McKerr Weekend April 2013

We have had so many of these, I am not linking any of the other posts. You should just know by now.

This past weekend all the McGuire's headed to Kansas City for the Brew to Brew run on Sunday. Steve and Kevin ran the relay race with fellow UMR runners, and ended up winning! Yea! It was a 44 mile race from Boulevard Brewery to Freestate Brewery. It even crossed a river, requiring runners to use a ferry to cross.

Back to the weekend. We arrived on Friday evening, with Gwyn riding in the car sitting like this. Really?

The boys were excited to sleep in Hannah's room.Unlike last time, Hannah did not kiss the boys. Super G slept in Olive's room, and it pretty much turned into them passing things back and forth while talking.

Most of the weekend was dominated with parks and games, and with Gwyn worrying every time we got in the car asking "Olive? Hannah?" We took all the kids to Deanna Rose Farmstead Saturday morning. I knew we would like it since Megan blogs about it so much. Even though it was crazy windy, it was great. Gwyn did not like the goats at first, but recovered with daddy holding her.  There was even fishing, horse-back riding, and an intense, confusing potato sack race.

While the guys were racing Megan and I took the kids to an awesome park with a lake, trails, a couple playgrounds, and even a small town for the kids to play in. Afterwards we even got to go to Pizza Shoppe! My favorite pizza place! I don't get to go since Kevin can't stand it.

And now for the games: insert a slow clap for the Kerr's. They were great. The first was Cards Against Humanity. (If you need a gift for me, I will take the game and the expansion packs!) It is Apples To Apples for horrible people. Perfect for us. The second was a card game called Wizard. It is a step up from a game we call Up Down (because neither Kevin nor I can remember the real name). It is now Kevin's favorite game and we are trying to find it here in St. Louis.

I have no idea how it happened, but we did not get a picture with all 5 kids. But it would have been adorable if we did, since this was the first McKerr weekend in a while without vomit!

Gwyn's First Haircut

One day after her 2nd birthday, Gwyn finally got a haircut! I have been telling Kevin that she needed the ends trimmed, but he was never ready. So after a few weeks, he chose a date and I didn't let him back down. (I think he was the most worked up.)

We had the boys both get haircuts first. Colin did a great job showing her how to sit still. When it came to her time, she would only sit if she could hold my hand and the bag of chocolate daddy brought. Once she saw how easy it was, she relaxed. In the end, she only had about 1 inch cut off, but it looks much healthier!

Let's Play Catch-Up

I am finally back to blogging.  Yes, I am going to blame the Kerr's for taking out camera charger. Because of them we hardly have any pictures from our McWeekend with them. (Okay, I guess it is my fault for not blogging.) Here are somethings that have happened in the past month or so.

I closed my elbow in a car door. It hurt really bad.

We had the Kerr's over near the end of January. While in town, we took them to the City Museum. I was excited about finally going since we have been talking it up for years. But every time they visit it is either too cold, raining, or 90 degrees out. It was about 50 for the latest visit, which was perfect! Even Gwyn was climbing, and she went through every tube outside, including the really tall one. (That girl wants to do everything, so why should I have said no?) Of course, our camera died, and I couldn't find the charger the night before, but only because I didn't look in the Kerr's luggage. That night we had Jess and Bryan over as well for some Olympics. It was epic. And hilarious. We don't have many pictures from the trip, but the Kerr's do.  Here is their take on the weekend, along with the few shots we got.

Evil Kevin made an appearance!

Final scores.

Kevin took the boys to the Cross Country National Championships in Forest Park. I think it would have been more fun if Kevin (son) didn't throw things at the runners when they ran by. My husband was embarrassed and enraged.

 Evil Kevin was around for a few weeks.

 But normal Kevin is back.

We did not have snowmageddon, but we did get snow. (It took Kevin about 2.5 hours to drive home the first day.) I stayed home with the kids enjoying the new fireplace, making sure it was roaring by the time Kevin got home. For the first time, ee even got to use the sled the boys got for Christmas in 2011! They loved it. And we found the the hill in our front yard works wonderful until we can all head out to the bigger hill in our neighborhood. We went sledding about as often as possible, and the boys spent even more time just playing in the snow. Gwyn? Well, she got all geared up and then stood and cried. Then she cried for being left out of sledding, and then cried from the sledding. It was lose-lose. But she seemed to enjoy getting her boots on and watching the boys play.

