DIY Fun: Teddy Bear’s Picnic

Posted on May 24, 2012 by lauren

One thing that’s great about summer is the weather. So many beautiful warm sunny days! And what’s better on a beautiful day than a picnic? But not just any picnic. A day like this calls for a very special kind of event.

We listen to this song pretty often since Cat and Garriy put it on a CD for Milo’s second birthday. Plus, my mom gifted us the book and it is just about the only story that Oliver allows me to sing to him. I’m pretty sure the boys know all the words, but they’re too cool to sing them with me for now. I’ll trick them into it someday.

What You’ll Need:

Picnic foods (even just snacks if you don’t want to do a full meal)
Teddy bears (or any stuffed friends will do)
Disguises (a mustache should do the trick, no?)
A Blanket
Dinnerware (if you want to get fancy… and you will) like mini teacups and utensils and silly stuff
A wagon, if you have one

Step one: Assemble picnic supplies.

Step two: Dress your bears and yourselves in your best disguises.

Step three: Load up the wagon with the above.

Step four: Head to the nearest playground, woods, or green space. (Or you could drive if you don’t have any green space nearby… but I do recommend going somewhere other than the back yard. It definitely makes it more of an adventure!)

We also decided to bring all of our bear-themed books to get into the spirit! Every single one of these books were gifts that we absolutely love!

Step Five: Pick a nice shady place to picnic (preferably beneath the trees just as the song says) and set up camp.

Step Six: Get busy eating, drinking, and enjoying the Teddy Bear’s Picnic!

After we enjoyed our lunch, we read stories and snuggled a little while Emil played in the grass and practiced standing up, then sitting down, standing, sitting, standing, sitting…

One of our all-time favorite books, Oliver Finds His Way. Thank you, Nora, for this great story! Oliver totally relates to the crying part these days.

And after a short rest, we decided to take it back to the song and do as the teddy bears do:

Beneath the trees where nobody sees, they’ll hide and seek as long as they please (or at least until someone has to poop).

I know. I look hot. I like to think it’s the nose job.

Emil keepin’ it real. Kids these days and their damn pants.

We had a fantastic time and the kids were so well-behaved before, during, and after. I think this Adventure Day thing is going to work out really well!

Thurtene Carnival 2012

Posted on April 23, 2012 by lauren

Thank you for all of your kind well-wishes- both for Andrew’s ugly stomach thing (which we now believe was food poisoning) and for our fifth anniversary yesterday! Definitely feeling the love!

On Saturday Andrew was feeling well enough to participate in some fun at Washington University’s annual Thurtene Carnival… plus we had been hyping it up all week to the kids, so we definitely felt a little pressure! It was a cool, beautiful day and the carnival did not disappoint.

Milo ran into a couple of school friends there who happily included Oliver in their wild rides! But the most fun (for Andrew and I, surely) was at one of the many shows the students put on to raise money. Last year we didn’t make it, figuring the kids were too young, but Milo was begging us to see one in particular, about some monsters under the bed in a battle with the tooth fairy.

So we caved. It was really good! However, a certain boogeyman’s wardrobe malfunctioned in a way that made Janet Jackson’s famous nipple slip look tame… which certainly made him the scariest boogeyman I could have imagined, and probably more so for the little girl in the front row. Andrew and I were subject to fits of giggles while Milo was completely oblivious to the boogeyman’s crotch shot. Poor guy. I mean. Wow. The show must go on. He, he, he! But they did do a really great job.

Then, as is becoming tradition for us: a funnel cake. Next time we will have to get two.

Milo and Oliver won prizes:

Perimeter secured.

… kind of.

And once again, I missed the ferris wheel ride due to a sleepy baby (well, last year he was actually inside of my body… so, you know, no ferris wheel). But I had so much fun watching these three guys enjoy it together for the first time since last year Oliver was too little to go!

He loved it so much he talked himself to sleep that night in an animated recollection of his ferris wheel experience!

And on our way back home, we crashed a Wash U. alumni event with a petting zoo:

… where Oliver kept trying to give the baby goats kisses and Milo was a little skittish about the whole thing. But as we were leaving, a little lamb kept baa-ing to Milo, who looked longingly back and said, “Oh, Mom! She wants me!” So sweet.

We spent the rest of the weekend doing yard work and resting at home, which was the perfect way to celebrate 5 years of marriage! Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Snapshots from Our Week

Posted on March 24, 2012 by lauren

1. From the garage looking out 2. Gathered kindling for next season 3. A stroller nap 4. March water weather! 5. Digging in the sand 6, 7, 8, & 9. The Magic House 10. Unexpectedly meeting up with a school friend at the zoo 11. Pelicans 12. Carousel 13. Laundry (what happens when we play outside and neglect the laundry for 10 days) 14, 15, 16, & 17 The Science Center of St. Louis.

