The Slugs

 My wonderful Brother Nile and his wife, Brittany came down to the Mozone for a short visit.  The boys and I left Matt at home, and made the trek home to see them while they were here.  We had a marvelous time!

Brittany's family came from Branson to meet us all for dinner one night, we were quite a sight to see. Heath & Houston were SO good, and ate all of their food right up. (along with a very good sized helping of chips & dip) It was seriously the best "out to eat" experience we've had, I believe.

Enjoying Andies in the cold with Uncle Nile. (notice Houston won't take his eyes off of it)

Heath, Nile, Sterling, Houston, Dallin

We had an awesome dance party where Uncle Nile showed the boys some cool moves.  (far too much action going on here... I took 4 pictures, and they were all like this....)

One Day Nile treated us all to pedicures.  : )    Marlow, Brittany's friend joined us as well.  She's great!

If you've never had a pedicure (like I hadn't) you should do it someday. It was so nice and relaxing.  Especially the good half hour or so foot/calf rub. mmmm.....

The boys were so good here too! I think they were just so curious about everything that was going on, that it worked out great.  

Houston's trying to see what they're doing to Nile's feet over there.  I let Heath pick out my toenail color.  He chose bright hot pink.  Now every time I look at my toes I smile and think of Nile & Brittany.

 The ladies at the salon sure liked pampering the boys.  Heath loved it. He had his own jet pool and massage chair.  He'd alternate between soaking and scooting back to have a back rub. 

Brittany is due almost exactly one month after I am.  They're having a little girl too! I will sure be fun to have a girl cousin so close in age!  We're so glad we got to see them while they were here.  We sure love you two!

Tractors

 For the past month or so they've been redoing the trail that goes by our house.  Poor Matt has had to sludge through some pretty nasty mud on occasion to get to the metro.   Every morning we wake up to all kinds of machinery rumbling back and forth and lots of beeping.  The other night they were out working until almost midnight.  (usually they quit by dark though)  Ever wonder how these big machines keep fueled up?  Every few nights,  in the middle of the night, a big tanker truck full of diesel stops by and fills all the sitting tractors.  It is not a quiet event.
 

 

 With all the negative aspects, there is one really awesome plus side to all of this (besides the obvious fact that they're redoing the trail, and fixing a lot of water drainage problems) the boys are absolutely enthralled by it all!  For several hours a day they will sit at our living room window watching the tractors work.  They absolutely LOVE IT!

The other Sunday this huge tractor was parked outside our place so we went to check it out.  Houston kept saying, "BIG TRACTOR!" in his very best grumbly tough voice.

The view from our couch.

The Tale of the Dragon and the Knight

 This year for Halloween, Heath had everything planned out far in advance.  He had decided he would be a knight (which we already had a costume of) Houston would be a dragon (which we also had a costume of, thanks Grandma!) I would be a princess, and Daddy would be a King. 

As Halloween got closer it was pretty apparent that myself and Matt weren't going to be dressing up, so this was by far the easiest Halloween on the books yet for us.

Isn't Houston just adorable!?

 Heath was in little boy heaven.  
The night before Halloween we went to the local High School's Halloween carnival.  The boys loved it. They got to play a game for each piece of candy and got just the right amount.
On Halloween we got to wear costumes to story time at the library, then had the Lopez family over for bloody soup and skeleton bone bread sticks.  Matt called about half an hour before dinner and said he had to stay late at school.  Poor Anthony, every time we try to get together either he or Matt isn't there. Leaving 1 husband outnumbered every time.  Someday we'll all get together.   After dinner we went trick or treating with the Lopez family.  It had been a rainy evening but held off for us to go out.

 Here in St L they don't have you say the whole, "Trick or treat!" when they open the door.  They ask, "Do you have a joke for me?"  I personally love it.
Heath was old enough to tell a joke this year.  This is how it went.
"The bampire had to go to the doctor because he had a coughin."


This was at the High School carnival.  Not the best of all pictures, but I think it's super cute. I hope I always remember how cute these boys were toddling along at that age.

When we got home from trick or treating with our ridiculous load, Matt had just gotten home from school.  We let the boys each pick 3 pieces of candy to eat that night, then changed them into jammies.  While we were reading scriptures Houston crashed on Matt's lap.  After such an exciting day he was one tired little boy.

Go Cards! Go Rams!

When the Cardinals made it to the world series, My Mom & Dad, Sterling, & Dallin came up for the festivities.

