Visit from the Penicks!

We got back in town on Friday afternoon and the next day Jill’s family came into town for a wedding.  We were so excited to get to play with Ted and Worth for a couple of hours Saturday morning.  After a week of playing with cousins and then Caleb and Luke in St. Louis, Cole was getting spoiled having daily playmates!

    

The boys “raced” around the “track” in the front yard on the motorcycle and in the jeep.  So cute.  Look at the smile on Cole’s face.  You think he’s having fun??  He’s getting really good at steering and driving these things.  So much so that he’s doing things like standing up and driving, going down hills to go faster, etc.  My little cautious one is getting a little braver!!

 

Last night

After the zoo we separated for naptime.  We got back together at dinner with Caleb, Luke and Heather.  Lance (the daddy) also got to join us.  We went to this area in Kirkwood with several different restaurants and an outside pavillion area with a live band.  There was even a balloon man so the boys got to get blow up ballons and dance around to the music.

  

Next stop was Baskin Robbins.  I LOVE mint chocolate chip ice cream and never get it because we don’t have them around us so we stopped for ice cream –Yes, I got a DOUBLE scoop on a cone and ate every drop! :)  The boys ate theirs and then played in the fountains.  They had a ball together.

  

To say we had a jam packed time in St. Louis is an understatement.  We had so much fun and were so busy.  It’s crazy that there is so much to do there that we didn’t even scratch the surface.  We definitely have to make another trip up there to hang out.  Thank you Lance and Heather for such a great visit!!

Hotel!

It’s such a treat for Cole to get to stay in a hotel.  He loves it!  It’s not so much fun for me and Kyle because to get them to go to bed, you have to have lights completely out which means we’re all in bed by 8 or we’re all up too late and kids are cranky the next day.  We got smart this time and got a suite.  There were two rooms and a kitchen.  Perfect for putting milk in the fridge and perfect because we could close the door and they could go to bed at a normal time.  I felt bad that Cole had to sleep on a pull out couch but he thought it was the coolest thing ever and slept great!  It was his “couchbed”.  Cade enjoyed getting into everything!

  

St. Louis Zoo!

The next day we met Heather, Caleb and Luke at the Zoo.  It was HOT but kind of overcast so it didn’t seem to be too bad at all.  We were there for about 4 hours and the kids did great.

    

Cade probably had more fun than any of us.  He LOVES animals.  He’s not afraid of dogs, anything.  Cole always was and still kind of is.

When we visited the chimps, they were all laid up by the glass trying to stay cool.  Cole had his face plastered right up against it looking at them and one of them lifted up his arm and tapped the glass with the back of his hand right at Cole’s face.  Cole jumped a mile high.  Hilarious!

 

     

Heather had packed a lunch for us so we headed over to Forrest Park – was that right? – for a picnic.  The boys were worn out and very ready for naptime so it was rushed but I loved hanging out there.

Such a fun day!!!

St. Louis!

We left Lexington and headed for St. Louis to visit the Dillards for a couple of days.  It’s about halfway between Lexington and Fayetteville so it was a great way to break up the trip.

 

We drove in about 3:00 and headed straight to the Magic House which is a Children’s Museum.  It was awesome!!  I wish we had a place like this in Fayetteville.  It’s all about using your imagination so they had tons of different “stations” for kids to do things.  First stop was fixing a car.  You could change tires, check the engine, etc.

 

Next was the fishing hole and I wasn’t sure that we were going to get Cole to leave this one.  The poles had a magnetic end so the kids could “fish” and catch the magnetic fish.  When they caught one, they would run down to the other end of the stream and “release” their fish.  You could then see the fish swimming back to the hole down the stream (the stream is what Cole is running on in the pic below.)

    There was a pizza restaurant and a water factory.

  

There was also an area just for Cade’s age with balls and mirrors.  Perfect for one that is still crawling!!  When is this kid going to walk!

   

They enjoyed pretending to drive the car.  This pic on the right might be a glimpse into the distant future…A sixteen year old and an eighteen year old…SCARY!

  

This is Caleb, one of the Dillard boys.  We had a blast with Heather, Caleb and Luke and were so excited to hang out with them.  Caleb wanted to hold Cade really bad, but Cade wasn’t really interested :)

 

Afterwards, as if the kids weren’t worn out enough, we ate pizza at an excellent pizza place in Kirkwood which is the area where the Dillards live and then we made a stop down the street for snowcones.

 

  

Right in the middle of this little area is a little train station.  We were lucky to get to see a train go by.  Cole was a little scared about it!  It was pretty loud and he definitely had never been that close to one before.

  

We walked down the street and stopped for ice cream for the adults.  The kids were walking along the benches pretending to be a train!

 

Caleb, Luke, Cade and Cole

 

We walked across the street to a candy store and each of the kids got a quarter to pick out their favorite candy.  It was such a cute place – just like an old timey candy store with all of the candy in jars.

  

Next was the Kirkwood fire station.  We left with hats, stickers, cars, etc!

 

Seriously…we did all of this in a matter of about 1 1/2 hours.  The kids loved it and it was such a fun place to visit!!

Great time!

We had a great time in Kentucky!  This is our last picture of the cousins just before we loaded the car to go to St. Louis.  I wish Ray Ray and Ju Ju were in the picture too! Thank you JA and Marty for being great hosts! 

Lyla bug

I had so much fun with Lyla while we were there.  She was such a big help with Cade and was so much fun to hang out with.  Cole calls her “lyla bug”.  Too cute.  While I was packing up my clothes Lyla came upstairs to help me.  She went through all of the boys clothes and helped me pick out what they were going to wear the next two days while we are in St. Louis.  She went through my clothes and tried on a few of my tops to model them.  So funny!  She added belts to complete her “look.”  The last pose is where she was doing her tiger “growl".”  I asked Jerri Ann where Lyla learned (at the age of 6) to pose like that. :)