Spring, I Love You!

What an amazing spring we have had this year! The weather has been absolutely perfect! We've already done every possible outdoor activity in the area and it's not even June yet!

I'm happy to report that I am no longer a bad luck charm. Mike's hunting perseverance finally paid off and he shot himself a turkey this year. We've had turkey for dinner a few times, prepared a few different ways, but the best was the fried turkey strips. Very, very good, despite the bit of lead I discovered with my teeth. 

A couple weeks ago, I took a two-day nature photography class at Shaw Nature Reserve. I really enjoyed exploring Shaw in the early morning hours and I learned so much from the instructor. I don't often get to take nature photos like that without any distractions, and I soaked up the experience. Played with my new tripod too and got some really good shots.

 I also got a chance to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity this past weekend. I help raise several walls on a brand new home. After a day of hammering, climbing ladders, hammering, shoveling rocks, hammering, hauling lumber, and more hammering, I thought my arm might fall off. But it was extremely satisfying to see all of the work that got done by a bunch of volunteers.

Also got our vegetable garden planted over the weekend. We scaled things back a bit this year, not as many plants to keep up with. Despite that, we still have several varieties of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, okra, lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash, and butternut squash. Our asparagus is doing well and should be ready to harvest next year maybe. The rhubarb is struggling though. We may have to abandon it, which I hate to do because I love rhubarb!

This weekend, Grandma is coming to visit. We'll celebrate a late Mother's Day and eat some birthday cake. Then she'll be babysitting the kids while Mike and I get some long overdue couple time one a canoe float down the Big River. I am really looking forward to it. The weather looks to be nice and nothing beats the leisurely pace and the sounds of nature on the Big River.

I've officially registered Carter for preschool for this fall. Even though it's only three half-days a week, I get a little sad thinking about this big milestone. Soon he'll be texting his friends and out the door with a wave goodbye. I just want to squeeze him so tight and keep him to myself. (Sigh) I'm sure Nora will be thrilled with the change. She'll finally get Momma to herself...something she's probably longed for since her birth, judging by the way she literally fastens herself to me so we can't be separated.

The only real downer this spring has been the whole roof replacement experience. I suppose the company did a fine job getting things completed in a timely manner. But the first real rain revealed a leak right where our satellite dish is attached to the roof. The roofers cam back and resealed the area, but then our satellite reception no longer worked. Satellite repair guy comes out and is unable to fix it. Instead he installs a new dish in a different location, leaving the newly resealed dish base at the old location. Rather than deal with the roofers again, Mike and a friend got up there and removed the old base and re-shingled the whole area. Amazing. While we had some hail damage after last year's storms, we never had a single leak or problem with our old roof. Fix it, and we are up to our ears with problems. It never fails, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

New photos posted to Facebook. Click HERE to view.

Little Baby No Longer!

NORA

IS

TWO

!!!!!!

She's grown so much over the last few months. Sometimes it seems like she could be Carter's twin sister, other times I am reminded there really is such a thing as the "terrible twos".

I have discovered Nora's superpower. She has the ability to paralyze her foes, even drive them to madness, by simply opening her mouth. The scream that this girl unleashes is like ten thousand nails on chalkboard. She wields her weapon well. Mercifully, she kept it in check (mostly) for her birthday weekend extravaganza. Since it was also Easter weekend, we kept our party on the small side with just family. So, no over-the-top decorating this time...I feel slightly guilty about shafting Nora like that, but I doubt she really noticed (or cared).

Despite the lack of streamers, the fun was endless all weekend long! With perfect weather, we hit the Missouri Botanical Garden, played in the yard, ate cupcakes and cake pops, and played with all the new toys. Sunday morning, the kids had an egg hunt in the yard, and later we visited West City Park to play on the playground and throw rocks in the creek. Now the kids are wiped out and in bed. Whew!

