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Wednesday, November 5, 2014

a mini-trip

Back in September (I'm still catching up!) we met my parents in St. Louis for a quick weekend trip.  Rowan's immune system apparently sensed a fun trip away and she got pretty ill on the Friday we were supposed to go.  We waited it out, and were able to meet up with my parents the next morning, where she was back to her own cheeky self.
Although we've lived an hour and a half away from St. Louis for over 2 years now, we've never done the touristy stuff with my parents!  We all decided an Anheuser-Busch tour was in order.   So a brewery tour might seem strange for an outing with kiddos.  But the littles loved seeing the stables and the Clydesdales.  And the grownups all loved the free beer!  Win win.  We also went to the arch and took the tiny little capsule elevators to the top to enjoy a perfect-day view.  
And we took them to our favorite place in St. Louis, the botanic gardens!  I can't get enough of the gardens, and we literally stayed until closing.  Pretty sure my parents loved it, too.
 But really, those fish mouths?  Hilarious and only slightly creepy.
It was a perfect little trip away, or almost perfect!  We could have used a couple more days.  But isn't that always the case?

Monday, November 3, 2014

the ballerina butterfly and cyberman

Oh, hi there!  Remember me?  No?  I'm Ruthie.  I write blog posts here.  Sometimes.  After a humongous break, thanks to busy times around here, I am back and ready to use this space again to document my family's adventures and share recipes and fun little things.  And to kick it all off, I have our Halloween pictures to share.
Rowan likes to combine ideas into one costume Two years ago was she was a fairy princess. Last year- princess bride. This year she couldn't decide between a butterfly or a ballerina, so she combined them.  Honestly?  I'm was just ecstatic she didn't choose to be Elsa from Frozen.  Not that I have anything against Elsa, but I could have EASILY lost her in the crowd if that's what she had been.  Fletcher vacillated between a Lego guy, a Minecraft guy, or a Cyberman from Dr. Who for months before settling on Cyberman.  I truly enjoy creating their costumes, but I cheated this year and ordered both of the masks that they are wearing.  The rest of Rowan's costume just involved gathering elements.  Fletcher's, however, was a little bit trickier.  I got the idea to cut pieces of silver contact paper to adhere to a grey sweatsuit, but Brian was the genius that sewed it all on so that it wouldn't peel off.  Brian is a costume maestro.  His Brawny-man costume was pretty great, too, since it involved items we already had around!
I'm completely biased, but I thought the costumes were the best I saw.  Halloween night was super frosty, so we had to wear wings over puffy coats and fleece under cyber-clothes.  But these kiddos were such troopers and completed their mission to fill up their bags with goodies.  Can I just ask why no one gives out chocolate anymore??  I don't want to steal smarties and dum-dums from their stash after they're asleep!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween night!  How is it November already?