What happens when the guys...


and Mommy...leave their shoes out.

I have a lot to catch up on this week. Last week was pretty rough... so I didn't have a lot of extra energy for posting. It is amazing how different our lives are this semester with 4 boys instead of 2. Even with the extra work it adds... it has been great. Our evenings together have been extra special. Our dinner time usually turns into an hour or more at the dining room table because of story telling, serious discussions and laughter. Dan and I have been reflecting on this last month here and how much richer (and noisy) our lives are because of these guys.

****DISCLAIMER***
In no way does Alyssa endorse or support this post.
(she is actually asleep)

Alyssa has been really busy with the following action items (so I am posting tonight)
these past 5 days:

• purchasing a tow package hitch with a 2 inch ball
  
• purchasing 14 inch chain for an Echo CS-300 chainsaw
  
• renting and towing 6 inch Bush Bandit Chipper
• drag brush in flip-flops and nice jeans
  
• 
• scheduling rental inspections
• scheduling appliance delivery at multiple sites
• updating our shared Google Calender (which sends my poor remembering abilities text messages 20 minutes before I have to be somewhere)
• scheduling and meeting with pest control
• setting up contact signing
• making sure that we actually paid for a 4 hour chipper rental when we were charged for 24 hours
• calling back
• talking to manager (we shopped locally and not at the Homer Despot)
  
• securing a refund
• attending Sunbugs, Moonshine, or Sunrays (I forget what it is called, Carter gets to play there and sing and stuff)
• Story time at one place
  
• Story time at another place (we have like $3,000 in $10 off coupons for that place)
• Mealing planning for a family of Seven
• Re-organizing her recipe box (see Brazilian chicken in coconut sauce)
• beating Fred in Mario-Cart and SSX Trickey
  
• Taking 4 teenagers to Wal-Mart for assorted items (it is cheap and the diapers rock):
• sour gummy bears
• shirt
• socks
• under-shirts
• mops (post flood)
• door wreath
• black collared shirt
• tie
  
• grocery shopping
• redirecting Carter for the umpteenth time
• redirecting me for the umpteenth time
  
• special trip to buy me saline solution for my contacts
• SHE MAKES MY LUNCH AND MY TRAVEL MUG FULL OF COFFEE EVERY MORNING
  
• doing all our laundry and putting it away
• co-ordinating our boys shopping trip to the mall as donated by a group of concerned citizens
• co-teaching Sunday school
  
• I'm exhausted trying to come up with this list
• being cool every day
• running also
  
• oh, and dealing with this kid every day:
  

Alyssa is, I need to use an analogy, as awesome as the sun is hot, because she is hot too. I really don't know if that is more a simile than analogy, but I am tired and did graduate from a California State University after more than sixish years as an undergraduate.

Please pray for Amelia... she is scheduled to undergo surgery tomorrow morning to help fix her reflux. Jen and Steve are two of our dear friends from Seminary... please pray that the Lord will continue to carry them through this time.

Glowing Balloons

There's nothing like being able to say that you've walked up a steep, dirt, rocky hill with Glen Woita while he's wearing Italian leather. He's an amazing man!

Last night we rode the metro down to Forest Park to meet Glen and Audrey (and the Hager kiddos) for some dinner (and drinks) and the annual Balloon Glow. It was great. We've only been once before and never actually got that close to the balloons. We did end up walking a lot... but it was totally worth it (although Glen and Dan may think differently). Here are our favorites from the night (somehow we ended up taking 130 pictures!).

Huntleigh sharing with Carter.

This is my favorite of all the pics (doesn't Glen look great in a Baby Bjorn...
and Italian leather)!!

Carter was not a huge fan of the noise or the flame.

Thanks for an awesome night Glen and Aud!!

Here is a shot of the football game on our walk home. That way we can tell Fred we were there. Just kidding... he wasn't playing on Friday night because of a knee injury.

Dan doing his sideways trick on the pool fence.

Dan is giving me a little break from this right now...

although I still have my eye on him. There he is behind Dan's shoulder on the web cam. Carter's rearranging bookshelves and watching Thomas the Train on the Smart Board in Dan's classroom. Thanks, Dan!!!

Dan has one of the coolest rooms I have ever seen. I need to get down there and take pictures soon.

Carter this morning after he painted a picture for his Great Grandpa.

Lost and Found (again)

Lost: A huge tree in the side yard of the house we own in Maplewood. No... it was not lost in our recent storm... it's just gone.

Maplewood is pretty strict about yearly home inspections for rental properties. We had our inspection a few days ago. Surprisingly we had very few things to fix... but he did say that we needed to remove a dead tree in our side yard. We were hoping he wouldn't notice the tree since time is so hard to come by in our lives right now. It helps that Dan used to be a professional tree trimmer... but we were going to have to buy a new rope for the removal. Anyway... we've been stressing about when we were going to get it done. But when Dan went over today to show the house to a couple (who are actually going to move in... yea!!!)... the tree was gone. It's just one of those crazy things that is such a huge blessing. How crazy that it disappeared just a few days after the inspector told us that it needed to be removed. Our neighbor across the street eventually came over and explained to Dan that he removed the tree so he could give the wood to his brother to sell as firewood this winter. It's a little (ok... a lot) weird that he didn't ask us first... but at this point we don't really care.

Found: Silver bracelet that's been missing since April.

Dan bought me a set of 3 beautiful silver bracelets in Santa Fe in February. I wore them at least once a week until one of them went missing. I knew Carter had grabbed it off my night stand... but had looked everywhere and could not find it. This morning I opened the window in our 2nd story bedroom and just happened to look down. There on the roof was my bracelet... still as shiny as when Dan first gave it to me.

We have lived in St. Louis for almost 6 years! Crazy!! In those almost 6 years we have had to say goodbye to so many people. I know it's just the nature of this city that has really become home to us... but that doesn't really make it any easier. Anyway... two of the friends that we were so sad to say goodbye to a year ago were supposed to come into town last weekend but didn't make it due to a cancelled flight. We were so bummed but still partied in their honor. Scotty and Becca... these pics are for you....

The amazing Welcome Back cake from the Woitas...

Glen displaying the drinks of the night with your picture.

Getting all the kiddos ready for bed...

Serving up Black Thorn pizza...

Dan and Aud posing with the box. Those pizzas weigh a ton!!

We of course did a cheers to the Manors...

and then finished out the night with some tips from Julie...

We miss you guys and can't wait until you're back for good! Hope you had a great flight home!

Well... just two months (and a lot of hard work) after getting our basement back in working order we are dealing with everything again... and this time it's worse (and this time there is a bedroom down there).

We woke up to the sound of a small river in our basement. It was kind of crazy how quick the water was flowing.

We've figured out that the water on our street drains here at the bottom of the hill across the street from our house...

When there is so much rain (like this morning from the remnants of Ike) and the water has nowhere to go.... it comes out here...



We just moved Fred's room to the basement so he could have a space that was all his own for his senior year. Last time the basement flooded no water touched this room. Today it was covered in water. Fred doesn't know yet. This room holds pretty much every possession of his... and most of it was on the floor because he was going to organize when he got back tonight. We feel awful.
We had to open the basement door so the water had somewhere to go...

Here is Dan's office. I was going to put up pictures of his newly organized office as soon as we got pictures up on the wall. He lost several books in the last flood... so he made sure our new bookshelves were high off the ground.


I know this is nothing compared to what so many have experienced from this storm... thankfully we did not lose power or having any flooding in the main part of our house.