The Magic House

Instead of taking a family vacation this year, we decided that we would use Danny's vacation days to visit all the kid friendly things to do in St. Louis. One of the places that we've heard a lot of people talk about is The Magic House. So Danny took yesterday off of work and we went to the Magic House. We decided to get a membership since it would have cost us half the price of a membership just to go once. Here are the pictures of just some of the exibits at The Magic House. I wanted to point out that in the picture below, Alyssa drew the face on the chalkboard person behind her and she was working on coloring shoes when I took this shot.

Alyssa loved this one. There was some piping on the wall behind them that blew air through it and they could shove the scarves and balls into the pipes and watch them shoot through.

I took this picture of Ashley as she was running around. She mostly just wanted to run the opposite way of where we wanted her to go, the whole time we were there. But that is normal for her anywhere we go these days.

They had replicas of the oval office, a courtroom, and the press conference podium (sorry, I don't know the official name). Alyssa probably didn't understand how cool it would be to sit at a desk just like the Presidents desk, but she did think it was pretty neat to talk in this microphone.

And I did manage to get her to sit in the Judges Chair, but she wouldn't put on the dress-up robes that they had there.
This was probably Ashley's favorite part. It was in a construction zone area. They had little hard hats and goggles that they could wear (we didn't even try to get Ashley to wear them, but Alyssa wore the hat for a little while). This area had rocks that the kids could pick up with shovels and put into the fake cement mixer or wheelbarrows. Ashley mostly just wanted to pick the rocks up and throw them on the ground.

This is how Alyssa chose to go from one floor of the building to the next. It worked great going down, but not so well going up. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it looks kind of like a beanstalk with leaves sticking out and the kids could climb from one leaf to the next to either go up or down. The staircase for adults spiraled around the outside of this.

It was a pretty cool place. We wish that our kids would have been a little better behaved so we could have enjoyed it even more. I am glad that we got the pass so that I can take them back when it isn't quite so busy. Especially since in the two hours that we were there, we only saw half of what is inside there.

Casey's Birthday

Normally we wouldn't celebrate our dog's birthday, but things change when you have an excited three year old. Somehow she found out that Casey's birthday was after Father's Day and it stuck with her. And we really wouldn't have made a cake if Alyssa's half birthday didn't fall two days later. So we had a birthday celebration this week for Casey's birthday and Alyssa's half birthday (in case anyone is wondering why we would care about Alyssa's half birthday, I just want to remind you that she was born on Christmas and eventually, we will probably switch to always celebrating her birthday around the end of June). So here is the cake that Alyssa helped me make.
And here is the birthday dog. He just turned three, by the way.

I don't get in the pictures very often, but here is one with me and the birthday "kids."

And we even let Casey enjoy a piece of his cake, if you can call swallowing it whole, enjoying it.

Alyssa even got to open some presents thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Miner. Unfortunately, we couldn't convince her to wait until our party to open the gifts, so we don't have pictures, but she loved the presents. Thanks again, Grandma and Grandpa.

Bye Bye Curls

Well, the heat wave we have been in, combined with the fight of combing out Alyssa's curls finally pushed us to do the unthinkable. We cut them off on Friday. Here is the before picture just to give you an idea how much we cut off.

It was quite a challenge getting it cut. We had planned on taking her to one of those childrens hair salons since there was one close by that we knew of. We just thought she would be more excited about getting it cut if she got to do it in a fun place by a professional. Unfortunately, the one we knew of had closed down and the next closest one was a 20 minute drive away. So we decided to try to cut it ourselves and then take her in to a salon if it looked terrible. Here are the curls on the floor.It was hard to cut the hair of an unwilling three year old. Danny had to hold her in his lap and distract her while I attempted to cut between wiggles. This would have been much easier if her hair was wet, or even combed. I did the best I could under the circumstances and we tried to fix anything I missed after she took a bath. Here is the result.