It's been a very busy couple of months for us, and I am ready for a normal routine to be re-established. Nora's got her 2-year doctor check-up coming up this week and I am interested to see what the doctor says about her growth. Amazingly, we haven't been to the doctor since October so there will be a lot of milestones to report....(sorry, I'm still marveling over the fact that we made it all winter with only a mild cold for the kids)...

Other news for us:
- We had our roof re-shingled...one year after we experienced hail damage!
- Carter has made amazing progress in potty training!
- Work has begun in the vegetable garden, rhubarb and asparagus have already sprouted, lettuce to go in soon

More news coming soon! For new photos on Facebook, click HERE.

When It Rains, It Pours

Stay away from me people! Everything I've touched lately has broken, vanished, or otherwise turned to crap. I am the opposite of Midas! In the past week, these things have all happened:

1) Our range broke. No stove or oven function whatsoever for several days. Slim pickings for meals my friends when you can't cook anything. We went through an entire bag of charcoal in that time frame, grilling meat in 40F weather. Once Mike brought our propane cooktop we use during camping trips into the kitchen to cook something. The whole house smelled like gas for hours. New range installed yesterday though, so now we can wean ourselves off the microwave.

2) I lost my keys. Keys to the house and each vehicle, plus key FOBs for each vehicle. I found them the next day smashed to smithereens half a mile from our house. The cost to replace the key FOBs and the vehicle keys (which have some kind of chip technology) is astronomical. I don't understand the point of the chip, other than to screw people out of their money when they already feel stupid for losing their keys in the first place.

3) Realization that my happiness is too dependent on Facebook. The short story is that for months, no one would reply to anything I wrote on Facebook. I seriously thought all my friends and family were ignoring me. Then I discovered that no one could see what I was writing because I had inadvertently changed the settings on my account. The relief was a little disturbing. I need to find more tangible ways to connect with people besides Facebook.

Well, that's enough for now. When it rains it pours, right? On the positive side, the weather is warming up and signs of spring are everywhere. We are embracing the sunshine and getting outside. Today I took the kids to the Botanical Garden and we saw daffodils, blue bells, magnolias, and cherry blossoms all beginning to bloom. A couple days ago we went to the Zoo. Carter kept calling the prairie dogs "fairy dogs". Nora likes the monkeys the best.

We've got a crazy few weeks coming up. Lots of trips out of town and projects around here going on. I'm sure we'll have lots to share the next time I post something. In the meantime, click HERE for some new pictures.

Happy Birthday to ME!

I had the MOST amazing birthday weekend of all time! Thank you all for the well-wishes and gifts!

Mike took the day off work Friday and we took the family to the St. Louis Science Museum to see the Star Trek exhibition. We're not huge Star Trek fans but we like the series and the movies, plus I scored a Groupon for tickets to the event. It was really interesting; I wish we could have spent more time looking at all the props and costumes. Carter and Nora were not that impressed with the whole thing. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed in the exhibit, but they had a few stations set up where a staff member would take your photo (Kirk's captain's chair, the transporter, and the Enterprise bridge). Then for a fee, you could get prints of the photos. Thanks to my Mom, we got a couple of the pictures. The transporter one is the best. It's actually a hologram, so if you tilt it one way, you see us, but then tilt it the other way, we disappear! Beam me up!

Friday night Mike and I went out to dinner at the Wildflower. This is the same place where we got married 5 years ago. It still looks exactly the same! Dinner was amazing. It was nice to sit and take our time eating, surrounded by other adults. I wish we could do that more often (no offense kiddos).

Saturday, Mike and I went to go see Star Wars in 3D at the movie theater. I was in heaven! I wish more of my favorite movies would be shown on the big screen again. Maybe I could rent a theater and all the old reels for a marathon movie viewing.

The rest of the weekend was low-key, hanging out with the kids at home, making pancakes Sunday morning, catching up on projects. I was sorry to see it end Monday morning. Thanks for babysitting Mom!

Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day! Mike went all out with flowers and chocolate covered strawberries. I'm feeling a little spoiled (but I'm not complaining!)

