St. Louis Zoo....

Oh, my did we have gorgeous weather and a wonderful time! We went just before Easter with my brothers who were out visiting. This may be picture overload, BUT seeing Larry took over 100 pictures that day, consider it just a few!

Kaitlyn, Robby and Tommy looking....

Lil' Robby (my nephew) looking...

Tommy and Kimberlyn still looking...

Mommy and Tommy looking....

Looking at WHAT....THIS GUY catching lunch...we caught feeding time t the seal and walrus pond. Boy it was mesmerizing...

Kaitlyn pulling, Robby and Brice (can't see much of Brice) pushing and Lil' Robby and Tommy enjoying the ride...

Looking at some reptile of some sort....can't you tell by my face. The reflection looked too cool not to post my "uck" face!

My brother Bill and his son Patrick looking at something...

A girl and her tulips...I LOVE tulips and made everyone stop for a quick photo shoot :) Mama and her girls...

A Peacock with no FEAR!!
The kids just hanging out seeing how close the Peacock will come...
Tommy wanting to get closer...

Uncle Robb on "pulling" duty! With his son Robby and Kimberlyn enjoying the ride!

Tommy with his new pal, Brice...sweet cousins!

Fun on the carousel...

How about some crazy goats!
Kimberlyn and Tommy playing with them...

Goat invasion on bench...

Kimberlyn and Lil' Robby grooming one...

Tommy hunting for kisses...

After and exhausting day...Mom and Dad are helping Tommy to the car!

PONY DELIVERY

The ponies moved in just over two weeks ago on Good Friday.

Ruby came off the trailer supercharged, thankfully she has resumed her sweet disposition here in the last few days.

The girls at home out back, picture taken from our living room window, now this is the life. Ponies in the backyard!!! We are all LOVING IT!
Ruby taking a look at something...

Sweetie taking a snooze...

Tommy turned "cowboy" on us. he wasn't very interested in the horses at the farm in Ohio, things have changed rather drastically and rather quickly. He is a pro at the dismount already too--only from Sweetie though!
This is exactly the reason Kaitlyn made this comment recently...she said "Mom, Daddy's turned horsey on us." She also reminds him he doesn't really "hate horses" as he mumbled all the time during the fence installation as he seems to need his "horsey fix" every night!
That crazy father worked in the rain, sleet and snow LITERALLY to get the fence up for Pony Delivery day! Check out Tommy...shirt, diaper and boots, what more does a country bumpkin need??

Proof of my crazy hubby (with his dad too) working in all weather conditions....

And Triple-back anybody! Ruby is a charm...

Larry got another box checked off on his "Life To-Do List" ~he got to drive a Bobcat! We got a contractor to drill the fence post holes after Larry decided not to kill his back anymore on the drilling himself....
Checking off the list for farm supplies....house not totally unpacked, but by golly we have a nice wheel barrow assembled in our living room!!! And it was tested out on a load of....CHILD :)

Three days....

I have three days to get this blog updated with our busy April. then hopefully will get back on track and blog each event or fun thing in a timely manner.

So here are some fun pictures from Tommy and Mommy's day at the park last week!
April 22, 2009
Tommy has no fear at parks, well anywhere actually! He had a blast on the slides!



He had a grand time jumping, hopping, leaping or HOWEVER he managed to get from the top of this spiral climby thing to the platform all in the few seconds I was looking at the cool picture I just took. I was quite impressed with the sun affect on the below picture if I do say so myself, yes, also quite impressed with Tommy's ability to jump, leap or however w/o crashing down too!!



Since he's the 4th kid, figured this picture could serve the purpose of PROOF! PROOF that the majority of the time we adored and loved him as a sweet, I mean very active toddler. PROOF that he got to do the same fun stuff that our other children did! Seriously, I had a great, wonderfully fun time with him at the park. It's a very rare thing for Tommy and I to have ALONE time.

hmmmm...

I have to believe that this is safer than him wandering off to the kitchen to help himself to snack....kind of like 2 weeks ago when he helped himself to a banana and a knife....


Not thinking Larry will be pleased with me or Tommy. I do believe it's nice to be able to label and cut the pictures of the kids and their cousins from Easter. Next step means I need to MAIL them....

Tommy is being very safe and I don't see an ER visit in the plans for today!! We do plan on visiting the park here shortly...so the plans could change ;) Never know with Tommy!

