a really busy weekend and so we just decided to cut out the whole follow the string to your basket thing.  However, Anna woke up and told me that she was SO excited to go find her string and wrap it up.  Oops.  I told the kids to go down into the basement and wait while I quickly put some string around the house.  They thought it was a blast.

 We decided to get pictures for the kids of people that we want them to look up to.  We want their heroes to be people that make good choices and live clean, moral lives.  There is so much craziness in the world today and it just seems to be getting worse and worse.  We hung these pictures right by their beds and they talk about them often.

 Huntin' for eggs.

 That silly Easter bunny turned our milk pink!  I think Anna and Andrew told everyone and their mom about it.  I guess that's a tradition that will be sticking around.

 Daniel even got in on the string holding thing.

 What's Easter without a little egg dying?  The kids were dying to do it.

 Little chicks peeping out of their shells.

 Oh boy, oh boy.  Yes, we have the boy-iest boy there is!  He thinks this is a masterpiece.  He LOVES digging in the dirt and mixing it with water.  He thinks he is making cakes as her pours water and dirt into his bucket and stirs it around.

 See how proud he is?

 Sweetest. Baby. Ever.

Anna and Andrew's Art

 Anna is quite the little artist.  We draw A LOT in this house.  Tree huggers would absolutely loathe us.  I can't save every picture she's ever drawn or our house would be bursting at the seams.  I decided to take pictures of her drawings to keep a good document of them all.  Some I save, the really good ones.  I think I saved this one shown above.  How darling is that?  It's Little Red Riding Hood.  She even has a red cape/hood. How about those cute lips, eh?  She wrote "bump" on the bottom but I can't remember for the life of me why.
Little Andrew's pictures have started to show some progress too.  He can now write the letter "H" and "A".  His self-portraits have a circle for a head, usually two eyes, some hair, and something that slightly resembles a stick figure.  It's pretty good for two years old.  I guess it should be good with all of the hours that these two spend on coloring.  Their favorite thing to do is make pictures for their friends, then run to their houses to deliver them.  After delivering about 20 pictures, I finally have to tell them to save some more for the next day.  They think it's a great service because it's making their friends happy.  ;-)  That makes me happy.

 Not too bad huh?  This one even has a mouth.

 This picture is over two months old.  Here is Daniel's first bite.  He is a CHAMP at eating.  Let me tell you. He's got that open the mouth when the spoon gets close thing DOWN!  He just eats, and eats, and eats.  You can see Andrew in the background still wearing a diaper.  We must have potty trained him shortly after that.  Andrew was SO, SO easy to potty train.  I can't say that for my other child.  I will say I was dreading potty training because of the horrible time we had with our first born.  He knocked it out of the park though. After just two days he was even staying dry at night.  Life is better when you only have one bum to change.

 He looks pretty satisfied doesn't he?

 I LOVE this picture.  It's Rapunzel, in case you couldn't tell.  Anna loves the movie Tangled.  She loves to dress up like Rapunzel and then go brush her hair so that it can get long.  If you look in the picture below, she has a little wand with Rapunzel's picture on it.  She traced the star and then filled it in.  So cute!  I love how her Rapunzel even is quite shapely.  She did so well with it.

 We sometimes have BBQs with our neighbors outside.  The kids love it, as do the parents.