GG & Grandpa

GG & Grandpa came to visit!!

We have spent the past few days showing them around our little town of Washington and the few sites in Peoria. We visited Washington town square, the hospital to see where Ben works, the riverfront area, and the highlight for the kids: the Caterpillar Museum!

(Unfortunately my camera battery died right after we got there and I had to use my crappy phone camera for a lot of the pics.)

We started out going into one of the HUGE mining trucks they make and watching a movie:

Now that's a truck!

Then we got to explore all of the caterpillar trucks and tractors:

 We also got to try out some simulators:

   The kids loved all of the hands on activity and seeing everything close up!

 

  

We had lots of fun hanging out with GG & Grandpa Green. Thanks for coming to visit!!

Preschool

My princess started preschool today! 

 She is soooo excited to be starting school like her big brother, and just as excited to be in Hailey's class!

Zoo Day

I promised Cole we would do something fun for Labor Day...and then I realized Peoria has pretty much nowhere to go except the teeny tiny zoo. It was a fun zoo though!

 There aren't a lot of animals, but the zoo has done a really good job with the few they have. 

Dax loved watching and following the ground hogs:

The Australian exhibit was really fun because the animals were walking around us. It was especially fun to follow the wallabies around...

...and this one even popped up behind the bench the kiddos were sitting on :)

 What the zoo lacked in live animals they made up for in statues, which are apparently as exciting as live animals :)

 And there were a plethora of places to climb around the zoo, which Cole was pretty happy about:

  

We have a fun little zoo. It was a great way to spend our holiday.

 And to make the day even better, Daddy got home a little earlier than usual and had a little dance party with us :)

We played hard this Labor Day!!

1st Grade!

My little man started first grade at his new school today!

He was super excited to go back to school at meet lots of new friends at Central Primary School. He was kind of shy today, but I'm sure he will make lots of friends really soon because he is such a fun, nice kid!

Yesterday we were able to go to the school and meet his awesome teacher, Miss Gleason:

And find his desk where we put his school supplies:

 And we found his locker cubby for his back back:

 It was an exciting day for us all :)

Cole says he loves his new school and new teacher. We definitely miss Cole, but we get to yell to him at recess from our back deck so it's not as sad that he is gone all day :) 

  

St. Louis

Ben has been working like crazy and is never home, and we were feeling homesick for Iowa, so the kids and I decided to go to St. Louis and see our friends the Pettits. The Cook's were also there visiting so we got to see them too! Ellie was lucky to get to play with two of her best friends from Iowa, Addie and Marlee. And I got to play with two of my best friends from Iowa too, Danna & Ashley :) We stayed super busy exploring the great city of St. Louis.

First stop was Grant's Farm. We got to ride a fun tram around the beautiful farm. The kids had fun feeding the goats and seeing all of the animals. We enjoyed a fun elephant show and a bird show. We also got to see the Anhueser Busch Clydesdales. It was a super fun day with friends!

(Note that Ellie and Addie are matchy matchy :) They always have the same shirts!)

Our second day in St. Louis we went to The Magic House. It's a super awesome children's museum. There was an entire child sized city where the kids could experience doing every kind of job: ice cream cart, grocery store, vet, restaurant, post office, library and hospital.

Dax LOVED the water area!

Both my boys loved the construction toys, especially the real life caterpillar tractor!

The life size bubble machine was awesome!!

And we had fun playing with static electricity!

The third day in St. Louis we went to their awesome zoo! It was huge and free! There was way too much to see and do so we will have to go again :) The kids loved all of the animals and the carousel. Most of all we loved hanging with friends!

We didn't get to ride the train today, but we pretended for a second. I love Ellie's face :)

Cole was monkeying around while we waited our turn to go into the aquarium. Dax loved being eye level with the water animals. And I thought the penguins were adorable. 

It was a super fun filled day at the zoo with friends!

We topped off the day by going to Fritzs for some delicious frozen custard. Yum!!

Dax decided cones aren't that cool and it is more fun to make custard art than eat it :)

We had a blast this weekend with our good friends in St. Louis! None of us wanted to come home today after church, but we missed Ben and need to get ready for the new school year. Thanks for the fun break Danna, we all needed it!!