photo session

While in St. Louis, Becky took some photos of the boys. She's amazing! You'd think I'd planned for a day at Picture People only there was way less stress involved--picture appointments at the mall are impossible to plan for, you never know who will cooperate or what kind of shots you'll get! I'm going to make a collage for the family room with some of these and put others in the boys' rooms. Take a look!

st. louis road trip

Well the weekend is finally here and I've got some time to post some pictures from our trip to St. Louis. Logan, Carter and I drove out to visit Lisa, an old friend from high school, for her son Lucas's first birthday. We met up with Venessa, Jimmy and Erica, Becky, Cort and Mia and Pam and Ryan on the way down. The boys were great in the car - my family is living proof that family cars do not need dvd players! It was snacks, books, music and a good old magna doodle that got us through the almost five hour drive. It was such a fun weekend with old friends (the BEST old friends anyone could ask for!) and it's amazing to see that all these years have gone by and now we get together to celebrate our families! Seeing our little kiddos playing together is so much fun! Thanks so much to Lisa and Bob for the fun party and allowing our children to tear apart thier new playroom-the new house is beautiful! We hope Lucas enjoyed all of his friends, family, presents and CAKE! And a special thanks to Lisa's parents for giving up their home to a bunch of mommies and daddies and pack-n-plays! Thanks to Marina and Cory as well and their two dogs Rudy and Tilly--Carter and Logan fell in love and couldn't get enough of them! Becky (fancy photographer girl!) got some great pictures from the weekend that I'm going to steal, but check out the graske family blog if you get a chance. Below is my lame attempt to get picture of the arch on the way into the city:

Some stolen photos from Becky...

my silly carter

logan and mia

lucas opening his swim trunks, t-shirt, and splash & spray beach ball we got him

hope you had a fantastic first birthday, lucas! thanks for including us in your special day!

dig dig dig

Earlier in the week we had a couple rainy days...Between drizzles we played outside and I got some shots of Logan and his shovel. What can I say-the boy loves to dig in the mulch! Oh, I did stop him before he could eat any!

one thousand cranes

Tonight Carter and I enjoyed a play at the Junior High. Gayle's daughter Morgan performed One Thousand Paper Cranes: The Story of Sadako and the Children's Peace Statue: Takayuki. At admission Carter chose a crane for each of us and was excited to see his buddy Trevor in the audience. Morgan played Sadako, the main character and really did a great job-she's a natural! What a fine evening of culture! Of course we hit up Baskin Robbins on the way home!

the things he says...

Carter runs off like mad, headed for the bathroom.
I hear...
Carter: G--E--R--B--E--R. Toilet! Mom, did I spell it right?
Mommy (laughing): Yes Carter. (realizing it's the brand of toilet and he was reading the letters as he peed. yep, my child will miss the word toilet on a future spelling test!)

A few days later...
Carter: Mommy why did you drive off to that part?
Mommy: There was a police car -- everyone pulls over for emergency vehicles: police, ambulances, fire trucks. You've got to get out of their way when they're on the way to an emergency.
C: Where did you go on the road?
M: What do you mean? the shoulder?
I went on to explain the part of the road called the shoulder used for emergencies like flat tires, running out of gas, stopping if you get sick, emergency vehicles.
C: Oh.
LATER...
M: Carter tell Grandma what Mommy did when we had to get out of the policeman's way on the road on our way here. Do you remember? Where did we pull over?
C: Oh, yeah yeah. Onto the elbow.

spring break 2008

Spring Break's here! Actually, today is Wednesday and as I'm typing this I'm realizing the week's half over!

We spent the first day running errands and catching three small bits of rainlessness (is that even a word?) to play outside. It was 60 degrees! We had to take advantage of it! With that crazy wind we got to fly Carter's new kite, ride bikes through puddles, and toss the football in the wet muddy grass!

Yesterday was laundry day. Bor-ing.

Today we went out for lunch at All Aboard Diner by Mom's. So fun for the boys! They loved it and the food was pretty good and reasonably priced! We got there just five minutes after it opened for lunch, so we got a spot at the counter. Just 10 minutes later the place was packed and had a 30 minute wait! Perfect timing! Logan would motion and attempt "where train?" when he'd hear the toot-toot before it delivered food. After we went to Jamie's for a round of Trouble and then shopped at Ikea and Bed Bath & Beyond with her and Evan. She took us out for ice cream at McDonald's but the boys were more interested in the PlayPlace than an ice cream cone or a sundae! Lucky us - the mom's got to sneak quite a few licks! Logan konked out on the way home and Carter and I played in the backyard sunshine while he slept. It was so nice to have the back of the house open this afternoon.



So, we're halfway through and here's to a few more relaxing, sun-filled, lazy days of Spring Break 2008!

catching up

I've got some catching up to do...

It's been a while since Easter (at least it feels like it!) but I hadn't posted pictures from egg coloring the night before, Easter morning, or our big family dinner we hosted here at our house. Saturday night we colored eggs - Logan loved to splash the coloring as he tossed an egg in! What a mess!

The Easter Bunny snuck in while my little bunnies were snuggled in bed and left some special treats: a small chocolate bunny and a handful of jellybeans for both the boys. For Carter: a new kite (a dragon!), Scooby Doo figures, some hotwheels and an I Spy book. For Logan: a small soccer ball, cd, hotwheels, a board book. Take a look! After seeing the baskets and all the special treats-which by the way I think Carter forgot that tradition was going to happen 'cause all he talked about and looked forward to was coloring eggs and the fact that the Bunny'd hide the plastic ones.

thank you Easter Bunny!
carter was way too quick during the hunt. here's logan finding an egg!

Yep, we had our first Easter dinner here! It went really well and I couldn't have done it without my sisters or Mom! No pasticchio (can't spell it or cook it!) or spinach pie (well, we sorta had spinach pie, right Natalie?) and the deviled eggs were so an experiment, but everything was good enough to eat. We had another egg hunt for the cousins once they arrived. The eggs had something extra special in them this time - money! The big kids ruled the hunt! Somehow Logan mastered sneaking into Austin, Becca, and Rachel's candy stash and everytime we turned around he had a messy chocolate face or I was finding candy wrappers in the corner. What a sneak!

logan & gramps

I love this picture!