First Cardinals Game

In early June, Jason and I took the boys to their first Cardinals game (bucket list #13).  It was Super Hero night, so they got a new t-shirt and a cape.  So fun!  We learned early on that night that Charlie is still terrified of "Redbird."  He spotted him first and immediately wanted to be held.  He didn't want to go anywhere near him, but managed to get over it quickly when we walked away.

We sat in our seats for approximately 1/2 of an inning because it. was. hot!!  We did get to see a home run by Colton Wong though, so that was fun.  We couldn't see the fireworks, but we heard them!

After that we went out to the concession stand area to cool off.  The boys loved running up and down the ramps.  A lot.

And some video footage:

After awhile we decided to walk all the way up to the top.  Whew, that was quite a walk in the heat!  We watched an inning or so from up there.

Then we took some pictures, including our favorite ever picture of Jason and the boys:

As we descended the ramps, Jack was going too fast and took a spill.  A little skinned knee, but he'll survive.  We watched a choir sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame (of course!) and then we headed out.

We managed to get out with just these $2 stamped penny necklaces as souvenirs.  Much better than all the other (very expensive) chotchkes they had their sights set on...

We had a nice family night and will certainly do it again.  Maybe next time we'll watch more of the game!

Camping Trip

The weekend after Memorial Day, we took the boys on their first camping trip with our neighbor friends.  Our friends Darrin and Chrissy did all the planning and there were six families, each of us with two kids.  There's a place not more than 10 minutes from our house with a big lake and campgrounds - a perfect starting point for camping with little ones.

First the boys and I took a quick trip to Menards Saturday morning and couldn't resist trying out this giant chair.  We didn't buy it since it was $100 - phew!

We headed to the campsite after naps on Saturday afternoon and camped for one night.  The boys had a blast!!

The little guys: Ethan, Charlie and Tyson.  Seriously, how cute is this??

 We got rained on not long after we got there, but a few of us had walked down to play at the playground and there just happened to be a large pavilion there for us to stand under.  Excellent timing if I do say so myself.  Of course the boys had a blast running out into the rain (which allowed us to check off #10 on our bucket list)

Brothers: Charlie, Jack, Jack and Logan

The kids spent the evening riding their bikes, playing washers, and just plain running around.  It was a lot of fun.

Addison, Reghan, Jack, Tyson and Jack

The Mamas: Kim, me, Renee, Melissa, Chrissy

Nathan and Charlie deep in conversation

Charlie, Nathan, Jack

Don't pay too much attention to my appearance on this one 

Setting up our tent with a little lot of help from our friends

 Jason took the kids fishing - I don't have a great picture of the group, but here's Jack...

Jack fishing with Daddy

When it got dark, we had oodles of glow sticks and made s'mores.

Charlie and Daddy roasting marshmallows

Wish I knew what this discussion was about....Jack, Nathan and Jack

Jack, Hayden, Reghan and Addison

Charlie and me

The boys did pretty well at bedtime.  There was a lot of talking and sitting up but after awhile they gave in and fell asleep.

The next morning everyone pretty much just woke up and packed up the campsites.  We stayed with Mark and Hayden to do a little more fishing before we headed home.

All in all the camping trip was a big success.  Despite the rain (and therefore mud!!) we had a fun time.  I'd definitely recommend the 'close to home' spot for a first trip with the littles.  AND in addition to playing in the rain, we checked off #1 (go camping) and #27 (go fishing) from our list.

Summer Bucket List

After some inspiration from a high school friend on Facebook, I decided we should make a bucket list for the summer.  I asked for Jack and Charlie's help in coming up with the list of things we wanted to do.  They added a few, but then started getting silly, so I did a lot of the list (with some input from Grandma and my friends Rebecca and Melissa).  Without further ado, here we have the Summer 2014 Edition of the Clayton Bucket List (you should be able to click the picture to make it bigger and easier to read):

I sent it to Fed Ex Kinko's to have a laminated copy made, and I plan to check things off as we do them.  Even if we don't do all of these things, it's going to be a fun summer!