Just a family watching America's Test Kitchen. 

One of our weekly attempts at getting laundry done. 

Funny Pictures

I had out the laptop with Gwyn on my lap.  She saw pictures and wanted her picture taken.  The Kerr's took our camera charger with them when the visited a few weeks ago, so our camera is dead.  So I turned on the camera on the laptop, and added a few effects.  The boys also got involved.  

Gwyn started crying because the boys were getting in the picture.

Colin being a ninja (He calls it "inja.") and Kevin holding his  toys.

Effects started.  Alien heads first....

...then chipmunk cheeks...

...and bug eyes.

Alien heads...

...and bug eyes.

New Fireplace!

We decided after Christmas that it is finally time to replace the fireplace.  If you haven't noticed in past pictures, we have had a blanket over it.  (Here is a past post where you can see it.) Not only is it covered with a blanket, but also a plastic sheet. There is so much draft that you could feel the cold air just walking by.  Even covered, there was still cold air.  And the draft was so bad that we couldn't get a fire going.  (See this post.) 

Now that the kids are getting a bit bigger, it is time to start doing things around the house. So we got a fireplace insert!  So far, we have had a fire every Saturday and Sunday!  I love it, it reminds me of when I was younger.  Not only did I have one in my house, but my babysitter did, too.  I loved sitting in front of it as long as I could possibly stand it, letting the back of my shirt get super hot. 

The other thing we had to do was move the thermostat out of the family room.  It measured that room as being warm, and the upstairs rooms got down to about 62 degrees.  Now (thanks to Uncle Marty) the thermostat is in the dining room.  Problem solved. 

Colin's Bloody Nose

We woke up over Winter Break to find Colin on the couch with blood on his shirt.  I asked him what happened, and he explained that he woke up with a bloody nose.  But then he told me, quite proudly, that he had used tissue to clean his face and hands, and even washed his hands and used a water to clean off the rest of his face.  I walked away so proud of him.  He took care of it!  I didn't have to do anything! 

Then I walked into the bathroom. 

There was so much blood, but I am glad that it was only on tissues and easily-cleaned surfaces.  I called him in there, but all I could do was laugh.  How could you not?  He was so proud!

And just so you know, the couch that holds tissues was a gift from a Thai friend.  I hope she sees it!

What did we have for breakfast?

Powdered Donuts!

Christmas 2012

Sorry it has taken so long to get this post up.  I know, I know.

I tried to get pictures of all the kids dressed nice.  As usual, the boys did not participate.  So it looks like all I did was take pictures of Gwyn.  We don't really put her in nice dresses very often, but after seeing how cute she was, she will be wearing more. She had another dress for Christmas Day, but I don't have a good picture of it. 

All of my mom's side was at Christmas Eve, with the exception of my great-grandma.  This has not happened in years, since so many of us have kids and other families to see.  There were all 12 in my mom's generation (including spouses), all 12 of my cousins (16 with spouses), and then all 12 great-grandchildren.  It was awesome, and loud!  It was the type of Christmas I remember having when I was young.  We got pictures of all of my mom's generation.  (It happens so rarely that someone has a picture up with an imposter for my uncle Jerry.  With a family that big, there is always one person who can't make it!) We tried to get a picture with all of my generation, but the youngest is only 2 and he was crying.  So in his place is his truck.  (We tried to use it to bribe him but that didn't work.)  And then we also got a picture with my kids' generation.  Those kids were the easiest to get a picture of!  I didn't have my camera, but I will share them when I get them!  (And only 5 of my cousins and I have started having kids!  There are still 7 without kids!)

As for Christmas, all I remember now was the AWESOME bottle opener we got from Kevin's sister Kelly, who is in Australia.  The boys loved their Legos, and put everything they got together in two days.  And Gwyn LOVES her new baby things.  She opened her stroller first and then walked around for 10 minutes not bothering to pay attention to any other gifts.  She stopped when she got the baby bed, and new baby from Colin.  She loves taking care of her babies, and rocks them, puts them to sleep, and walks around with them.  The boys had a doll and a stroller, and they never played like this.  It is adorable.  Oh, she did love her apron, since I wear mine when I cook.  But not as much as baby stuff.  Girls are so different.