I'll try to get on here SOON with an update of pictures from Easter and our visit with my brothers.

Information overload...hoping to catch all up to speed....

So this is a brief, yes BRIEF picture update of March 2009.

Robby had a great official birthday party at Laser Web in Ohio...




The kids started school at their new school here in Illinois.

Although we miss many fabulous teachers in Ohio, the kids' new school makes their old, highly sought after school look bad.

They started school before the moving truck brought our shipment. Poor Larry hung out finishing up stuff in Ohio for almost 2 weeks with an empty house, he did have a few animals and a laptop ;)

This is Kimberlyn's room "cleaned up" for the moving truck's delivery....I am unable to post a picture of her room now...she unpacked it and I haven't sorted it yet. Her means of unpacking was a mad rush to empty each box onto the floor to start PLAYING!
Isn't her room gorgeous!

Kimberlyn's first artwork from "Art" as her old school I never saw anything more than classroom type art even though the class had the art teacher visit their classroom, she'd never gone to art. I was impressed and she LOVES art class!


Kimberlyn's first field trip...to teh St. Louis Aquarium which sits above the City Museum...I highly encourage all to visit both places!


Kimberlyn's 1st computer artwork picture she brought home...Grandma A. should be pleased :)

Now it's more clear why I'm happier with this school. Not to mention the new Music teacher has Robby so motivated in music to earn "Recorder Karate Belts" that he practices at home all the time...GOODNESS that boy can play a recorder!! Not to mention Kaitlyn's class is having a sleep in at the St. Louis Science Center...holy moley- this school rocks!

Here's Tommy helping his sorry self to a snack...I promise I feed him, BUT he unpacked this out of a kitchen box - these cones were so old I didn't know we had them...oops....the movers packed EVERYTHING ;)

The contractor who fixed our retaining wall outside came out to fix the lawn...Tommy watched and then I took him out to play in the rain. It was a perfect day to play in the sprinkle!



Then we have Larry's Air Force Institute of Technology graduation...his dad came out for that and we made the older two kids come get bored to death too. It was cool and they did great. It was held at the USAF Museum.




The morning after the graduation we stopped by the farm for a last lesson before heading out of town to Illinois for the last time! The lesson ended up being a trail ride as the riding ring was a mud pit! This was Kimberlyn's first official "lesson" or time with Miss DeeDee for horse education :)

We're here...

I'm sorry for teh month long blog vacation...

We're here in our new lovely home...

We LOVE IT here!

We've been here 3 1/2 weeks and in between unpacking boxes, we've visited the urgent care in a town over, the base pediatrician and as of this morning the local ER. The local ER was GREAT...Later today Tommy goes for an ear check with his new civilian pediatrician. CHAOS!

So if that is not busy enough for you...I also chase around muddy kids, shoes and dogs and wash them everyday. This country living is awesome but busy!

Our horses are coming out in the morning....WOO-HOO.

Oh, all teh doctor viists...Tommy's ears...his one tube has fallen out and the other is not confirmed in place or not at this time. Hoping for answers later this afternoon. He had one ear infection and immediately after stopping first round of meds, he spiked a fever and was treated for an ongoing ear infection. Now we have a snotty nose and cough...and two stitches. I pray we don't scare our new doctor today!

Tommy after breakfast and SNACK decided as I was putting laundry away (Larry ran to the lumber store) that he was still hungry and needed a banana. He took a very nice and sharp Cutco steak knife to teh banana and got his finger too. The banana looks much worse- with all the ooohs, aaaahs and "this is much deeper than I thought at first" comments from the ER doc, Larry feels certain the doc saw the bone in Tommy's finger.

Two of my brothers are here visiting with their families...and one whom is a medic just happenes to be off 4-wheeling at some track an hour away. I'd say he picked a bad time to leave for the day.

Speaking of....we've had company all but one night since Larry graduated. His dad stayed out to give a hand with the horse's fence and then my brothers arrived. My brothers are here through Easter and we're thrilled to have them! Fun times. I'll overload you with pictures as soon as I'm not chasing a Trouble T or cleaning up mud....must run and get a few things done before the doctor's appt.

The door is open and the guest bed is a real bed -not an air bed in a cold basement anymore ;) We enjoy company....drop by sometime!