2nd Annual Girl's Weekend ~ St. Louis

Last year began what was sure to become an annual event for me, my mom and my sisters.  Mom is so hard to shop for for Christmas and birthday, that buying tickets to a play and making a weekend out of it is the perfect gift.  Not just for her, but for all of us!  Now that we've made it two years in a row, I am already looking forward to next year!

Again, we headed to St. Louis.  It is a great halfway point for the four of us to meet and there is SO much to do there.  I found it funny that, 1.  The only plans we had were to go to see West Side Story. 2.  We didn't see any of the same things we saw last year.  Not even close. 

We started our adventure by heading to the box office to pick up our tickets.  We ended up staying in the area for the majority of our day.  Who knew there was so much in this area?!

This was, probably, my favorite moment of the entire weekend!  Maybe my favorite moment ever with my mom and sisters!  We were all laughing SO hard!  One of us was real close to having tears running down their legs!  I won't say who! (:

We paid a little visit to the St. Louis Art Museum.  None of us are into art, but hey, why not?  Did I mention that it was FREE?  Yep! It was!

 I was slightly in awe as I was looking at original Van Gogh's, Monet's and Picasso's!  WOW!!  I wished that Ben could have been there to see this!

Outside of the art museum was a wishing tree with what other people had wished for.  This was my favorite wish.  I feel the same way.

Not only was the art museum in the same park as the outdoor theater where we would see West Side Story, but so was the zoo.  Yes, the four of us adults went to the zoo.  No kids!  And you know what?  There was no bickering or complaining at all!  (:

 There were some very interesting people at the zoo, but we'll just stick to animals here. ;)

I love the zoo!

We left the park area and headed downtown St. Louis.  We had no idea what we were going to do.  We just thought we would head the direction of The Arch.  Jon had mentioned to me earlier that the Cardinals were playing at home that night.  I mentioned it.  Kris said, "I wonder if scalping tickets is legal here."  The next thing you know, we are stopped at a stop sign and there is a guy standing on the corner with tickets.  The conversation happened very fast in our car.  We decided that we would give it a whirl, but that none of us were willing to pay more than $20 for a ticket.  I can't even begin to tell you the hilarity that ensued in the next few minutes!  I will just say that we ended up with four tickets for $100!!  Not too shabby!!

Sooo...we were off to the ball game!

 I hadn't been to a major league baseball game in so long!  I think the last time was when I was in 3rd or 4th grade.  I live too far away to go to big games.  I love that we have a minor league team in Tulsa, but it's not quite the same.  I was really excited about the game!  One thing,  even though I'm not much of a dedicated baseball fan, I couldn't root for the Cardinals.  Nope.  Just couldn't do it.  Go Cubs!

The Cubs won!

We had so much fun!

To think that all of this fun happened in only one day is just crazy!!  To say that we were a little wiped out would be an understatement!

We may have done a little bit of snacking...

On Saturday we did some shopping.  We got some amazing deals!  Of course, that only happens when we go shopping with Mom!

Since Kris works for Maggiano's, we thought that would be the perfect place for dinner before we headed to the play.  YUM!!  It was....oh my goodness...it was amazing!

I felt a little bit guilty going to see West Side Story without Ben.  He loves the movie!  He would have loved the play!

I tried SO hard to get a picture of the four of us.  It just wasn't working out very well.

This is the best we could get.  (:  But I love it!

Thankfully, after the play, someone saw us trying to take a picture of ourselves and offered to take it for us.

The play was great!

The weekend was great!

This weekend was the getaway that I needed away from home!  Between Jon going away for a week for work, Abby in softball, Ben in marching band, Luke and I spending every waking moment together and trying to get all three kids ready for school to start... I definitely needed a break!  This was so perfect!

I miss my mom and sisters all the time and this is perfect thing for way for us to get to see each other, take a break from life at home and have fun.

I can't wait for next year!!

Bridal Shower Favors

It was a little on the frustrating side trying to figure out what to make for a favor for Kris's bridal shower. It just seemed like we couldn't find anything that would work. We scoured Pinterest for ideas and still kept coming up short. Can you imagine, not being able to find an idea on Pinterest? Gasp! Finally, as we neared the eleventh hour, we finally stumbled upon the perfect favor! Cheesecake in a jar! What could be better!

Thankfully I have a super, crafty friend that allowed Mom and I to come over and use her tools to make so tags for our jars! I don't know what I would do without my crafty friend! Thank you, Deborah! You're the best!




This is as far as we could get on the jars at my house. Mom filled them with cheesecake at her house just before the shower.


I think they turned out SUPER cute!

I was really sad to not be able to be at Kris's shower, but I was thrilled to be a part of it by making favors!

Mom/Grammy Comes to Visit!

While Jon has been away in South America (I know, sad, huh?), Mom came to visit. It was nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with while the kids were back at school or in bed for the night. We kept very busy!

A random buffalo in Bartlesville.
One of these days I am going to make a picture of something using pictures of these buffaloes!

You got it, dinner at Frank & Lola's is a must!


Like any other time my Mom comes, there was shopping involved! For one, Mom ALWAYS finds the best deals! Two, we have a wedding (my sister, Kris's) to go to and this is the best time to find a good deal on a new outfit!
Ben and Luke aren't much into shopping. Ben spent a lot of time helping out with Luke. Luke spent a lot of time on my iPod. I'm not sure how we ever survived without the iPod!!


Luke thought this table was the perfect place to take a little rest.

You could tell little Lucas was wore out from our day of shopping. As soon as he walked in the door he hit the couch!

Even Elvis made an appearance!

And we played LOTS of rummy!



Yes...even I had to try out the Elvis glasses...

