All Star, Garbage Truck, BEACH

We've been so busy I haven't had time to blog. So here you go 3 in 1!!!

First of all Happy 4th Birthday to my 1st born son! Love you Andrew!

All Star Game

It was an exciting time in St. Louis a few weeks ago with the MLB All Star Game in town. The weekend before the game we took the boys to the Science Center where they were hosting some of the MLB mascots at the Build A Bear shop. We had a great time and it was the perfect way to get the boys excited about the game. Then Sunday we had Sunday dinner with an All Star theme. My parents got Andrew an All Star shirt and Matthew a hat. Andrew pretended to be Albert Pujols and Ozzie Smith the rest of the week. He even got excited about the home run derby which we were surprised about. Tuesday, Drew got to go to THE game with a client and had amazing seats! He was in the first row behind the visitors dugout. He said it was a great experience. Then to finish off the baseball themed week, we all went to Drew’s softball game and for the first time Andrew enjoyed the game as much as the dirt.
Here is a link to all of Drew's pictures if you are interested: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1419685007/a=28308882_28308882/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/


A Visit from MiMi and PawPaw

Friday, Drew’s parents came to visit. To start off the weekend we took them to our traditional Friday night dinner, Racanelli’s. At dinner we discussed Andrew’s garbage truck themed birthday party. I told them the story of how we invited our garbage men to the party.

We left the invitations on the trashcans that day. Of course Andrew waited for them and after they came Andrew came running in to tell me that they read the invitation and put it in the FRONT of the truck! Not with the garbage! He was so excited. Then for lunch we decided to have a picnic (I figured this was the best way to keep the house clean for a showing we had later in the evening). As we were sitting outside at our picnic, the garbage men made a special trip by to let us know they would be able to come to the party! I was asking if they worked on Saturdays (hoping they could bring the truck by). Well it ends up they don’t, so they’ll just be at the party, hanging out in their every day clothes☺ Now THAT is a good story!

After I told the story, I was telling them that I was hoping Drew would be able to make a garbage truck out of card board boxes. So after dinner we decided to see if we could pick up a refrigerator box my mom had told me about. Of course we didn’t think about the space we would need to fit it in the car so we left it and planned on picking it up in the morning without car seats.
Once we got home we played a little bit and then got the boys in bed. Once they were in bed we got to talking about the garbage truck project and decided to make it much more elaborate. After putting all of our heads together we decided we were going to take a Lowes trip in the morning and make the truck out of wood. The more we talked, the more ideas we came up with. We finally decided to call it a night and reconvene in the morning.

Of course Matthew decided to wake up at 3am and not go back to sleep. So once we were up and around in the morning Drew began having second thoughts about the project. We met his parents at the hotel for breakfast and discussed the enormity of the project. We decided we should just go to Lowes and price it out. Once we got there and looked around for a while we decided to “JUST DO IT”. My job was to keep the boys happy and look for the accessories while Drew and his parents got the right shapes and sizes of wood, hinges, screws, etc.
Amazingly, we got the car loaded up and headed home. Of course it’s hard for Andrew to think abstractly at his age so he had a hard time understanding what we were going to do but he was excited for about the first hour just watching dad use the tools and getting to help out with a few things. Then he lost interest and found other things to do. I forgot to mention St. Louis had the most amazing weather this weekend. The highs were in the mid 70s and at night it got down to the upper 50s. It was unbelievable.

So basically the entire time Drew’s parents were in town we worked on the garbage truck. It was quite a project but I must say, it looks awesome. (We are adding the finishing touches for the "reveal" at his party on Saturday...pictures to follow). They decided to stay Sunday night so we took them to Sunday dinner which they always hear about. It was the perfect evening, great food, weather, and company, the perfect way to end the weekend. We met them for breakfast Monday morning and Drew headed to work while I headed home and started getting ready for our next adventure…our family vacation.


