I am back!!! And my first post is: Zoo Wild Lights 2014

 I started this post in December, so I will post it "as is."

Last month we went to the annual Wild Lights event at the St. Louis Zoo. We meet at the zoo for dinner, walk around and look at the lights, get desserts, listen to carolers, and drink hot chocolate. The kids really enjoy it, and the boys remember past Wild Lights. (Here are the links to our past visits: 2012, 2011.)

Two more cakes!

The kids were downtown this weekend, so we got the only cake within walking distance that we hadn't already gotten - the Old Post Office. Afterward we went to the Missouri side of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, with the cake at the Columbia Bottoms preservation area. I wanted to see the actual confluence, (the cake was at the welcome center), but it was more of a drive than I thought. We will go back again, hopefully with bikes!

I love the goofiness of this picture!

Gwyn didn't want to get out of the car. (It was nap time. I can't blame her.)

Gwyn's First Dentist Visit

All 3 kids went to the dentist today.  It was Gwyn's first time, and she did great. She "didn't need to hold anyone's hand when they took the pictures." (X-rays) She did hold daddy's hand during the cleaning. She is most excited about her new toothbrush. (The boys are also excited about their new Transformers toothbrushes.)

Here she is showing off her sticker and candy cane pencil.

Now with a smile.

Bonus picture - this is what she does when she is under the mistletoe. She is hiding from the kisses.

Cakes #119 - 131

This catches us up (sadly) to all of our cakes. We only have a few weeks left, and shopping and holiday events are taking up my weekends. I have told my husband that I would love one awesome day of cake hunting for Christmas, but I am sure that 1) we won't have time or 2) there will be complaining most of the time. It has been such a fun memory for me to do this with my family. Not only have Gwyn, Colin and Kevin been included, but Kevin, my mom, his mom, my sister Cathy, my cousins Emily and Rachel, and my brother Tony have gone with us. It is bittersweet as the year ends, and I am honestly getting sad about it. The kids are staying downtown this weekend, so maybe I can get a few more then, but who knows. But on to the cakes we do have!

This post starts out with a cake hunt on a rainy Saturday. It was almost a bust. I spent some time getting the maps printed off, and then I left them at home. And this hunt was in an area in St. Louis I rarely go to, so even though I knew where the cakes were, I didn't know how to get to the locations. I was furious with myself. I had a teachable moment about staying calm, (after needing to remind myself that this is what it could be) and went to a McDonald's to use the wifi to just look it up on my ipod and capture the maps so I could have them in my photos. And then the site kept shutting down. I am not kidding. I was there for almost 20 minutes waiting for the site to load and then stop and then load and then stop and then load a bit more and then stop. It was really a lesson for the kids to see how close I could get to throwing my ipod without actually doing it. But the kids were sweet and I knew I would get it. So we got the screen shots, asked a family where the cake was that we couldn't find (a 1/2 black away and inside) and went on our way. From what I rememeber, Colin's pants were so wet by the end that the bottoms were wet up the shin, and Gwyn's pants were so big that they fell down every few steps. Which would have been cute if her underwear didn't go down as well. At first I was giggling until she bent over. Then I wasn't even sure she had underwear on! She laughed though, so who can get mad. But she tells you now when she gets dressed that THOSE pants are for next year.

The College School - Gwyn said she was okay - her frisbee was also her umbrella.

Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream - This was difficult to find as it was inside! It was also closed, so no ice cream... yet. Kevin had his umbrella keeping the cake dry. Colin's Spiderman umbrella was climbing the cake.

Loretto-Hilton Theatre / The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis - Colin did not want to get muddy. I was lucky he was in the picture at all!

Webster University - I don't know why the cake was near a parking garage and the public safety office, but I do know that the people in the office waved and smiled at us! They must get a lot of people taking pictures. Kevin wanted me to have the picture look like his umbrella was covering the cake.

Opera Theatre Saint Louis - This was maximum level warning for Gwyn's pants. I think the bottoms were wet and extra heavy. Colin was tired of the rain. Kevin is again keeping the cake dry!

Shrewsbury MetroLink Station - I wanted to ride the Metrolink here, but nopes.

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary - This was when the kids realized how chilly and wet they were. But I had a plan....

Ted Drewes! - Even though it was lunch time, we stopped for frozen custard! That cheered them up! And we got there at 10:50, and it opened at 11. I am pretty awesome sometimes. Gwyn is playing with the water on the cake.

This next set of pictures is from a different hunt, a week or so later. This was just us out running errands, and I was determined to get cakes beforehand! We were done within an hour! It was great, and even though it looks rainy, it was less rainy, and more frosty. (The cakes had frost on them.) Woo hoo! Win-win.

Frank Lloyd Wright House - This cake was stolen last month and it was in the news. Then, a week later, the cake reappeared. Colin is convinced that the person replaced the cake with a replica so they could keep the original.

Barretts Elementary School - I think the reason this school has a cake is because the district is huge and they got all the families to vote on the cake. (This is a vote-winner, and was not chosen.) But we got the cake anyway. Colin is acting like the mascot, which is a bulldog.

Museum of Transportation - This was one of the stops where I regret that we didn't have more time. The kids LOVED just walking around. The boys remember going a few years ago, but last time we went I was pregnant with Gwyn. There is a not a train to ride, and more exhibits. We will need to return. Maybe with the Kerr's?

Edward Jones South Campus - Colin is acting like a businessman here. I don't know what that means. Kevin is being burned by the flame. Gwyn is at least in the picture.