Normally when we go out for ice cream we go to Jared's. It's actually custard, but you know what I mean. Sadly, Jared's has been closed due to broken equipment. :( We made the best out of the sad situation and headed to Braum's. It was SUPER! And cheap! (Jared's is a little on the pricey side.)

This was Luke's first attempt at an ice cream cone. It was hilarious! We all enjoyed watching Luke eat his ice cream! He just enjoyed eating it! :)


Time to play outside :)



Abby got a hold of the camera.

Time to play at the park.








Mom and I talked to Kris earlier in the week about her bridal shower and found out that nobody was doing a favor for the guests. Kris asked if we could come up with something. You betcha! It took almost the entire week to come up with something, but we finally figured it out!
Cheesecakes in a jar!
Well, Mom and I made the jars and then the day before the shower Mom will fill them with the cheesecake. I think they turned out adorable!!

One more shopping trip! Luke was a super shopper! (Thank you, Lord!) You just wouldn't even believe the deals we got! Here's one short (well, I'll try to keep it short...) little story about one of our super, fabulous deals.

I saw this purse back in June. It was on a 50% off rack, plus there was supposed to be some other % off of the sale price. I scanned the tag to see what the price would be. It scanned for $118.00. Not. on. sale. I about cried. It's not very often that I find a purse that I like. I didn't just like this one. I fell in love with it! I was very sad to leave the store without it.

Fast forward about two months. Mom got an e-mail from Dillards saying that all clearance items were an extra 40% off. Great! We knew we had to go check things out. When we walked into the store we noticed signs that only said 30% off. Hmmm... Mom and I questioned one of the employees and found out that this Dillards was the ONLY ONE doing extra 30% off. WHAT?! The employee lady said that they would give us the 40% since we had the e-mail with us, but also showed them that the website said 40% off as well. Great! Well, it ended up that they gave us the 40% off, but then when Mom scanned her card, it took off the extra 30% off too!! NO WAY!! It all sounded too good to be true! We showed the lady (who turned out to be a store manager) what had happened. (Had to have a clear conscience!) She said, "Consider it your lucky day! We did what we were told to do. What the computer does after that is out of our control." YES!!! Back to shopping!

I was looking around the purse department and found the purse that I had fallen in love with two months back. They had ONE. I told Mom we had to give it another try and see what happened. It was originally $118.00. It was 30% off, plus an extra 40% off. Good so far. Mom scanned her card again and it took off the extra 30% off AGAIN! I ended up getting that purse for $34!!! Again, there were tears in my eyes! I got the purse that I had wanted SO bad! I guess patience pays off! I think the Lord really wanted me to have that super adorable purse! THANK YOU, LORD!!

Luke had seen so much of us girls trying on shoes that he had to give this cheetah print pair a try. He's so funny!

See, what would we do without this modern technology???

This is a story for another blog post, but Abby and Grammy stayed home together on Wednesday night and Grammy taught Abby how to sew. So neat!

We had a fun time while Mom/Grammy was here! It made the first week of Jon being gone go by much faster!

Indiana Visitors

As soon as my mom knew that Ben was auditioning for All-District band, she said that she would be here for it if he made it. He made it and she made plans to come. (And bring Rebecca and Nolan along with her!) We were all very excited about it! Then the "Blizzard of 2011" hit... We weren't sure what was going to happen. The kids ended up having four snow days and All-District got postponed. I was very nervous about having Mom, Rebecca and Nolan on the roads after watching the news/weather reports all week long. I finally made the decision to tell them not to risk it. I was very sad!

Thursday morning, the day they were supposed to come, my mom called and asked if they could still come. Mom and Rebecca had been keeping tabs on the road conditions and didn't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to get here without any trouble. Besides, we had all been really looking forward to seeing each other. How could I ever turn my family away?! I said, "Of course you can come!" Mom said they would be heading out in the morning.

I was still very nervous about the roads, but prayed all day long for safe travels. Mom, Rebecca and Nolan made it safely to our house without any problems! (Well, the roads were still a little bit snowy once they got close, but nothing major.) I was thrilled for them to be safe and sound at my house!
The boys took off playing right away!
(I know this is very blurry, but you can see that Luke was having a blast!)
I think their favorite activity was jumping from one bed to the other in Abby's room. They had a great time! And the happy sounds were the best!
This was the jumping pit and Nolan's bed. :)
From jumping off of beds to playing with trains...these boys are all boy!
Modern technology...
This little guy cracks me up! Nolan fell in love with this bear from Abby's room and had to take it out to dinner with him.

No trip to Bartlesville is complete without a trip to Frank & Lola's! It is my FAVORITE!! We go there pretty much every time someone comes to visit. The first time is because we love it and want to share it with our friends and family. The next time is because they love it! Come visit us and we can go check it out together!
We had to wait a while for a table so the kids passed the time playing pool.
Abby and Nolan are best buddies!
What did we ever do before we could watch Thomas the Train on the iPad?
It was great when the boys would play together nicely. Toddlers can be so touchy!
Story time with Abby.
And Aunt Becca.
Snuggly time with Grammy! :)
Apparently the little guys weren't interested in the Super Bowl. They watched Despicable Me in my room.
Facebook time for Ben.
Cooking dinner with Rebecca.
Nolan got to see his daddy! I don't know how we ever made it without modern technology!

It was so GREAT to have my family in town for a few days! I hate living so far away, but I still believe it makes our times together that much more special. I was able to spend some time with just Mom and Rebecca this time, which doesn't usually get to happen. We had a great time and laughed A LOT!! SO GREAT!! I'm not sure when we will all be together again, so I cherish these times that we have had!

Thank you SO much, Mom and Rebecca for braving the roads and coming out for a visit!