The boys all went downtown to see if they could find a place to watch the game/ be in the excitement of it all.  We enjoyed reading stories and relaxing with grandma in our nice warm house. : )

When they got home, they told us of their most exciting adventure.  They went up to the top of a parking garage near the stadium and watched the game from there.  My dad also had a little portable TV, so they could see the up close stuff too.  Part way through the game a lady from the St Louis Post Dispatch came by, took their picture and asked a few questions.  We got online that night, and walla, there they were. 
 Watching the World Series for Free!
was the Headline.  (click link to see article.)

 2 days later, the Seahawks were playing the rams.  Matt had been watching the ticket sales thinking there wouldn't be many Seahawk fans around St Louis.  When he got home from school he said, "Wanna go on a date?"  So we got a babysitter for the boys (our first since we've been here.  Monica was wonderful.  I'm pretty sure she read the boys like 500 books before they went to bed.  They absolutely loved it!) purchased the tickets (for $8 mind you!) and hopped onto the metro train to go to the game.

After the first quarter we left our cheap seats and moved down to the open seats right behind the Ram's bench. (not 100% sure if that kind of thing is allowed, but no one asked or checked or told us differently)

 It was kind of surreal being so close to the action.  You could hear the crashing of the lines, and see the looks on the players faces so clearly.  Much better than TV. 

Mizzou's marching band played during half time.  They were phenomenal.  It was pretty amazing to watch how smoothly they moved while playing.  Matt noted how strait their lines were, when it looked like they took no effort to make it so.  Yeah, they were amazing.

 Sam Bradford (Rams quarterback) standing on the line with a knee injury.  He was so entertaining to watch, pacing back and forth. Yelling at his teammates, giving pep talks. Totally into every second of the game.

The Rams lost the game, but we sure had a super fun time!  

They had given us each 2 little ram's flags to wave during the game. (which we did, and it was pretty fun!)  They were quite a hit with the boys the next morning. : )

Baby Morgan's not a baby anymore.

 Jimmy, Tahnee, and Morgan came to visit Missouri for a while, so we ventured home for a weekend to spend some time with them.  Heath remembered Morgan well and was surprised at how "old" Morgan was now.  "He's not a baby anymore!"

I didn't get a picture, but while Jimmy was here they got the front of the house completely (I believe) sided.  It looks beautiful.  When Julia first saw it she said to  Rebecca, "Mom, this is the wrong house! I want to go to Grandpa's house!"

 Grandpa has the best toys!


It was pretty cold, but cousins must play!  


















Grandpa realized scaffolding seconds as a great set of monkey bars.   The kids played on them pretty much ALL day.  Heath was sun burnt that night. It was quite a lot of fun!

 Sambo- man, not to be confused with Ironman





Remember that pinata we made, well we took it along with us, and all the cousins wore their costumes for a pumpkin smashing halloween cousin party.

Maren, Memphis, Hank Isla, Bertie, Wyatt, Morgan, Heath, Porter, Renata, Boone, Lily, Gwen, Lucy, Julia, Ana, Houston, Benji, & Owen

Katniss, Ana

 The Skeleton brothers, Porter & Boone

Matt had all the kids line up youngest to oldest for their turn. Heath was so excited!

Morgan was the cutest holder of the rope I've seen.

Morgan the bumble bee.

Isla the cutie pie

Houston the dragon

Memphis the army guy

Owen the dragon

Heath the knight

Bertie the robot (which by the way was all her own creation)

Wyatt the dragon   (I love Maren's face!)

Hank as Ironman   (who insisted on wearing a blindfold. He knows how things are really supposed to go) 

Julia the ballerina

Maren the Tiger

Lily the princess

Porter the skeleton

Renata as Vanellope (from wreck it Ralph I believe)

Gwenny the (I can't remember.... Rebecca?)

Ana as Katniss

Benji as the Grimm Reaper

 Remember how Matt wanted a lot of layers on the pinata, well we did 10, and apparently that makes for a super strong pinata.  All the kiddo's had 2 turns of 3 hits each. After little progress being made, the Uncles had their turn.



No luck for Sammy.

 Luke came close.

Then Jimmy finished the job.

I love how the little ones, like Houston, got one piece of candy and left to have it opened for them.  One track mind.

The kids gathered up all the candy into a bowl and took it inside the house to eat around Grandma's table.  They were all so good at sharing.  I saw several cousins picking through looking for something particular for another, and sharing what was in their pile with someone that wanted that candy.  What a bunch of good kids. (or was it just that there was candy involved?)

We had so much fun with everyone, it was especially fun to spend some time with Tahnee Jimmy and Morgan! Hopefully it will happen again soon!