Memorial Day Celebrations

On Memorial Day, we woke up at Grandma Ann's house. We got ready and headed over to the Memorial Day celebration taking place in the park in Kampsville where my Grandma and Grandpa live. Grandpa served in the Korean War. He is part of the Legion post in Kampsville. He is also mayor of the town so we knew we needed to be there. Naturally we forgot that there is a ferry that connects the two sides of the river. So we were late. Like 10 minutes late. Oh Well.

 

We got to be there for it.

As we walked up, these lovely gentlemen were getting ready to shoot their guns.

Clearly Charlotte didn't like it.

My boys...

 

Small town USA saluting America.

This, my friends, is what it is all about.

This, my friends, is the area of the world that I want to raise my kids.

My Dad gave a speech about my friend Tyler that was injured in Iraq in 2004. It was such a good speech and made Dad and I cry. (Not shocking). I love Memorial Day. I love celebrating the lives of the men and women who have given their lives for our freedom. I love remembering them and their families that they left behind.

 

This is my Grandpa.

He is a hero.

These two have the same hair.

Kisses for Great Grandma.

These two are brothers.

They are both veterans.

Mom plays taps every year at the Memorial Day program.

 

Mom, Grandpa, Aunt Bev, Mom's two cousins, and Uncle Deener.

Uncle Deener and some of his grandkid crew :)

Charlotte was in rare form.

That usually happens on big weekends :)

This is such a good picture of these two.

I'm very proud of it.

After the steaming hot celebration in the park with bugs all over us and biting us, we headed to the American Legion hall and ate some delicious food.

Sweet Charlotte and Great Grandpa Redeye.

They were sharing secrets.

Hugs and kisses for Great Grandma.

After lunch we headed over to the swimming party at Aunt Diane's pool.

It's always a big party!

Such a fun family!

Katie is cool.

Charlotte sneaking a drink of my Moto soda.

Swimming with Daddy!!!

Liss and Kyla hanging in the pool!

Aunt Kathy isn't exactly a fish in the water but she jumped off of the diving board anyway :)

Gotta love her!!!

(We sent all of the boys down to help if she needed it.)

Didi bought all of the kids some sort of blue slushie things. They LOVED it.

Clearly Alana preferred other things.

A big blue mouth....

Kyla was down to business. She was determined to finish her slushie!

 

We had a great day at Aunt Diane's house. Mom and Dad ended up coming over to Aunt Diane's. Dad and Alex rode home together. Mom rode back to the villa with the kids and I. We spent the night at the villa and went to St. Louis the next day. We had such a great Memorial Day Weekend!

 

A big thanks to all of our family for the fun and thanks to my cousin Melia for taking our pictures on the farm.

A Day With The Greats

On Friday, January 24, 2014, Mary and I got up and headed down South for a busy weekend of family events. I picked her up and we drove to Kampsville to see Grandma and Grandpa Schumann... AKA Grandma and Grandpa Great.

 

We ate a delicious lunch at the Kampsville Inn. The kids played the games with Grandpa and Grandma. They ran around (like they always do) and just ruled the world.

 

Afterwards we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house to hang out for awhile.

Grandpa even took the afternoon off of work!

He had much more important things to do....like read books to his babies.

Check out the lollipop in Charlotte's hand. She even weaseled that out of Grandpa at the restaurant.

Sawyer jumped in with a different book.

He also decided that he needed to watch HIS shows....and not Grandma's Family Feud she normally has on.

He is so cute.... he peed through...like he always dose.... He kind of looks like a bruise here in his different shades of blue. He was playing with ALL of Grandpa and Grandma's figurines....and breaking them.

 

Grandma says she never gets kisses. Yes you do, Gram. I have proof!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Charlotte and Sawyer (and pregnant Mary) enjoy the big red ball/pillow/chair/couch/bed thing that Grandma bought off of the internet.  It's huge.

I think someone had stinky feet...

Let's see...

Yep!!! She did!!

I wish Grandma wasn't blurry in the background. What a great picture.

