Megan's First Haircut

This weekend we had a working weekend at home and got A LOT of stuff done. Everything was crossed off my list and Tim's looks pretty crossed off too. Probably didn't help that I kept adding little things to his list as they came up. We did however get everything weeded, planted, and mulched in the front and backyards. Abby and Megan were some help, mostly in spreading potting soil where it didn't belong but loved being outside all day. We'll get some pictures when the flowers start to bloom a little bit. Abby also has a hummingbird feeder in front of her window - last update, no birds yet.

We did venture downtown to The Clip Joint to visit Emily to get Abby a haircut and Megan her first hair cut. Everything went really well, no crying at all.


Here's Abby showing Megan how it's done - she's an angel for Emily.

Here's Megan getting her haircut with a watchful Daddy supervising. Megan didn't have to get her hair washed since it's so fine and straight.

Not so bad as long as I have my Paci!

final touches to the front - Emily even cut me out a piece of Megan's hair for her baby book.....and I left it on the counter.


Sunday after church we tried out a new place to eat brunch called Truman's - which is a bar that we have been to, but not as a Sunday brunch place. Abby soon discovered it had Buck Hunter.....

So we had to play. There are 3 less video bucks in the world now.

We hope everyone else enjoyed the warm weather and got to enjoy the outdoors.

At the Zoo

This past weekend we headed to St. Louis for the annual scrap booking convention that my college friends attend. As I am not a scrap booking enthusiast I get the pleasure of hanging with the men and kids on Saturday while the ladies are "working". The weather was great and we decided to head to the zoo. After a ridiculous amount of time to park due to an Eco-Fest we arrived around 1030.



Here are Abby & Ashley in matching dresses compliments of Colleen. They got a lot of compliments and of course the question on if they were twins. You'd also be surprised on how many kids you can put in a sit n stand stroller - pretty sure we exceeded that weight capacity!

The black Rhino.

The girls (Kaitlin, Abby, & Ashley) watching the zoo keepers feed the monkeys. They were throwing fruit to them.

It's hard to see Megan (since I had my flash turned off) but she is doing her own little monkey dance since she was finally free from the stroller.

Checking out the penguins - the line was too long to go inside to see them so we just enjoyed the outside view. There had already been a couple melt downs prior to eating lunch so we were pushing our way back to the entrance to return home. The girls saw bears, elephants, cheetahs, flamingos, but no giraffes as we were reminded.

It was a nice weekend to catch up with the girls, to short as usual, but always nice when everyone makes an effort to get back in town.

This weekend - we stay home!

Another First for our Family

Easter weekend turned out to be a little more exciting than we thought. Megan had climbed up a couple stairs on Saturday, stood up (because she was so proud of herself for finally getting up the stairs without someone stopping her) then fell backwards onto a wooden floor. We thought she had hurt her shoulder initially. She had a pretty rough Saturday evening but seemed better on Sunday and still had full range of motion. On Monday evening I noticed she was using her left hand but not putting any pressure really on it. So we made a doctor's appointment for Tuesday morning and.......


She has a fracture in 2 spots on her wrist. It was an extremely long day on Tuesday with about 6 hours of different doctor visits, x-rays, referrals to a children's orthopedic group, confirmation of the breaks, more x-rays, (feed Megan), then finally a cast. We finally got back in the car and home and both of us passed out. Even though her break is only in the wrist she still had to have a full arm cast because her arm is small and it would slide off (I've never had doctor's tell me my children were small, it made me laugh).

Megan is having to re-learn how to do a few things. I was helping her initially, but as she won't get her cast off until April 29th, she's just going to have to figure it out. She's figured out the sippy cups, eating, the cast makes great noises on the table, don't hit the dogs with the cast when you are trying to pet them, etc.




And as you can see, it's not slowing her down one bit. Everything was probably harder on Mom than Megan. But the highlight was that she finally clearly said "Mama" to me. She's been babbling similar to it but this was clear and she pointed to me so out of all the chaos of the week so far, we still have good things to be thankful for.

Easter Weekend

This weekend we trekked across Missouri and Iowa to spend some time with family and friends. Our first stop over was at the Pollard's home in Burlington, IA we arrived just in time for the rainstorm! It was a great place to stop because it left us with only about a 2 hour drive to Clinton, IA for Saturday.

Saturday's festivities started off with a visit with Grandma Powers and then off to Uncle Jim's house where my cousin Jessica was hosting a baby shower for her sister-in-law Stacy who is due in May.


Here's the cake, their daughter's name will be Taylor Ivy Powers. Megan and Abby enjoyed the cake quite a bit.

Here is Stacy Powers, Colleen Papke, and Erinn Kolk. These three were our summer/fall weddings of 2007. Both Stacy and Erinn are due in May - only a week a part.

Here is Stacy with her sister-in-law Jessica.

Abby and Megan wrestling - sisterly love!



After the shower and during some nap times Abby worked on decorating her eggs for the Easter Bunny, Aunt Colleen helped with the decorating.



Easter Morning!! The hunt for eggs begins at Uncle Pat's house. Megan was excited to find an egg.

Abby was very excited about her first boy Barbie; his name is now Eric and will marry Ariel if you were curious.

Megan was still finding eggs, she discovered M&M's this weekend, and foil really doesn't matter when eating a foil covered easter bunny, it tastes the same.

Here are 3 of the Powers great grand-children. Abby, Megan, and Ellis. Ellis is 3 months older than Megan and shares the same birthday as Abby - Nov. 14th. They were all playing quite nicely together, must have been the chocolate.

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone has a safe an Happy Easter this weekend. We'll be traveling up to Iowa to spend time with the Powers family, but we took a little time last night to visit the Easter Bunny at Bass Pro. It went about as good as our Santa visit as you can see from the photos. I think the whole store could hear Abby screaming and got a good chuckle out of it. She did go back and take her jelly beans from the Easter Bunny, but I had to hold her hand and go back with her to do it. Megan started her crying after watching Abby.


As you can see, both kids had enough and were ready to bolt. The Bass Pro crew said it had been an off day for most of the kids that visited that night so we didn't feel that bad.


Abby also had her first dance lesson last night. In her class with Ms. Shelly she does tap, then ballet, then gymnastics. The other three girls in Abby's class have been in it for a while. I think Abby did pretty good for her first time and she loved it. Here's a couple clips of the different sessions. Unfortunately Tim and my genes give her no assistance for any of this, especially gymnastics.