Family & The City Museum [Take 2]

Weekend, weekend, you are blazing right on by!

There was no movement in our house today before 9am. I think the dog was probably up hours before anyone else was stirring. Hah. Once we did get moving, sluggish as that may have been, Joe took Tim & Lynn over to base to tour it. Heidi, Paul, and Jonathan made a stop over at Guitar Center to get some things straightened out for the new guitar that Paul’s been arranging to get for Jonathan. It’ll be his first Martin; we’re all pretty excited for him.

Early afternoon rolled around, and found me in the backseat with Jonathan as Paul drove us and Heidi into St. Louis for their first go at the City Museum [take 2, Cori!]. I was so excited to show them everything, as simple explanation does it very little justice. In no time at all, I was back in the museum’s lobby for the second time in 12 hours. We wasted no time in getting right to it, and spent the next four hours consumed in all of the twists of the interactive playground.

There’s an antiqued piano on the upper level, and Jonathan made himself right at home to entertain some passing patrons. I’m so proud of him and impressed by his musical talents! I thank God constantly for blessing me with the family He has, and for blessing them with the talents they have to develop.

All music aside, we happened by a room inhabited by Marion Nichols, author and craft master. It didn’t take much persuading to lure us into a free craft session. Of the wide span of Ms. Nichols’ genius, she has a whole line of books dedicated specifically to paper snowflakes. She can pretty much translate any object into a design for paper snowflakes. The tutorial we joined today involved us using paper snowflake-specific scissors to cut out the necessary parts on a template to create our own. We didn’t do too bad! Heidi’s was a fairy, Jonathan’s a musical treble clef, Paul’s an acoustic guitar, and mine a seahorse. Yeah, like I said. This lady’s got it all. 



crafty. oh so crafty.





Once we were through with the snowflakes, we decided to stick around for one more session with Ms. Nichols, who moved seamlessly into copper plating. This I’d never really done, so it was a bit interesting. For this one, Heidi landed a tiger, Jonathan a spider, Paul a treble clef, and me a fish. They actually came out pretty neat, in spite of our apparent inabilities to fold straight edges to finish them off before mounting. Haha. Oh, well. Still fun.

It was mid evening when we finally rolled back into our driveway. Paul & Heidi took off for a date night dinner, and I whipped up some Italian for all of us here. Once P&H returned, we took to some DIY and light guitar jam sessions before calling it a night. Here’s another Pinterest pin. Love love love.



old shirt = new scarf :)



Church tomorrow!

xo | cmd

Company & The City Museum [Take 1]

Happy Friday!

I was greeted by Joe, Tim, & Lynn when I got home from work. I had every intention of cooking dinner, but by unanimous vote, we decided on a more relaxed option of Eckert’s. Off we were to enjoy Joe’s favorite fried biscuits and some good country food. Taking visitors there has always been a favorite of ours, and it was no surprise that everyone enjoyed the experience.

now that's coffee!

Back at the house, it wasn’t long before my sister and nephew rolled in from Ohio, bringing with them all kinds of delectable edibles from either Mom or the farmer’s market. Tim had brought with him some authentic coffee beans, complete with manual grinder. I never thought I’d regret having traded our traditional coffee maker for our Kuering [and I still don’t], but now would be an excellent time to have both, as selfish as that sort of seems. It’s funny how the upgrade in technology can almost be, at times, inconveniencing. Hah. In any regard, while we were forced to momentarily postpone fresh coffee, we weren’t hindered at all in terms of regular eating. No sir, we were entirely prepared for all of that. J

 



fun @ the city museum



We’d already decided to take Tim & Lynn into St. Louis, specifically to the City Museum downtown. For the natives here, I don’t believe it’s considered much of a new relic, but we’re still enamored by its creative intensity, so naturally we show it off to our friends whenever possible. To our disappointment, we didn’t realize until after we got there that my 14-year-old nephew could’ve easily gone with us, as the rule for 18yrs+ doesn’t apply if you’re there with someone who is 18+. Oh, well. It’s probably for the better, so that Paul wouldn’t be excluded in the trip, and was there at our house when we returned anyway. At the museum, Tim & Lynn were beside themselves taking in the child-like visualizations brought to fruition on adult-sized scales. Joe and I had only been there once before, so it was a refresher of what was to be offered. We climbed, crawled, ascended, descended, and slid down the 10-story spiral slide, loving every minute of watching each other maneuver through tiny tunnels and crawlspaces.

It’s now almost 1am; we just got back moments ago, and I… [aside from post-dating...] am… beat.

