It's Fun to Run and Lose Teeth and Go to the Zoo

Everett's front bottom tooth had been wiggly for awhile now.  Oh that you could've been a fly on the wall the Sunday morning he "helped" it along by accidentally kneeing himself in the mouth (don't ask.  Or try at home).  Our boy lost his first tooth!  The excitement!  The joy!  The giddiness!  Phone calls were promptly made to all the grandparents and Everett's eyes glazed over as he began dreaming of what he'd buy with his tooth money.

The next morning, when he discovered the tooth fairy left him FOUR pieces of money, he could hardly believe his good fortune.  He carried those quarters around in his pocket for days afterwards.  Currently? They're on top of the dryer after I fished them out of his shorts pocket.  He's lucky I don't tell the Tooth Fairy how he's tossed aside her good gift.

Our ward (church congregation) puts together an annual Memorial Day Fun Run.  There's a 5k, a one mile run/walk, a kids one mile and a kids 1/2 mile.  We entered Everett and Juliana into the kids 1/2 mile.  They did awesomely!  It was so fun to see them run so far.  Everett placed 2nd in his age group.  Here are some great action shots of the run:  

Everett running hard.

It was great to watch Juliana.  She's such a serious runner!  Plus with her arms ramrod straight and her pigtails swinging - words just can't adequately describe the humor.

Afterwards there were bagels, fruit and juice for breakfast - plus a playground, which helped garner this cool shot:

The kids loved their ribbons.  E's 2nd place and J's PURPLE participant (Trust me folks, she was THRILLED with the purple ribbon)

And after our last zoo debacle, I'm happy to report that we have been to the St. Louis zoo.  The kids were thrilled when I told them that's where we were headed:

It was a HOT day, but the kids had fun.  Until the end, when we had to walk all the way back to the car.  You would've thought their feet were broken if you'd heard all the whining.

Swimming hippos, 

the elephants, 

Some kind of bear (there were several).  I think it was a black bear?

the penguins.  Afterwards, the kids spent a good five minutes walking like penguins.  Oh to be 3 and 5 again!

Somebody's ONE!

Our baby girl, Giselle, aka, the "cutie", or "Gigi" or "cutie pie" recently celebrated her FIRST birthday!  Our fun gal had no idea her big day was upon us, but let me assure you, her older brother and sister were practically beside themselves with anticipation.  They told everyone they met for almost two weeks prior that "Giselle's birthday is on Saturday!"  We began the day by rushing into her room and singing "Happy Birthday" as loudly and as off-key as we could (minus Will.  He can actually carry a tune quite well.  Thank goodness for him, otherwise all the singing we do around here would hurt our ears even more!).  

To say Giselle was excited about the morning singing would be inaccurate:

In true Everett-and-Juliana fashion, they wanted to bust out the party hats immediately.  Giselle definitely wasn't having that.

But she rallied when it was time for her cupcake (the birthday treat of choice for one year old Giddens kids).  Here she is in all her one year old glory:

As far as mess-making goes, she came out fairly clean.  I think Juliana was our messiest/most dramatic one-year old.  

I was impressed she kept the party hat on the entire time.  E and J tore theirs off pretty quickly.

Ta-da!  All finished.  And yes, she was definitely our cleanest eater, as evidenced below:

Everett's first birthday: November 2006

Juliana's 1st birthday: September 2008

After Giselle's afternoon nap, we took off for the strawberry patch.  Everett and Juliana proved to be excellent pickers, while the birthday girl proved to be an excellent watcher:

Our harvest.

In all seriousness, Giselle has been a dream addition and conclusion to our family.  She has been sweet and wonderful since day one.  She adores her older brother and sister and they, in turn, adore her.  There's a lot of adoration going on around these parts!  She is smiley and cuddly, a great sleeper and eater (I mean seriously, check out those thighs).  We love her.  Happy first birthday my darling girl!

Do You Believe in Magic?