The Lodge at Des Peres - Possibly the best picture of them all. I don't even know what is going on.

 Here is hoping we get more!

Cakes #109 - 118

I know I don't blog much. Honestly, there are only about 5 people who read it! So I have little motivation. Sorry.

Here is an update on the cakes. We have gotten up to 131! I was so excited to get halfway, since the weather got cold, and we had little time. (Finishing up soccer season for the boys had us up to 3-4 games a weekend for a few weeks.) On top of that, Kevin is finishing up his Master's, and he is swamped with schoolwork.

In my determination I kept going. I am still enjoying it! Kevin still likes it (not the hubby, he doesn't care), but Colin and Gwyn are not as interested. Thankfully Kevin talks it up to his brother and sister, and is sweet to me about it.

Anyway, here are some of our recent adventures! (More posts are coming since we now have 131 cakes!)

This day of cake hunting started at Jefferson Barracks. It was the Sunday before Veteran's Day and we headed to the cemetery to add flowers to two geat-grandpa's sites. There are 3 cakes in the surrounding parks, so we started there. Here is the cake at the Civil War Museum.

This is the Jefferson Barracks Historic Site Visitor's Center. We ran into a couple that finished all the cakes the day before! We were sharing stories about our favorites and which ones were difficult to find. That is one thing about this adventure - you talk to people at so many locations! Everyone has a favorite cake or two as well.

Here we are at the Mississippi River Greenway - Trailhead in Jefferson Barracks Park. This is part of a trail system being developed in St. Louis, adding trails all over the city and county. There are trails next to our neighborhood that are part of this. I love it!

This is the Gateway Harley-Davidson, which was closed on the Sunday morning we were there. Thankfully the cake was outside!

Here is the second cake picture Gwyn has taken. This is much better than the first! We are at St. Anthony's Medical Center.

We ended this trip at Laumeier Sculpture Park. We need to bring the Kerr's here. It has art and a park! Megan will love it! I liked this cake since it was decorated with items found in the park. Some of it was trash, some was natural materials, but I like that idea.

This cake at Lambert International Airport is out of order. We actually took it on our way to Chicago in early October. But I forgot about it, and I didn't want to renumber all the cakes I have already numbered. So here it is. It is also a cake I could not get with the kids by myself since it is inside the airport. I can't leave the car without paying for parking. So this cake is just me.

Okay, I thought I had a great idea. I thought if we went for "night cakes" after dinner then a couple things would happen. 1.Kevin would have quiet time to work on school work. 2.We would get out of the house. 3.We get a cake! Well, I forgot about how dark it was getting at dinner time. Winter hours were not on my brain. So we set up a night hunt with Kevin's mom/Grandma Louise. We left right after dinner, around 5:30, to a cake I have been wanting. It was dark before we even left. But we had fun, and froze, and got 2 cakes that evening. The first was one Our Lady of the Rivers at Portage des Sioux. You can barely see the statue in the background. The river is right behind it. It was pretty to see the cars driving on the great river road in Illinois, but I had to use headlights from the car to light up the cake! #AlmostFail.

The second cake of the night was West Alton Memorial Park. It was about an hour trip to get both. (Unfortunately, we have so many cakes that the closest ones to the house we don't have are about 30 minutes away - at least!)

A few night later we went to the Historic Daniel Boone Home & Heritage Center with DTG (my mom). This was interesting. We were approached by security. Okay, the gate was open, there were NO signs saying "Closed at dusk" or any hours or anything telling us to go away. There were even cars in the parking lot! (Apparently there was some kind of class going on, which is why the gate was open.) The cake was not at the gates, but up by the house. So we parked and walked in, and as we got the cake we scared an employee and had security sent to question us. It was scarier for us than it was for them. 

I will update again soon with more cakes!

The Christmas Decorations Are Up!

... and it took less than 4 hours to find this. These boys are adorable.

Gwyn just loves what she calls "Gwyn-sized trees!" She wanted her picture with them. And yes, it is cold out, but she didn't want to wear tights in the house.

Halloween 2014

This year both boys wanted to be boys for Halloween. Which pretty much means that they wanted to dress up as some kind of death. (This was a bit awkward when they dressed up to see my grandma at her nursing home.) At first Gwyneth was going to be Santa Claus, which was my favorite. Then she was going to be a pirate, and then finally settled on Tangled. (Which is really Rapunzel.) I should have known it would be Tangled, and I honestly did and almost bought the costume back in September, but I guess I was still hoping for Santa Claus.

Halloween was freezing this year. It was so cold. The kids had to bundle up. At least the boys could still wear their costumes on the outside, but Gwyn cried about having to wear long sleeves under her dress. And I remember being little and having the same thing happen. It ruins what you thought you would get to dress up as. I felt bad for her, but she came around once it got closer to collecting candy.

Gwyn made it around one court this year! It is much better than the 1/2 house she made it to 2 years ago, and the 3 she made it to last year! Afterward, we hung out in the house with my mom while Kevin took the boys out. After about an hour the boys returned to drop off candy and head out again, but they never left the house after getting warmed up.

It was a successful night!

Gwyn wanted a sickle, just like her brothers.

Dress-Up Day At School

Kevin and Colin had a day where they could dress up like the profession they want when they grow up. Colin did not care to dress up, but Kevin did. He wants to be an engineer. Luckily, we had a polo and a belt for him to wear to school. But his favorite part was the badge. It even had a real Boeing lanyard!