New Bike

Jack got a new bike a few weeks ago.  His 12" bike was perfect for learning to ride a two-wheeler since he could easily put his feet down when he needed his balance.  However, he started to look so big on that small bike.  The real reason for the new bike though is that Charlie was ready for a bike with training wheels and Jack's Spiderman bike was the perfect candidate.

Jack wasn't sure he wanted to upgrade to the 16" bike, but I talked him into it by letting him pick out a Ninja Turtle bike and assuring him that we would add a kickstand to it just like his cousins.  Turns out he shouldn't have been worried.  This video is literally his first attempt at riding the bigger bike:

And Charlie got the hang of his new (hand-me-down) one pretty quickly too.  This was day 1, but he's a pro now...

Mid Rivers Carnival

In May Jack spotted a carnival in the Mid Rivers Mall parking lot, so we decided to make a Friday night visit.  The boys got to ride a bunch of different rides and had a fun time.

 Fast cars!

Charlie was really brave and rode this helicopter ride all by himself (Jack was saving his last tickets for a slide ride for which Charlie was too short).  We were impressed...

And a quick video:

Afterwards we made a stop at Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt.  A nice little family night in the books.

Meeting My Nephew!

My sister had our sweet little nephew on April 23.  Graham Thomas is just perfect!!

I got to head out to Rochester a few weeks later to meet him and lend a hand with the new parents-of-two. I had a nice week of visiting, entertaining Parker and of course snuggling sweet baby Graham.

One day Parker and I went to the zoo and out to lunch...

Here's a video of Parker having fun with her 1/2 inflated Dora balloon that Grandma and Grandpa got her...

I am so glad I went - we had such a nice time and I miss those kiddos (and of course Kelly & Greg) already! - but of course I was ready to come home and see these sweet faces.

T-Ball

Jack just wrapped up his first season of t-ball.  He had a really good time.  We signed up through the City of O'Fallon and joined a random team with kids and a coach we didn't know.  Jack was fine with that, but Jason and I had a hard time with the coach.  He was intense.  Not mean, per se (except to his own daughter, to whom he was pretty rotten), but just trying to teach these 4 and 5 year-old kids things that most boys learn in middle school baseball.

Here are some videos from Jack's first game.  Each child gets a single no matter where they hit the ball and no matter if an out is made or not.  The last child of the lineup gets a home run to clear the bases, again no matter where they hit it.  Jack's first game, he was the cleanup batter, so he got home runs at each at bat.

Our other complaint was all the parents in the field.  For some reason at each game, there was about one parent for each kid on the field, plus the base coaches at each base for the batting team.  You couldn't even hardly see the players!  AND several of these parents made a habit of stopping the ball if it came to them, instead of letting their child chase after the ball (which is the point of t-ball, right??) as demonstrated in video #2 above - a parent stopped Jack's hit.  Luckily Jack didn't really notice but Jason and I were pretty ticked off.  They aren't exactly robbing the kids of hits, since each child gets a single no matter where they hit it, but still!!  We were pretty appalled.  Luckily, we saw eye-to-eye with our coach on that issue, as he asked all the parents to stay in the stands about midway through the season.  Unfortunately the other teams did not follow our lead, so there were still adults everywhere.

Regardless, Jack had a fun time playing!!  And the good news is, we're starting a new session next week which Jason is going to coach and we know about 1/2 of the players on the team.  Can't wait!

No More Training Wheels!

On Easter morning, after the egg hunt with our neighbors, Jason had to run up and cut grass at a vet's office.  There's a nice quiet parking lot there, so the boys and I went along so they could ride their bikes.  I managed to convince Jack to let me take his training wheels off (two of our neighbors just made the switch too, which helped my case).  It took a few minutes of me holding onto his seat, but he really got the hang of it quickly.  His bike is very small, so he's easily able to put his feet down when he's in trouble.  I was amazed how quickly he mastered the turns.

A video of the big guy:

So proud of our big boy!!

One last picture.  Here's Charlie when we got home....passed out waiting for me to get lunch ready.  I'd say we had a busy morning!