The two cowboys. Apparently Charlotte didn't get the memo that everyone was supposed to wear shades of blue.

Grandma and Grandpa Schumann and some of their great grandchildren.

I love this one :)

 

We had such an awesome day with Grandma and Grandpa Schumann. The kids loved hanging out with them...and perhaps breaking a few things.

 

Thanks for the day, Grandpa and Grandma. You both don't look a day over 40 and don't act a day over 30. We love you so much!



Black Friday... We Traveled and Ate

Instead of getting up really obnoxiously early on Black Friday and heading out shopping, I got up at normal time and headed down to see family. Alex had to work (shocking I know) so the kids and I piled into the Tahoe. We headed to Carrollton first to see Grandma Ann and whatever Webers were around. We got there in time for lunch!

 

The crazies had to see the kitties AS SOON as they walked into the house.

The baby kitties that had grown since the last time we had visited Grandma.

Jake came to play too. He gave Sawyer a hat...

Liss helped make lunch and in turn she had Charlotte help her too :)

Charlotte LOVES to cook.

Does this not just steal your heart?????

I would be a cat lady if I could. I really wish I could....

I messed up the cropping and editing of this picture. I chose not to fix it. It's the odd picture out. But how funny are these two.

Melia, my cousin (the next Weber cousin in line after me), gave birth to her beautiful baby girl at the beginning of November. Here we are meeting her for the first time. Charlotte fell in love. Absolutely in love.

 

Grandpa Richy came out to visit with Melia and her two girls. He is smitten by baby Allana. Sawyer loved her too....and you can always find Liss wherever all of the babies are :)

Grandma loves her great grandbabies :) Sitting with her oldest and her youngest.

Pretty baby girl...

After we hung out for the greater part of the afternoon, I loaded the kids up and headed over to the Villa for Thanksgiving with the Schumanns.  We got there just in time to eat with everyone. Grandma and Grandpa, Bev and T, and Aunt Betty and Uncle Paul came down. Mom cooked a delicious meal.

Sawyer loved hanging out with Aunt Bev.

 

Aunt Bev, Grandpa, Grandma, and Mom

Grandpa loves picture time. All of these ladies just tell him what to do.

 

Do you see the similarities?

Dad was taking pictures on his Ipad as well. After he took the pictures, they all had to look at them. So funny.

I have no idea what he is saying here.

Gigi is so funny.

Cousin Chet came over to see all of us. Sawyer loves him. Charlotte is scared of him and his beard.

 

 

I told Charlotte that if she would smile then Chet would go home. This is the smile I got.

Papa and his two babies...

...fighting over the Ipad.

After I ate supper, I ended up getting sick a few times. I threw up multiple times. Everyone else felt fine. I had no idea what was going on. I was so extremely nauseous that I couldn't function. However, both kids only wanted "mommy" to put them to bed. So I had to suck it up to get them to sleep. While I was rocking Sawyer to sleep, Charlotte fussed and stood outside of the room.

She fell asleep standing up and pouting....

 

 

The rest of the night was awful. I threw up consistently from 6 pm until 2 am. Projectile vomiting that then led to just dry heaving like a mad woman. I continued to dry heave off and on all night. In between I would fall asleep with my head on the toilet seat for awhile and then move back to the bed. I didn't eat or drink anything from 6 pm on. In the middle of the night, I heard Dad start to get up and run to the bathroom. He was doing the same thing I was. By morning, Mom had joined us in the sick kids group. When we talked to Mary later in the day, she also was having vomiting. I still had to drive home the morning of the 30th because it was Alex's birthday. So I made the 3.5 hour drive home from the Villa. It was awful. But by the time I got home, I had eaten a few pretzel sticks and had drank a bit of water. I felt awful the entire next day. Charlotte, Sawyer and Alex eventually had their rounds with it....but none of them vomited like I did. Holy cow!!!!

 

I hate that I was sick and couldn't enjoy all of the Thanksgiving celebrations. Regardless, it was a great Thanksgiving.