Gooooood Night!

xo | cmd

The Reprise of Someecards

One of the great assets of Pinterest is the vast variety of material that people pin and re-pin. For those of you who are still unfamiliar with Pinterest, I would suggest you exploring that at your own risk: I’m warning you now that it really is worth it, but it’ll sucker up all your time if you let it! Some of the newest things in my house are pinspired things.



one of the many.. :)



Within my work alone, Meagan and I are both avid pinners. Today, she showed me one she’d found a pin from an old Someecard. It sent me into déjà vu to my days at Clearchannel, when Kim, Catie, and I would shoot those busters back and forth nearly twice a day. I was instantly reminded of how funny they can be [though, admittedly, some take it a bit too far]. We took a few minutes and scanned through the workplace cards for some good laughs.

Work aside, we spent the evening tidying up for the next round of out-of-town visitors. Joe’s friend Lynn drives in from Cincinnati tomorrow, and his friend Tim will fly in from Seattle. Plus, Heidi, Jonathan, and Paul will be here at some point tomorrow evening, too. They’ll all be here for the weekend.

It’s gonna be a busy one!

Headin’ to rest up….

xo | cmd

Babysitting :)

Kyle & Amy are one of the couples we know from base; Kyle works with Joe, and they were the two we initially hung out with as soon as we moved to Scott. Their daughter and Sydni always have a blast together, so it was our pleasure when Kyle asked us to keep an eye on Sydni while he and Amy went in to the hospital to await the birth of their second baby. Joe texted me at work to let me know that Tessa was already at our house, and that the two little girls were taking the afternoon by storm. 



welcome baby liam!



As soon as I got back to the house, I relieved Joe of babysitting duty and took the girls to church. It was quite the production getting them both into agreeable clothing; each of course had to have her own ensemble: cartoon character shirt, skirt, leggings, pigtails, backpack, stuffed animal, blankie, and juice cup. When I finally got them out the door and loaded into the car, I was forbidden to leave the garage until I got the Veggie Tales’ Hairbrush song running.

We made it through church with very little fuss, and for being such good little girls, I treated them out for some dinner together before heading back to our house. Since I’m editing this entry to backdate it, Tessa spent the night last night and her baby brother Liam was born this morning at 12:30AM!

We’re so excited to see him!

I’m a bit tired… Ciao for now J

xo | cmd

GLAD IT WASN'T ME

WHOA, DUDE.

[random thought for today.]

Yeah. I just saw this shot and had to share it.
Note to self: My life could be worse.

Word.

xo | cmd

Creativity Is Cheap [Hooray!]

Typical Monday, you silly thing. I’m glad the work part’s over. Hah.

So… yesterday when we were at the Babots, Sydni and Landon had a blast playing with the ‘weather bear’ that Lara and her mom had made for Landon. It’s basically a felt board teddy bear with felt clothes. It struck me today that it’s the perfect idea, and, knowing Sydni, she’d love it. I was all over it. During lunch, I made a pitstop at Michael’s to pick up some felt, then over to Goodwill to find a good frame for it all.

Back at home, Sydni and broke out our $5ish worth of materials, the felt glue, and some scissors. For all you DIY’ers out there, here’s how we completed our little project:

1. Remove poster or picture from picture frame. Wrap glass pane with felt. Secure back into frame.
2. Create a template for animal cut-outs. We used simple notebook paper and then traced out the shape onto felt. All the animals should be the same size and shape if you want the clothes to fit them uniformly.
3. Cut out animals. Use a sharpie to add details [paws, claws, etc.]
4. Glue animals directly onto felt. Add little eyeballs of your choice [glue ‘em.]
5. Using the same animal template, trace out clothes. Make them slightly bigger than the cutout so they’ll cover the animals completely.
6. Cut out clothes; use sharpies or markers to add details!

Tada! You now have a stellar little felt board for dressing up animals. I particularly love it because it’s not just a little girl thing; these animals and outfits could totally be boy-catered. J Love.

This one’s definitely goin’ on Pinterest. Hah.

Night, blogbots!

xo | cmd

Pint Size Rock Band

We started off the day with church; I was in the nursery for the morning, but still managed to spend some of the service upstairs with Joe & JB. After church, we headed back to the house and stayed there for just a bit before JB packed up and headed back to Cincinnati.

Joe, Syd, and I settled in at the Babots for lunch and a few rounds of our favorite couples card game, kemps. Landon and Sydni fished out some of Landon’s toys, and serenaded us with some toddler show tunes. It was… lovely J. 



http://www.40ditw.com/



Sunday evening service today was our introductory lesson into Rick Warren’s 40 Days in the Word study. This is a study that dissects scripture and teaching in an intensely literal, repetitious way. It’s quite practical in that it allows for a natural sense of deeper interpretation of each individual word, which ultimately leads to easier memorization. Pretty basic concept. Pretty cool results. 



casserole!
[thx rob & meagan!]



Meagan & Rob surprised us by dropping to bring us a chicken casserole at the church before we left. By the time choir practice was over, we were more than ready to head home and do some serious work on that little casserole. [Delicious. Thank you, thank you to the Greers!]

*Whew! What a day. See ya tomorrow, y’all.

G’Nite!

xo | cmd