The Dunes Beach

We left Tuesday morning for a much needed family vacation. We were headed up to my aunt’s house in Beverly Shores, Indiana, better know to Andrew as the Dunes Beach. It sits on Lake Michigan and is basically on the Michigan/Indiana boarder right outside of Chicago.
The ride up was better than expected. They boys did well considering the 6 hour car ride but of course were all so relieved when we arrived. Once we got to the house and unpacked we ran to the store to get some food and necessities for the week ahead. We got back to the house and had dinner then started to calm down for bed. Of course Matthew was in an unfamiliar place and a little out of sorts while Andrew was so excited he couldn’t calm down so bedtime the first night was interesting but we all got to sleep.

Wednesday the boys were up with the sun at 5:15 and Andrew wanted to get to the beach ASAP. Drew made French toast and then we headed to the beach just to check it out and feel the sand before getting ready for a long trip to the beach. We found out, Matthew is the exact opposite of Andrew when it comes to the sand. Andrew ran down and started making a “sand angel” while Matthew started freaking out that there was sand on his foot. We tried to ignore Matthew and see if he would just get used to the sand. Thankfully there were a lot of bigger rocks on the beach which distracted him and he started collecting them and then saw seagulls and he seemed good to go.

After about an hour we decided we better go get some sand toys and get ready for a morning at the beach. Well I guess beach season is almost over because it took us going to 4 stores to finally find clearance toys at Walgreens. We had a fun morning at the beach and then headed back for lunch. This was the first day we decided to try and hold Matthew off and lay him down for one nap. We figured otherwise, we be stuck at the house all day between both boys nap schedule. It worked like a charm. They both went down right after lunch and slept well. Once they woke up we hit the outlet mall. Both boys got new shoes at Nike and we got some amazing deals at Children’s Place. Then it was home for dinner, baths and bed.

Thursday our early risers were at it again. We decided after French toast and coffee to take a long walk and then come home and get ready for the beach. Matthew wasn’t too thrilled about the beach this day but Drew did a nice job of distracting him by sitting close the water. It was much windier and the waves were huge so at least when he was whining the waves drowned out the noise. Then we went home for lunch where Matthew was falling asleep at the table. We laid him down, then Andrew and Drew and I continued our tournament of Gin (the card game). Matthew woke up like a furnace…guess that explains his mood at the beach. His temperature was 102 and he was pretty groggy. We gave him Tylenol and decided to chill until it kicked in and then reevaluate. Once it kicked in he was up around and playing. We decided to go to a few local stores in search of Dunes shirt for the boys. We didn’t have much luck but had fun looking around the stores.

Matthew was up a lot of the night on Thursday but we did the best we could to enjoy our “vacation”. So we got up and had our normal breakfast and took a walk. Matthew fell asleep on the walk which was great for everyone. Once we got home, we headed to the beach then naps, lunch, and back to the outlet mall for some more deals. Poor Matthew was such a trooper.
In the middle of the night Friday there was a big storm and Matthew was up for that. Drew being the great husband that his is sat out on the couch with him and said it was actually really cool to watch the storm in basically a box of windows. Saturday morning was overcast so we went on a really long walk while trying to figure out what to do on our last day of vacation if it was going to be a cloudy day. Once we got home, it started to clear up and we were excited to be able to spend one more day at the beach. Matthew took a 3 hour nap and woke up pretty upset with a pretty high temperature. We decided to take Andrew to my aunt Missy’s house and find an urgent care clinic for Matthew. Once we got that all arranged, we arrived to the clinic 15 minutes after they closed. We went back to Missy’s where Andrew was having the time of his life (golf cart rides, trampoline, ice cream man) and ordered a pizza. We left Missy’s and prayed Matthew would sleep through the night and wake up all better. Drew and I packed up what we could and headed to bed.

Sunday Matthew woke up after sleeping much better than he had been and seemed a little better. But once he had some breakfast he seemed uncomfortable and irritable. We decided once we packed up we’d head back to the urgent care (we made sure to check what time they opened on Sunday) before heading out of town. So we packed up and headed out. We got to the urgent care and saw that by 7 days a week, they really meant 6…go figure. Thankfully Matthew had fallen asleep on the way and we decided to hit the road. He ended up sleeping for 3 and a half hours, all the way to Springfield! And when he woke up his temp was down to 99! What a relief. Thankfully we made it home safe and sound.