Trevor's Dedication

We were so honored to be invited to Trevor's baby dedication at Cody's family church today (mainly because Debbie was not asked - kidding!).  I have to say that those were the most comfortable seats I have ever sat in in a church.  It was like being in a movie theater!  I'm surprised that more people don't fall asleep during the sermons out of pure relaxation.  After the ceremony, my girls went with the other children to play in the nursery allowing me to enjoy the rest of the service without constantly pulling things out of my bag of tricks to entertain them.

Trevor was so stinking cute in his big boy clothes and shoes.

Cody's sister and her husband also dedicated their new baby, Carter.

Trevor was an angel and slept through the whole thing.

My favorite picture.

A little blurry because I took these pictures with my phone.

After church we went with Ken, Kathy, and Jon to Jerry's for lunch.  Yum!!!  I'm so glad that Ness and I had gotten up and run 5 miles at 7 am because it enabled me to eat the twice-baked potatoes and a piece of pie guilt-free.  I even ate the skin off Delaney's fried chicken!

Out on the Town

Tonight we went out to Kemoll's with the Rudds to celebrate Krista's birthday.  I hadn't been there in over 14 years.  

Let me digress a minute and tell you a little story about the last time I was there.  When I graduated from college, all of the employees from the Legacy took me to Kemoll's.  Allan and I had been dating only about 3 weeks and he was invited, too.  They wisely put our group in the corner because, well, you can take the people out of Granite, but you can't take the Granite out of the people!! I will never forget being served my food and starting to take a bite when Allan leaned over to me and said, "Um, you are supposed to wait until everyone is served before you begin eating."  What!?!?  Did he really just correct me in front of my friends?  Believe me, it was the one and only time he told me what to do :)

Anyway, I guess my manners have improved since then because Allan was willing to take me back there.  We had a delicious meal with a great waiter and fantastic view (you could see the gorgeous sunset out the window across the room).

We decided to try to be young and sophisticated (as if!) and went to the rooftop restaurant at the Four Seasons for dessert.  It really was a cool atmosphere with a central fire pit and big, oversized chairs.  It was a bit breezy, though, so we literally changed seats three times trying to get close to the fire.  Oh, and we took about 20 pictures, but none of them were turning out right because of the lighting and the wind.  We finally got settled and looked at the menu only to find that nothing sounded good enough to warrant the $10 price tag.  Brian asked the waitress if he could settle up for the cup of black coffee he had ordered and she said yes, it will be $6.05.  Are you kidding me!?!  For a cup of coffee that would cost 50 cents to make at home?  Luckily, his first cup had been cold, so they ended up comping the whole thing - probably just to get us the heck out of there.

Thirty minutes later we were hanging out on the Rudd's back porch sharing a sleeve of Oreos and drinking mochas from the Keurig - much more our style!

 Happy Birthday, Krista!

 Trying so hard to be sophisticated and cool, but failing miserably :)

Krista built herself a nest of pillows to aid against the wind.

Kindergarten Picture

Delaney's kindergarten picture taken two days before her 4th tooth fell out!

(She told me they got their pictures taken right after P.E. which might explain the sweat-induced curly hair.)

Forest Park Balloon Glow 2012

We braved the crowds and went to the balloon glow tonight with Mama and the Buschs.  The weather was absolutely perfect!  Since 64 westbound was closed, we decided to take the Metrolink - great idea Erin!  As you can see by the pictures below, we were able to get right up next to the balloons.  Every few minutes a horn would sound and all the balloons would light up at one time.  It was spectacular!

The kids' favorite part of the night was the train ride.

We tried to capture the gorgeous sunset.

"Wedding" dancing on a tee box.

Busch Fam

Poor attempt at a self-portrait.

Looks like the girls have had enough - time to go home!

Fall Soccer

When we were watching the Olympics this summer I asked Delaney if she would like to be on the dive or swim team.  To my disappointment, she said no way.  (I'll keep working on her).  She did say that she wanted to play soccer again, though.  I just assumed we would have to wait until the spring for her to play in the Upward league at the baptist church by our house.  I was excited when my neighbor, Sarah, told us that she had just signed Alayna up for Y soccer and that her husband, Scott, was going to be the coach.  That would be just the motivation Delaney would need to play (and a nice short, inexpensive season for us :))

So now Delaney is playing on the Annie's Frozen Custard team and has games on Saturday mornings at the SIUE fields.  Her first game was at 8:30 am and we had a beatiful morning for it!

My soccer girl

Harper wants so badly to play, so she and Daddy helped Delaney warm up.

Honey and Mama came out to support her.

Coach Scott giving some last minute instructions.

Harper and "The Bubbies" had the best time teasing Papa Ed and putting grass in his chair.

Love those smiles!

One of the few shots I got with Alayna and Delaney together.

A Harper sandwich!

I love these shorts that I found at Target.  It's not easy to find girls' shorts with maroon on them, but I did!  An added bonus is that they are so bright we can easily spot her on the field :)

They don't keep score in the kindergarten league, but I'm not sure our team would have won anyway. In fact, I think both teams scored goals in the same goal several times :)   Delaney did actually touch the ball a couple of times, though!

Big, Full Day!!

Our family had a big, full day today!  It was Allan's 37th birthday and Harper's first day of school, so Allan and I both went ahead and took the whole day off work.  The birthday boy started his day by waking up at 5:30 am to go on a 35-mile bike ride with his friends, Kevin and Ryan.  Doesn't that sound fun?  Not.

Next, we put Delaney on the bus and snapped a few first-day-of-school pics of Harper:

Then we went to Dunkin' Donuts for a special breakfast:

The next stop was Kids First.  She didn't even look back at us as we left:

Allan and I decided to surprise Delaney by eating lunch with her:

We didn't really eat, just sat and visited.  Instead, we headed to Pita Pit for his birthday lunch.

At 3:30, we picked up my Mom then Delaney and headed to Jon's cross country meet at SIUE.  I had no idea there would be so many people there!  The humid weather was yucky, but the girls had fun running all over the field, messing with Uncle Kenny, and cheering for Jon.  

Surprise!  We're here!

It's hot!

Harper tormented Uncle Kenny by making him chase her around...

..and making him eat grass.

Varsity boys

Delaney stole Uncle Ken's seat.

Jon did a fantastic job considering he had never trained on a grassy, hilly course before and the humidity was almost unbearable.  I think his time was 19:19, which is just slightly higher than his PR on the Granite course.  We are proud of him!!

Gotta love his tan line :)

A strong finish.

He was clearly exhausted when he finished, but we all think he was milking it a little to get this cute girl to help him walk :)

Dramatic much?

If I understood correctly, he was still going to have to do a 3-mile cool down after this!

After the meet, we had dinner at Bread Co. with Honey and Grandpa with the intentions of spending a gift certificate that Allan had accidentally left laying on the counter at home.  Oops!

Right now, the girls are bathed and in bed and Allan is enjoying another special gift - Cowboys vs. Giants in the NFL season opener!  Time for me to go watch some Big Brother...