I took the kids to The Magic House (the children's museum in St. Louis) a couple of weeks ago.  It was fun.  I took a slew of pictures, but have only posted a few (mostly for the grandparents and all of our out-of-state family).  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, so I'll just let those who care (our relatives) have a looksie.  I really wish I had more to say, but this post has sat in my draft list for far too long.  It's time to publish this bad boy for all to see!

She really is so cute and sweet.  She behaved very well while we were there.  I was impressed!

I'm not sure if I like the fact that it looks like I haven't brushed Juliana's hair in weeks or that her sticker is upside down.  It's a toss up.

The oversized Legos were a huge hit with Everett.  He kept getting really frustrated every time Giselle would knock down his buildings, which unfortunately for him, happened more than once.

The more I look at Juliana the more I realize it looks like I haven't brushed her hair OR bathed her.  Poor girl.

Hands down my favorite picture of the day.  I love Giselle's face.  Like she knows something I don't and there's no way she's going to tell me.

Easily the kids second favorite part of the museum.  They love playing "restaurant" at home, so now that they had a real restaurant replete with tables, aprons, trays, and pizza, along with cups, plates and napkins.  Oh man.  They loved it. (Interestingly enough, another favorite game of theirs is "family".  I'll let you guess how that one's played.  And their favorite toys?  "Doggie" and "Cat".  Naming things obviously comes quick and easy for these two)

Ay, fuggedabouit.

My second favorite picture of the day.  Cheers to y'all too!

Who's the homeless girl?  These pictures have convinced me I need to get my girl a haircut pronto!

Empty Promises

We learned that the St. Louis Zoo was free within the first week of living here.  In our foolishness, Will and I promptly PROMISED (we're such suckers) the kids that we would take them.  The first time we tried it rained cats and dogs.  Although the kids were disappointed, it was easy to point out the window at the gusting, pouring down rain and reluctantly say, "Gosh, kids, we really wanted to take you to the zoo today, but darn the weather, we just can't!"

As ones slow to learn from our mistakes, this past Saturday we again hyped the zoo to Everett and Juliana. "Who's wants to go to the zoo today?!?!?"was quickly followed by tumultuous shrieks of excitement.  If our kids are anything, it's that they excite easily and quickly.  And have the memory of a elephant - they NEVER forget.

*(As a side note - last August on the day of Everett's preschool orientation I was running late (shocking) and in my haste to get out of the grocery store parking lot I hit a police car.  Of course, I had all three kids with me.  It was tragic and even I, with my heart of stone, burst into tears.  It was ugly.  Be glad you weren't there.  Unfortunately, nary a week goes by when Everett isn't either reminding me of that incident or telling others about it.  Just a few weeks ago after church his Primary teacher told me that although the lesson was on being obedient, Everett felt the need to share the "my mom hit a police car" story yet again.)

So after a morning of yard work and lunch, off we went to the zoo.  We were really going!  And it was a gorgeous, sunny day!  I have to admit, I was feeling pretty darn spiffy.  My thoughts ran along these lines: "Gosh, we are SO fun!  We told them we'd take them to the zoo and here we go.  They're going to remember this forever!"

Unfortunately, everyone in the metro St. Louis area had the same brilliant idea to visit the zoo, and they had one up on us because they had gotten there earlier in the day.  By the time we got there, there was literally and honestly, not a parking spot to be had.  The line of cars backed up to get in was completely ridiculous.  With Giselle's screeching, Juliana's constant questioning, "Is that the zoo?  Where's the zoo?  How do we get into the zoo?" and Everett pointing out parking spots that even his bike couldn't fit into, Will and I quickly realized a visit to the zoo had eluded us once again.  In an effort to make amends, we went to the closest "attraction" we could find: the St. Louis Science Center.

If you promise the zoo and then deliver the science center, expect your children to be a bit...underwhelmed.  But like I said, they excite easily and quickly, so after a few minutes, they were having a good time.  Inside I was thinking, "Wow, we really dodged a bullet.  I can't believe they're not putting up more of a fuss about missing the zoo.  I have the greatest kids!"  Until we were walking back to the car after it was over and Everett said, "NOW can we go to the zoo?"

(This picture pretty much sums it up.)