Kids are waking up from their naps...signing off.

Welcome to the Flip Side 2012

Happy Halloween! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

(whew!)

Apparently the last time I updated this blog was in October. Four whole holidays came and went without so much as a "byte" of info from us. To say we've been busy is a bit of an understatement. I've been working part-time nights and weekends (more on that later). We've travelled to visit family and had family travel to visit us. I didn't take a single photograph with my camera for the entire month of November! That's saying a lot for me. Our schedule has had me so frazzled lately that apparently on our Christmas card, I wrote that a highlight of 2011 for us was going to Minnesota for Grandma Lil's 85th birthday party. Yeah...uh...Grandma Lil's party was in 2010. Somehow I lost an entire year in my brain. Despite my apparent lapses in memory, I will do my best to fill you in on the past couple months in the Bunn household.

Event #1: Halloween!
Mike and I decided that Carter was old enough this year to try trick-o-treating in our neighborhood. We live on a dead-end road with only about a dozen houses. It worked out really well for us. Our neighbors really pulled out all the stops with the treats...I'm talking full-size candy bars here people! I figured this was probably going to be the last Halloween where I would get to choose Carter's costume myself, since he didn't really have an opinion on the subject. So, of course, he was Darth Vader. It's hard to tell in the photos that's what he was since he wouldn't wear the helmet part on his head, and he kept sticking his lightsaber (flashlight) in his eye. (sigh) My hopes of a Jedi child are dashed. Nora was very much excited to wear her Minnie Mouse costume, ears and all. She loves dressing up and it didn't take her long to catch on to the "doorbell = candy" equation. Overall, a great experience and Mike and I the kids really enjoyed the candy.

Event #2: Thanksgiving!
We loaded up the car and travelled down to Arkansas for Thanksgiving at Mamaw and Papaw's house. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a rough start. The morning we were planning to leave, Carter woke up in a giant pool of vomit. Ugh. In my opinion, nothing is worse than the smell of vomit. I would rather deal with the worst case of the runs instead of vomit. We delayed our start to see if Carter was actually sick, or if he just had an upset stomach. He seemed ok while I spent the morning doing laundry. So we hit the road a bit later than planned and headed south. Before we reached our destination, he barfed two more times in the car. It was awful! The smell! We thought about turning back but we just powered through it. It worked out fine, because the whole time we were down there, Carter was perfectly normal. Took forever to get the smell out of the car though. Moving on to the actual holiday...the highlight for the kids was probably riding on the trailer pulled by Papaw's tractor. Carter loved climbing on the tractors and sitting in the seats. Good food, great family, and Razorback football...we had a wonderful time.

Event #3: New job!
Just before Carter was born, I had left my job at Washington University. Working full-time is something I'd like to do once the kids are in school (or maybe preschool), but that's still a year or two away at least. Until then, I decided it would be nice to do a little part-time work. Nothing too demanding, just something to give us some extra money. Since I'm still with the kids all day while Mike's at his job, I looked for something nights and weekends. Well, there aren't a lot of options outside of restaurants and retail. I applied to a few retail stores and got a call from Michaels. It's an arts and crafts store, and they were looking for someone to fill an opening in their framing department. It's been a good fit so far. I like the store and shop there regularly, but I love the framing. I like being able to help people design something to showcase their special paintings, photos, or memorabilia, and then actually building it myself. It's gratifying when they see the final product. I've learned a lot working there. We get some of the most interesting things that people want framed. One lady brought in an actual footprint of an elephant on handmade paper that she got while in Africa.

Not sure how long I'll continue to work there. It was a bit insane during the push towards Christmas. I thought I was losing my marbles. The store was staying open so late, I was getting lots of hours, but I was getting home around midnight. Then getting up with the kids in the morning...and barely seeing Mike at all. It's slowed down a lot now, so I feel like I'm back in control of my household.

