St. Louis and Thanksgiving

The Trip
We decided on Monday night to take a quick trip to St. Louis, so we pricelined a hotel and Tuesday we were off! It's a three and a half hour drive, but when you get closer to the city, you get to see really pretty things and stores, like Costco and malls, that was fun. We got into the hotel, the Hyatt, it was downtown and in the old Union Station, so it looked really cool especially in the lobby, no pics, sorry. We went out to eat at Hard Rock Cafe. How do you eat with a 1 year old? Seriously? Ridiculous! These were at the mall and we thought they were hilarious.
Sawyer "sleeping"
So when we went to bed that night, we wanted to take full advantage of the next day so we could do everything we wanted, and that meant a full nights rest. Well, let's just see how Sawyer felt about that. We had all his familiar stuff, blankie, binkys, things that lights up and plays music. We did the regular bedtime routine and laid him down, and went into the hallway. The room was small so the pack and play is just next to the bed. Well he started to cry, and then he sounded scared so we went in and got him. 99% of the time, I am grateful to have a baby who sleeps on his own, in his own bed and he won't sleep with us. So we tried to put on tv to see if he would fall asleep, no. I carried him around like an infant, singing to him and rocking him, nothing. After thirty minutes of this, we decided he had to go to sleep himself, so we laid him back down and left, and this time no crying. Wahoo, we did it. Wrong. 2 a.m. he's crying, and I am literally a foot from him. I think I got him before he really woke up, because I pulled him next to me and he was asleep in seconds. He tossed and turned the next three hours and woke up at 5 ready to go! He was hitting us and laughing...so we tried the same routine for the next 45 minutes, tv, trying to get him to lay down...finally we put him back in the pack and play and just went around the corner and sat in the dark. Well he didn't cry, but he was playing with his music thing for like 20 mins! We could see him, his eyes heavy and red, but he wouldn't close them! We decided to sneak back into bed, so we crawled to the opposite side and climbed in. And then...he stood up! We were a foot away from each other. E and I were both looking at him, and he yells "hey!" We just froze! So he tries yelling hey a few times, kinda whimpered, laid back down and soon was to sleep! Wahoo!! Long story, I know, but it was so crazy! Then he got up at 8:30, now that's acceptable without all the stuff in between.

The Zoo
The zoo was fantastic! We loved it, FREE, not even to park because we were able to park on the street! When we first came in, we thought we were going to die, no other people and all this rustling in the bushes, so scary. But after an hour we started to see more life. Sawyer loved it, since he's getting all his animal sounds down lately. He especially loved the monkeys, and two that were fighting he thought they were really funny. His other favorites were "nakes". The whole reptile house he was running around looking in different cages, talking about who knows what!

City Museum
This was the craziest place! It is not a museum in the traditional sense at all. There are not exhibits like that. The whole place is made out of recycled materials. It used to be a shoe factory apparently. The first pic is the outside of the museum, and there are hundreds of people climbing and crawling through all the slides and tunnels. There is an old plane, school bus, all sorts of stuff. It's probably 4-5 stories high. The inside is similar, caves and slides, it is such a cool place and definitely a St Louis must.

This is a tunnel that E went through, it was tiny and probably went 50 feet, I have no clue really but it was a good amount. Halfway through you can stick your hand through a hole, so that's the pic with Sawyer.

You can use elevators and stairs from level to level, but they also have slides and tunnels to go from one to the next. As you can imagine, I avoided anything of the sort. I did take Sawyer down one slide.
Does that look comfortable?Sawyer slept the first hour we were there. When he woke up, he sat straight up and pointed straight ahead and said "Whoa". He liked the place instantly! (They also have a circus that performs a couple times a day...no pics)
So you MUST click on the pic below to get an appreciation of where E was and what he was crawling through! And there were 3 and 4 year olds crawling it as well!


The Arch

On our way out of town we stopped at the arch when the sun had just gone down. E and I were much more impressed with it then we thought we would be! It was very cool, we didn't go to the top though.Thanksgiving

Thank you for all your calls on Thanksgiving! We can tell we were loved! Just kidding, apparently the only one who loves us is my sister Amy and her kids, thanks AMY! But I didn't get sad, and you are all lucky so don't pull this stunt on Christmas, because I was so busy the whole day, I didn't even get Amy's call. We had a great Thanksgiving with a few friends, and I think all of our mother's would have been proud. We had all the food covered, I was impressed. Unfortunately I only got about three pics. And, Friday morning, I kept the tradition alive with a friend Megan, and we hit the WalMart (everyone in Kville was there) at 5 am, it was great.

The Adventures of Sawyer

A video of Sawyer and us...although it looks a little long, I edited the whole thing so it should be entertaining throughout! Make sure you have volume, that's definitely important. Enjoy!

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I MISSPELLED INSTALLMENT AT THE END OF THE VIDEO AND IT WOULD TAKE WAY TOO LONG TO FIX ON THE ACTUAL VIDEO, SO I STAND CORRECTED.

HALLOWEEN!

So I realized I hadn't posted any Halloween yet! What the?? So here we go, there were many events. My little "wives club" SAA had a trunk or treat, and Taylor and Sawyer learned the best way was to stay in our trunk and take our candy...(He is a monkey, but it was hot so he just has a t-shirt on here.) From his photo shoot including our Halloween Card.

Ever since E and I have been married, so for five years, we would go to my sister's house every Halloween and trick or treat with her kids. It was special for us and for them, and we were all missing each other this year. So Amy and I decided to take some pics of us, and she printed them off so they could take us trick or treating with them :) Hence, the little captions. Garen is our nephew, and a couple of years ago I made a rule that they had to give us candy, and so I based it on their age. Well Garen became quite obsessed with this, so I've always teased him about how much he has to give us and whatnot. He thinks it's funny, so that is what the caption on E's pic means.

Our ward also had a carnival type activities and a trunk or treat. Poor Sawyer has had pretty bad ear infections the last couple of weeks, so he has been sleep deprived. Although he wasn't sad over any of these events, probably not as animated as he might have been.

At the begining of the month we went to a corn maze. They had tons of stuff, a bounce house, straw pile, corn cannon (my fave), hay ride and a maze! Well we apparently beat the record because they said it was 18 mins, and we timed ourselved and it was 17 mins! Wahoo! E was busting through that thing, I was impressed. The corn cannon was hilarious, you shot corn through this tube thing into a field with targets. However, no one was shooting at the targets, there were probably 8-10 cows that everyone was aiming for. And it was no secret, the guy who was manning the cannon would say, "Oh you almost hit that one!" We didn't hit any, and we didn't see anyone hit one, but we were close! It was funny, I have footage maybe I will get it up later.

Sawyer being a daredevil with his skull and bones cap on.

Sorry to embarass you E, but this was too funny. I see him walking up the stairs with all of this the other night, and I was laughing so hard I had to get the camera. He has a glass of grape juice, with two chinese new year's cookies on top, and the ENTIRE bowl of Halloween candy! He didn't just grab a handful, I was mocking him quite a bit, but when you look like E, it's all good. I can promise if this was me, the picture would've been deleted off of the camera, memory card, hard drive...etc.

Sawyer helping make some Halloween frosting. He was dipping his binky into the powder sugar and putting it into his mouth. I realize this pic looks quite dangerous and you might call DCFS on me, seeing as he is about 4 feet off the ground with loads of knives behind him, but I promise I was right there with him the entire time, only stepping back to take the pic!