Milo was on spring break this week, so we made the most of it and kept busy, busy, busy. Seriously, these kids kicked my a*%! Like, physically beat, fall into bed at the end of the day, marathon-running exhausted. We had so much fun! The best part was watching Milo and Oliver pretend-play and laugh, laugh, laugh. Those two have become the best of friends.

What are your plans for this weekend? If the weather holds up, we have some gardening and yard work to do. Plus, I made a new friend and she is bringing her kids over later today. It’s like a first date. I’m a little nervous, so wish me luck! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

A Visit With Friends (Pt. 2: The Rest)

Posted on March 13, 2012 by lauren

Saturday evening, after a day filled with kite-flying, sandwich-eating (thanks again, Cat & Garriy), and naps, we all walked to Winslow’s Home for dinner. The weather was gorgeous and the light beautiful as the sun slowly set between the trees.

The boys behaved well and even the baby was happy for the majority of the time…

Cheers! Milk box to beer

And that evening I haven’t laughed so hard in months. After the kids were in bed, we all sat around reading excerpts from this book and attempted to analyze one another’s astrological strengths and shortcomings through our relationships with each other. Quite entertaining, I must say.

Poor Cat and Garriy must still be recovering from the shocking lack of sleep that ensues once one enters our front door and dares spend the night here. Oliver’s half-hourly wake-up calls all through the night became almost comical. Almost. And we all awoke Sunday morning with bags under our eyes and fuzzy brains. Like having a hangover without the alcohol! Alright, there was a bit of alcohol involved.

Had Andrew decided to devour Oliver, as it appears in the above photo, we might all have been spared.

One, two, three, four… I declare a thumb war!

But don’t blame Oliver. I should have known what was in store for us on Friday morning, when, after shutting off the vacuum, I went to look for him and found him like this:

… sound asleep on the floor. Poor little guy. Yeah, I’ll keep chanting that to myself tonight instead of that other thing I have been chanting. “Poor little guy” sounds so much more motherly anyway.

Thanks for some great memories, Cat and Garriy, and come back anytime… if you dare!

A Visit With Friends (Pt. 1: The Kites)

Posted on March 12, 2012 by lauren

This past weekend we were lucky to have some really good, close, old friends stay with us on their way back to Chicago from a trip. Cat and Garriy have known Milo since he was just a young biscuit, and they are like family to us (Milo even calls Garriy “Uncle Garriy”!). Andrew went to grad school with Garriy and we met Cat soon after. It was wonderful having them close by when we lived in DC, but over the years we have all moved around quite a bit. But they always find time to visit us, no matter how chaotic it has become with all the littles we have been popping out these days! And I have no doubt that someday they will make amazing parents. The first night it was cool enough to build a fire, so that we did (probably the last of the season!). After eating dinner and putting the kids down for bed, we made the most of adult time before crashing at… 9:30pm. Yes, we are living the lives of rockstars. Don’t hate.

The next morning we were joined by more friends (Amy and Jarod- who go all the way back to our undergraduate years!!!) who had caught the Radiohead concert in town the previous night. I made these sticky buns and they turned out amazing- highly recommend. We chatted over coffee and laughed a lot before they had to hit the road to get back to their little ones in Kentucky.

Then we were off on a little road trip ourselves (albeit a 10-minute one)!

Yay for the minivan! We comfortably fit 4 adults and 3 kids in here. Woo!

Where might we head on such a sunny lovely March day, you ask? Why, Forest Park of course. To fly the lovely owl kites Cat and Garriy so generously gave our young budding adventurers.

How many PhD’s does it take to put together two kites?

More than you might think, it turns out.

Once assembled, the hilarity ensued. Seriously, watching grown-ups running, jumping, weaving, darting, and trying to prevent plastic owls from dive-bombing the hillside is just so much funnier than expected. Only Cat made it look graceful. We had a fantastic time. And Milo was beaming ear-to-ear the entire time. Oliver, not so much, but Cat saved the day with an emergency snack run to the Art Museum gift shop. Thanks Cat!

We had a lovely day despite Oliver getting over a little of what Milo had last week and Emil feeling a little bit rotten trying to push that mean old first tooth through his bottom gums. And of course I took a billion pictures, so check back tomorrow for more of our weekend adventures!

Elephant Rocks Revisited

Posted on March 1, 2012 by lauren

This past weekend we decided a family day trip was in order. Telling the boys a couple of days in advance lead to some parental leverage of good behavior and Oliver asking every five minutes, “Is it WARM, Mama?” and “When it’s warm, we can go to Eyaph-ant Wocks!” And finally, on Sunday, it was warm(ish).

