We love the Hippos!

A few pics from our trip to the zoo! I say "WE love the hippos", but it might be more like..I'm obsessed with the hippos! They facinate me and I love how close you can get. The girls may have been more facinated with the monkeys who were picking their butts in front of us. lol!
I tried to snap some pics at forest park while we were there too...

 Parker's classic "I'm not going to smile at you" face!

Parker's 2nd Birthday!

Its sinful how long its been since I have posted, so I'm going to try to catch up! I have to go back to little sis's birthday August 27th. Miss Parker is now in her "terrible twos!" I remember with Taylor thinking the 2's weren't so terrible, but I can see they definitely will be with this one! She is too smart.
We had a goldfish swim party for Parker at MawMaw and Pawpaw's house. We made goldfish cupcakes and had real goldfish on the tables in bowls for the kids to take home! That was a big hit! Its now Nov 3rd and we still have a goldfish living! As far as I know one other one is still alive too. I'm pretty impressed with our Walmart goldfish.
The kids had a great time swimming and Parker got a lot of great presents. Just can't believe she is 2 already! Love you little Miss Parker! My little blondie!

Mommy made her a new pillow and she loved it! aww!

Taylor goes to Taylor...

What better first concert for Taylor than Taylor Swift? She loves all of her songs and she's almost to that age of wanting to go to concerts, so I thought this would be the perfect one for her 1st! It was actually also part of my birthday present. We went last saturday night, just mommy and Taylor. She had a pretty good time, but we did leave early. Taylor is my little homebody! She never wants to go places...she would be perfectly happy staying at home with her animals and watching a movie! We laugh about it. I always say she can't be my kid because she hates to shop! Anyway...we had a pretty good time.

Happy 60th Dad!

Well we pretty much had to ruin the surprise to get Dad to his 60th birthday party! We had been planning for months and really thought we had a great day picked, but turned out not to be so. July 1st was a friday and we figured with the holiday weekend we could get him here...by telling him we were having a family reunion. Well, he had to tell him because he insisted he had to work! Thank goodness, he came! We had 60 or so of his family and friends, some of whom he hasn't seen in forever! It was a good party!

Along with his party, we decided we wanted to take a trip to Austin for an adult party weekend! The four of us (my hubby, sis and her boyfriend) flew out on Friday morning and came back on Sunday. We had a great time hanging out, eating and drinking!! We went out on 6th street in Austin on Friday night. Of course we ended up at our favorite place...Pete's Piano Bar and its a night we will never forget! One of the funnest nights I've ever had...or funniest maybe?! We put down on a napkin..."Please embarass our dad! He's 60!" Well, the video tells the rest!! Never laughed so hard in my life!

LOL! I could watch that everyday!
Some other good pics from our trip....

 baby lizard in the house!

 the Oasis at Lake Travis

 one of my favorite places ever!

Summer...almost gone!

I am so behind it isn't even funny! I'm not sure where to begin! Summer has been great fun. Taylor went to several camps and had to be juggled a bit. Thanks to Grandma's for helping us out! Jason went back to the office full time and mommy quit her job at Sante and took on two new jobs! Its crazy how fast things can change. Its all for the better though. Mommy will get to spend more time at home with the girls and will maybe even get to keep Parker at home a day or two a week. And...since I will be teaching PE at Taylor's school two days a week I will also be with her. This year her class will get to attend PE, Art, Spanish, and Music, so I will have her in class! She is super excited about it now, but we'll see if it lasts. I'm sure no kid likes to have their mom when they are in 7th grade. lol!
Some random pics I took over the summer....

 Parker's 1st ponytail!

 troublemaker!!!

 Taylor was pretty excited about her new running shoes, shorts and shirt! Ready for a marathon :)

For now we are ready to get back into a routine. We really love the Fall too! Our little Parker will be 2 next weekend...I can't believe that! And in October Taylor will be 5. We are ready for the second half of a great year!

Cameo on STL Today!

The other day Sante was asked by the Post Dispatch to provide the Trainer Tip of the week! I got to be the lucky person to give tips on exercising outdoors! Here is a link to the video on STLtoday.com
http://videos.stltoday.com/p/video?id=99947881&genre_id=2962

Cowgirl Camp!

I just can't pick a couple favorites of Taylor's Horseback Riding camp....I love them all!! I think its just how happy she is in them. You can see on her face how much she loves horses. Every kid has their thing and...I think we have found her thing! At night she would tell me she had to hurry and get to sleep so she could go to horsy camp in the morning and in the morning she would yell, "wake up, the sun is up, its time to go to camp!" On the way there she said, "they are going to be so happy to see me mom." I said, "who, your friends?" She said, "NO...Revel and Spurs!" How cute! They told me she did such a great job and she will do really well at riding. On the last day when I went to pick her up she was riding a huge horse in the arena all by herself! I was in awe. She could get him to go, turn and stop all by herself. Now the only problem is that she wants to go to camp all the time and they don't have it all the time! And...that we couldn't afford it! For now she will keep taking private lessons and dream of barrel racing! :)

 feeding them...

 brushing them...

walking them...

 she didn't want me to share this one..LOL! But at least she knows that you have to clean after them!

 riding bareback!

 bathing the mini horses..

What a cute little cowgirls she is!