Save the Date, Girls!

Yay! Tamara's shower is May 10th & it's starting t o feel like it's coming up soon. Invitations will probably go in the mail in April to firm up the details.

Meet Me In St. Louis

Go West, Man! This is the order to Merriweather Lewis as he set out to map the western territory as acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. So we set out, east in our case, to discover the city on the other side of Missouri. And it was quite a trek. These are the photos inside the tiny tram built for 5 on the way up to the top of the arch. It was a gloomy cold day, but views were still inspiring.

Here's Sydney looking for inspiration

Charlie & Logan have excellent seats to get a peek.

And here is the whole gang. "C'mon mom, it's waaay to cold out here to pose for pictures. Can we have lunch now?" It was seriously cold & they were great troopers. We walked the distance from the hotel to the Arch - it was probably 7 blocks. Then walked to our lunch & back to the hotel. This satisfied my craving for some real city dwelling. Who knew? Sophisticated St. Louis. (Don't tell them I said that - Kansas City is definitely a rival.) But seriously, they have the downtown thing figured out.

Listen up, KC, here's the formula:

1) offer fabulous accommodations & tons of it.

2) have large venues downtown that gather crowds aplenty.

4) line the blocks with clubs, restaurants, and shopping.

3) charge $20 a car for parking downtown.

4) offer all types of transport including bus, train, subway, & taxis on tight little schedules ready to serve.



How can this fail? It's impressive. This city really is sophisticated & it's all I want for our own downtown some day.

This is our schnazzy downtown hotel. Our room was on the 18th floor, the pool was on the 3rd. Don't be too impressed, we stayed free thanks to our Marriott points. It's great to have a family weekend getaway. When the weather improves, we're going back. Maybe next time on the train!

Logan Man Is 4!

Logan James turned 4 on February 6th. (Yes, it's taken this long to download pictures, forgive me.) Logan is so big! He chose to have his party at the bowling alley and we invited friends from the neighborhood and from school. There were 9 kids there and it was controlled chaos. On the day of the party, the temperature was around 12 degrees. Perfect for indoor bowling!

I made a delicious cupcake cake - strawberry cake and chocolate icing. The boy wanted to have strawberry cake and strawberry icing, but I had to put my foot down. But you can't keep that pink from showing through the paper. But, please notice the monster trucks climbing up the hill of chocolate. Definitely a boy's cake. And every kid at the party got to keep a monster truck.

There's Logan in the middle making a face for the camera, up to his elbows in chocolate! Cheese!

There's Charlie on the right. I think he's having fun, too.

Here's Sydney playing with Sloan and Elizabeth. She kinda thought it was her party, too since they have lots of mutual friends....and half of Logan's friends are girls. Way to go, man!

Charlie and Logan, "Yumm-o".

Jump in with both feet

Well, this is it! A blog just for me!
I want to post about the really important things like Monster Truck birthdays for 4 year olds, how to run a successful recycling program for any household, and generally life in Kansas City.
This blog will also include many, many pictures of my kids - yay!

And architecture.
And our house remodel, and trips, and parties, and friends.

"What's going on now?" you ask.
I'll tell you. Tamara's baby shower is in 13 weeks and the planning is in full swing. A trip to Houston! YeeHaw! I'm too excited - cause I get to see the fam, I'm taking Sydney on her first plane ride, and Tamara's having a baby! It's a girl, but she doesn't know it yet.

More later, amigos.