Elephant Rocks State Park is a two-hour drive south of us in Ironton, MO. I have wanted to come here since Andrew took the boys right after I had Emil and came back with these pictures. It’s geographic features include a tor, which is an isolated rocky peak, usually of jointed and weathered granite. Apparently, the huge granite domes formed 1500 million years ago from a dome of molten magma. Eons of weathering produced the rounded boulders that you see (Wikipedia). Of course, I imparted none of this knowledge onto our youth, who were too busy running/climbing away from us in all directions.

There was much exploring and testing and forward motion to the next climbable object.

Doesn’t this look like an arm holding up this boulder?

And though Milo is in the majority of these pictures (because Andrew was holding Oliver’s hand a lot of the time as I struggled to keep up with Milo with the baby strapped to my chest!), Oliver did his own exploring on unsteady feet. And I am thankful that he is not as daring and crazy as Milo. Having two of the same would surely give me a panic attack.

And now that we’re on the subject of panic attacks, here are the inevitable photos of Milo airborne:

Though it’s hard to tell, the above jump was very high up and actually caused some real alarm. Enough for me to put down the camera and be a parent, people.

I’m telling you, it’s amazing that this kid has never caused himself bodily harm from these jumps… but he really actually uses good judgement and knows his limits. We have only had to tell him “no” about jumping off something a handful of times in his four and a half years on this earth, and he tends to scare other people’s parents more than his own. I know I will eat these words some day… but this guy just loves jumpin’ off stuff.

And I have absolutely no idea where he gets it.

We stopped for a picnic lunch at noon, and Milo and Oliver chose a nice spot off the trail overlooking a little pond. Of course, on top of a boulder.

Then the comedy of all comedies occurred when both Milo and Oliver suddenly had to go to the bathroom (eh-ehm not the easy kind) and we were as far away from the entrance and the toilets as we could be… so, you know, they just went. Don’t worry. We buried it and properly disposed of the napkins used for wipe-age. So if you’re in the area, you know. Watch your step. Hey, what can you do?When we made it back to the car, Milo made a mad dash to the swing set while Andrew got Oliver cleaned up at the car…

And Emil enjoyed his very first swing!

He loved it!

It was a wonderful day. We all returned feeling alive and refreshed… well, after I crashed for a major nap with Emil! Milo and Oliver were so rejuvenated from spending the entire day out of doors. It was fun foreshadowing onto what this spring and summer will be like. I can’t wait to have more adventures with these guys!

(Another) First Date

Posted on February 1, 2012 by lauren

Tuesday night, I fell in love with Andrew. Again.

It seems that after every child we bring into the world, we have to reaffirm our relationship. At least, that’s how it feels. For over a year, your main focus is growing this new person to add to your family, then birthing him, then getting through the tough first few months and adjusting to a new definition of your family. And it makes sense that the more people you add to a family, the less time you get with each one individually. And I mean this not in a bad way, it’s just the way things are. You have to shift, change, adapt.

We went on a first date. The first date since we had Emil, and the first date in longer than that! I was so excited all day, anticipating spending time with JUST US. I was giddy. Giddy like I was when Andrew and I first started dating some 12 years ago. Kind of ridiculous, right?

We left the rest of the clan at home, big boys asleep in their beds, Emil asleep in our bed, and Elisa waiting downstairs for the inevitable waking of two out of three young men that occurs in our house every night, several times. But having someone you trust watching your kids gives you a sense of freedom and just a bit of carefree, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants abandon. Kind of. I mean, I had my phone on vibrate.

Peabody Opera House- see the Arch?!

We went to see Ryan Adams in concert. Just him, with his guitar(s) and a piano and a whole boatload of people watching. It was fantastic. Have you ever walked into a place, looked around, and thought, “What?! All these people are just like us! Where have you been hiding in this city? Where can I find all of you again?!” We were all eyeballing each other with approving glances. I kind of swooned over the style: tattoos and boots and nerd glasses and dresses and… oh, I was in heaven.

But really, I was just high from my first date. Which, by the way, went swimmingly. Turns out this guy is really funny/smart/handsome/quirky/perfect…

So, I think I’ll hang out with him again sometime.

… if he ever calls me…

The Pumpkin Patch, Version 2011

Posted on October 19, 2011 by lauren

The weather in October has been beautiful thus far (as I sit inside with the heat turned on listening to the rain beat down on the roof). But really, today (not pumpkin patch day, clearly) and yesterday were the first dreary days we have had this month. Ah, October. How I love thee.