I meant to get a picture or it after it had dried later that night, but I forgot. Here is one that we took the following day with her and Ashley. I was happy to see that the curl was still there even at the shorter length which is a good thing since the bottom is probably not very straight.
We think that it probably feels much better for her and even though it has to be combed every day now, it is not such a time consuming task anymore.

Lego Wagon

We got this little lego wagon at a garage sale a few weeks ago and the girls have discovered the fun of getting rides around the house in it. I mostly took the pictures because Ashley looks so funny in it.
We stuff the bottom with a blanket and she just lays right down in it and lets us know she wants to go for a ride.

It looks uncomfortable, but she is so relaxed in there. And since we took pictures of Ashley, we had to get some of Alyssa too.

This is the way she goes for a ride and it works well as long as she leans forward. Otherwise, it tips back and she falls off. We are just glad that we have enough room in our house to do this inside.

Pig Roast

I meant to post this last week, but I never got around to it. We got invited to a pig roast a little over a week ago which included a homemade BBQ sauce contest. Danny was given some BBQ sauce from a Food & Wine event up in Des Moines last year. The Chef gave him three kinds: Super-pyro, pyro, and regular. We ate the regular a long time ago, but the other two have been sitting in our cupboard since we got them. They are just way too spicy. We decided to take our super-pyro one to the BBQ sauce contest not expecting to actually win anything from it. We mostly just wanted to get rid of it. Well, ours won and now we get to sport this in our house for the next year until they do the pig roast again.
We think it is kind of funny that we actually won cause seriously, the sauce is hot. It is burn-your mouth-for-20-minutes-after hot. And that's if you just try a little drop. The judges must have liked it spicy.

Where are Alyssa and Ashley?

Alyssa loves to play Hide and Seek. Ashley doesn't quite get the hide part unless someone helps her stay in her hiding place, but she does love one specific hiding place in the house. That hiding place is here.
The picture is a little blury, but the place I want to point out is the corner of the room behind the chair. Ashley loves to go back there, sit down, and usually bang her head on the wall. (I don't understand why kids like to bang their heads on things). This is usually the place the girls run when either Danny or I chase them.Maybe they like it, because we pretend to not be able to reach them back there. Who knows.

Random Cute Pics

This little girl has so much personality. She makes us laugh a lot with the many cute things that she does. She is really wanting to talk lately. Unfortunately, we don't understand most of what she says. Yesterday we went for a drive and she was just talking non stop and pointing out the window. We love our little Ashley.
Alyssa is growing up so fast. Her primary teacher tells me that she is so good in class and answers all of the questions that she asks. She even said the prayer in the opening exercises of primary last week. It's nice to see her get past that shyness barrier that I'm sure she gets from my side of the family. She loves to color and she says the cutest things sometimes. Last week Danny asked her one of those "Are you _____ , or what" questions and she says back to him without hesitation, "What." We love our Alyssa girl.

We especially love it when our two girls get along. Alyssa likes to boss Ashley around a little bit and even tries to pick her up and carry her away from things that she thinks Ashley shouldn't get into. Sometimes it is nice to have Alyssa stop Ashley from making a mess or playing in the toilet, but it usually makes Ashley pretty mad. Most of the time, they play pretty well together and run around the house together. We like to see them do things like this...

because that means that they love each other and are getting along well.

Pigtails

I took these pictures to try and show off the first pigtails ever that I put in Ashley's hair. Unfortunately, you can't even see them. Alyssa had so much hair by 17 months that you almost had to do it in order to keep it out of her face. I guess I should just enjoy not having to worry about Ashley's hair. The nice part was that she just sat on the bathroom counter and let me do her hair without even fighting it.
I included this picture because I love Alyssa's "I refuse to smile" expression. Ashley didn't want to sit still for the pictures, so I was tickling her and trying to get her to laugh. After I took this picture, Alyssa says to me "You need to get me so that I will smile too." So I did and took the picture above.