Event #4: Christmas!
The build-up to Christmas was actually tangible in our house this year. Carter finally seemed to "get it", that Santa would be coming to his house and he would be bringing presents. He was so excited. Nora quickly learned the word "Santa" and pointed out his likeness everywhere she saw it. We did our first Breakfast with Santa at our local rec center (which by the way had an excellent Santa and Mrs Claus). It went mostly well. Carter happily told Santa he wanted trains. Nora cried and likely got snot in Santa's beard (which was real). We decided to stay at home for this holiday to enjoy all the traditions without worrying about packing suitcases. Instead, my family came to visit us! Grandma, Pop, Karen, Corey, and Dalton all came to St. Louis for Christmas. Their visit was short but we made the most of it. We visited the Whittle Train Store, swam in the hotel pool, decorated cookies, played games, watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (that one never gets old), and generally stuffed ourselves to bursting. Carter still keeps asking me when we get to go to Dalton's house to play with his trains.

I'm running out of steam. This is the most I've typed continuously in a long time and my joints are cramping up. I have a few more news tidbits but I will save them for another update in a couple weeks.

New pictures on Facebook can be found HERE.

Happy Fall and Go Cardinals!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the way the leaves look in our neighborhood. And driving down Hwy 21 on a bright sunny day can make the hillsides look like they are on fire! The kids could care less about the breathtaking view, but they do love playing in the leaves. If only they could rake them up themselves.

Some things our family has done the last month or so:
1) Picked apples at Eckert's apple orchard.
2) Hiked a trail at Powder Valley Nature Center.
3) Sampled and admired all the works at the Best of Missouri Market.
4) Played volleyball or softball.
5) Brewed some beer.
6) Took a photography class at Forest Park's Jewel Box.
7) Slid down the twisty slide without Mom's help.
8) Saw a real armadillo at the World Bird Sanctuary.
9) Played chicken with a bison herd at Lone Elk Park.
10) Upgraded to a big-boy bed.
11) Cheered for the Cardinals!
12) Drew chalk pictures in the driveway.
13) Learned STOP, DROP, and ROLL!
14) Climbed all over some firetrucks.

The weather has been wonderful these past few weeks. We've been spending a lot of time outside. Once the weather turns colder and the days grow too short, we'll turn into crabby, caged beasts until spring comes again. So for now, it's "Let's go outside!"

Click HERE for new pictures. Enjoy!

"I am 3!"

Carter is officially out of the terrible twos, though I don't think they were ever really all that terrible. We had a great birthday party at our house with a Thomas the Tank Engine theme (if you don't know who Thomas is, pull your head out of the sand). Family and friends came to help us celebrate. Thanks everyone for your help and for the awesome gifts!

I keep thinking about all the milestones Carter has reached during this past year. The explosion of talking, running, and memory just blows my mind. We're working on potty training and soon he'll be in a "big boy" bed. I love being a witness to all his accomplishments but it is a little sad to see some things disappear. His word pronunciation improves all the time, so the adorable ways that he used to say some things are gone forever..."Nora" used to be "Ra-ra" and "Caboose" used to be "Boose-a-boo-boo". There are a few new ones though. Part of me doesn't want to correct the way he says "Peetz-ba" for "Pizza".

Nora has plenty of her own milestones to brag about as well. She's much more expressive at this age than Carter was. Already she has a few dozen words that I can recognize and her facial expressions never fail to make me smile. She's figured out how to climb onto the furniture and it's not uncommon for me to catch her standing up on an end table after leaving the room for a moment. She loves hiding in closets and tents, and hugs her stuffed animals whenever she comes upon them. In the flash of an eye, she will empty an entire drawer of clothing, then prance around the room with the clothes draped over her head. Such a ham! The best parts are listening to her and Carter giggle together like two scheming siblings.

The weather is finally turning cooler and we are welcoming the change with open arms. It's been a very hot and dry summer this year and we are looking forward to enjoying some playtime outside. Hope everyone is doing well!

Click HERE for a couple new pictures on Facebook.

And click HERE for birthday party pictures.