And so, as we do every year, we planned our family/friend outing to pick pumpkins in the country. We drove about an hour northwest of St. Louis while the kids slept in the car and reached a quaint little operation which even had live music and a small picnic area.

And though the banjo-guitar-singing folk music began to grate on the nerves a bit after a while (but this was maybe only me, as a lot of things have been annoying me lately– hormones? lack of sleep?–), this was a far cry from the commercialized carnival of a certain “farm” we visited last year (a grass parking lot the size of a shopping mall crammed with cars waiting for their fall experience).

But this was nice. Really nice.

Big Baby.

Beautiful, smart, and witty young ladies.

Maniac with “orange drank.”

… which you know is “drank” because it stains your upper lip for 5 hours after you have consumed it.

So, once we got the kids good and sugared up, we let them run amuck around the farm. See if you can spot Oliver in the next three…

Once again, what made our trip was the wonderful company. We have made some incredible friends since moving to St. Louis just a little over a year ago. And it is hard to believe that we have only known them for this short period of time. But when you find your people, you just know. I just wish we could have ALLLLLL of our people here with us. You know who you are.

Talking with Ingrid.

We herded the kids onto a little red wagon ride as I pumped them up with grand expectations of the pumpkin patch we were riding towards…

… only, it was just a hayride, not a hayride on the way to a pumpkin patch.

But no worries! Apparently there was a pumpkin patch accessible by foot (or yellow wagon). So we hiked the 30 feet through some Christmas trees (did I mention you can cut your own here?) and there it was.

A patch. Of pumpkins. And Christmas trees.

Lovely family.

Lovely day. Happy October to you!

It’s a Zoo

Posted on October 9, 2011 by lauren

I took the boys (yes, all three of them) to the zoo by myself on Friday. Milo didn’t have school, so we needed desperately to get out of the house and have a small adventure before the small adventure found us… and destroyed our living room. It was not the first time I had taken all three of them, but it was the first time I felt a bit… overwhelmed.

As with most things these days, we alternated between times of togetherness and times of complete chaos and times of pure hilarity.

Like, for instance, the time Milo climbed inside the above giant jack-o-lantern before I had the slightest idea what was happening.

… and the look on this little girl’s face.

Don’t get me wrong. I am fully aware of the trouble we are in. We have three boys very close in age and the youngest isn’t even able to get into any trouble yet. I am thankful that I will be easing into that bit sometime around a year from now. When Emil starts walking. Whoa, Nelly. I need to sit down.

What is it with this kid and climbing into small spaces???

But no one really warned us about the difference between having two and three kids. Everyone had different opinions. Some people said, “Oh, going from two to three is soooooo much easier than one to two.” Disagree. Others chimed, “Oh, you won’t even notice, the other two will be so busy playing with each other!” If by playing you mean breaking something.

But my Aunt Barbara (a very wise woman indeed AND a mother of four) once warned me about going from two to three kids. “They will now outnumber you.” Wise words. They do, indeed, outnumber us. Milo’s energy alone can require the attention of two highly skilled adults (preferably ones with some training in wrangling circus animals, preferably with superhuman speed, agility, and stamina. You know, super-humans). So, wow. It is going to be a WILD RIDE! WooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO!

But back to the zoo.

We go there at least once a week. It is a fantastic place with so much to do. But this day we did something Milo has been BEGGING to do for the past four months.

And of course, has to do with transformations. This kid LOVES to dress up. Be something or someone else for a bit. Pretending is his top game.

Lizard face, please.

Why is Oliver’s face turning red, you ask? Oh, may it have something to do with the death grip on his neck? Nah.

Get me out of here, you crazies.

Happy Sunday. Happy October.

Elephant Rocks

Posted on September 8, 2011 by lauren

You’ll have to excuse my lack of knowledge in advance. I mean, I have never set foot on this place, but the stunning pictures Andrew brought back inspired me. A couple of days after I gave birth to Emil, Andrew took Milo and Oliver on their first real man trip to Elephant Rocks, a magical place a little over 2 hours west (? see, I have no idea why I am trying to tell you actual information about this mysterious place) of St. Louis. Whatever. Look it up if you want to go there. Apparently it’s worth it. And when the wee littlest man gets a bit bigger (and acts less like a crotchety old man), I would love to check out this place.

Oliver returned with eyes round as saucers speaking of nothing but the tadpoles he found in these puddles, the box turtle they chased down, and the “UUUUGE WOCKS” (huge rocks).

Uuuuuge wocks.

Old Pappy even packed a delicious picnic lunch for his boys, and took a couple of pretty rad videos of the trip. We will be sure to post those later… happy adventures!

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