monday monday

We've had a busy morning. I took the kids to a storytime at Barnes & Noble this morning, followed by a craft time and then a train table time for Sawyer HAHA! It was hard to pry him away from that thing when we were ready to leave.
Then we went over to the Chesterfield Mall and windowshopped a bit, the kids played in the little indoor playground, we visited the puppies and the kitties in the petstore, and then rode the Mall's two story carousel before having lunch.
We arrive home about 30 minutes ago, and I think they are both sound asleep in their beds. Ahhh... peace at last.

So this weekend.
The Robertsons came for a visit and it was so very good to see them again. We were so glad to get to see the little ones... this was our first time meeting baby J! Ben is not quite 2 months younger than Sawyer, and they really didn't pay all that much attention to each other, but we all had a great weekend of playing games, getting Dave and Amie hooked on Blokus, swimming and just hanging out.

Saturday evening Kasey came into town and four of us girls; Kasey, Amie, Heather and I had a little girls night out. Kasey had four tickets to see Les Miserables at The Muny in St. Louis. We stopped at the Old Spaghetti Factory for drinks and dinner and a bit of chit chat before the show and we had a great night! It was a bit warm at the show, but at least the sun had gone down and it was definitely not as bad as I thought it would be.

While us girls were out, the men were all at our house holding down the fort (plus the Malones came to visit) with the six (seven if you count little Yuri!) little ones running around. They barbequed and I think they all enjoyed themselves while getting a taste for what us mommas
survive with big playdates like that. They even got all six kids to bed at a decent hour, which is no easy task considering five of the six were not sleeping in their own beds!
It was so fun to come home from a great night out with friends, find my house full of all our husbands playing poker and watching movies, and have all of our bedrooms upstairs full of sleeping children. This is what Ryan and I love. This is why we wanted the big house, and why we love having our friends here with us. I hope that our home can be an easy place to hang out and that we have many years of many friends (and family!) doing just that.

Anyway.
We said Goodbye to the Robertsons yesterday and they headed back to Nashville. I'm dissapointed I didn't take more pictures, but like I said, the Ben and Sawyer didn't do much of anything cute together, and I didn't even take the camera out while we were down at the pool. I did get some adorable shots of baby J, though I can't share them here because he is not legally adopted yet (the countdown is about to begin though, and the situation is most definitely in our prayers guys!!), but I will be sure and send them to you Amie! Here are the three other troublemakers...
Thanks for the visit you guys, and for letting us meet your sweet baby J before he gets too much older!! I know next time will be even more fun with the boys running around together and after you have a few more practice games of Blokus under your belts!!


FYI:
..the reason I didn't get a chance to blog last night was because after the numerous requests and inquiries I've received lately pertaining to Ryan's short-lived Sunday blogging run, I was hoping to get him back on board. By the time I realized he just wasn't going to go for it, I was on my way to bed, and didn't want to get sucked into the blog-world.
...and the reason I thought it would be a good weekend for him to take over the blogging duties, besides the fact that his "Soulmate" had been in town to spend a weekend with us, was because a new Chick-fil-A opened up just 15 minutes from us this weekend. We had heard they were opening one here in Chesterfield (which just so happens to be right on Ryan's way to and from work each day, and also right next door to the Pfizer campus his lab will be relocating to in early 2009... I can't even describe to you how excited he is by this!) but not knowing they were so close to actually opening, Ryan was just lamenting the fact that he couldn't stop there to eat yet on his way home one day last week. Well, then when us girls were out for dinner on Saturday, we ended up right across the road from the new Chick-fil-A and lo and behold, they were open. Ryan is ecstatic (besides the fact that he's super bummed he missed the grand opening and the chance to be one of the first 100 customers and to receive a free meal once a week for a year!) and he plans on stopping there for both breakfast and dinner every day this week. And no, I do not think he's joking.
Anyway, so if Ryan didn't step up to blog about the events of the past couple of days, I doubt there's much hope for his return (or maybe just someone other than me will have to talk him into it). Meaning you're all still stuck with my longwindedness and endless babbling for now. Enjoy! Bwahahaha!