Knight in Shining Cardboard

Ah, the lazy days of summer! I don't have to worry about summer boredom at my house. We love the summer and welcome the unstructured days of no homework. The kids love the extra time and freedom to create and play. Their favorite thing to do is to rummage through the recycling bin to see what treasures they can make. On this particular afternoon, Ethan worked diligently cutting and taping (lots of taping) these boxes together. The end result was this coat of armor complete with (designer) shield and face mask - definitely worthy of a picture and a post.

Teacup Planter

Imagine my delight when Steph showed up at my doorstep with this adorable teacup planter! As you can see it has been put to good use and is sitting on my deck. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen and I just had to share a picture! Thank you! I love it!

Day Three - City Museum

We spent day three at the City Museum in St. Louis. The boys and I had never been there but several of our Bloomington friends recommended that we go.



The City Museum is something that you have to experience. It's impossible to describe with just words and pictures alone. I spent a good amount of my time there in awe of this creative Bohemian playground. Click here to read more about the museum's attractions and click here to take a photo tour.

The artist and his crew constructed the museum using salvaged things from the city, such as bridges, cranes, building materials even airplanes. The building itself used to be an old shoe factory and you can slide down an old shoe shoot which is five stories high.

Outside is Monstro City which looks exactly how it sounds....monstrous! Feet upon feet of wrought iron and giant slinky-type structures to climb in and though, several stories above ground. Also outside are two huge ball pits which were a bit hit with the boys.

Deep within the museum are the Enchanted Caves. Here you can crawl and climb through holes and tunnels, some which are very dark and confined. Some so dark that you can't tell where they lead, and I suggest bringing a flashlight along for this adventure. Too scary for me but the boys loved it!

If you're visiting the St. Louis area, the City Museum is a must! You can easily spend an entire day there. We are looking forward to being able to visit again, we can't wait to go back!

Day Two - Botanical Gardens and Zoo

Japanese Garden

It's been a few years since I have visited the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I don't think I've ever seen it so beautiful. Maybe it was all the Niki sculptures or the Chihuly glass works, whatever the case, it was a beautiful day in the garden.


Scattered throughout the garden were beautiful Niki mosaic sculptures. I have never seen such stunning mosaics. They added such an incredible element to our garden walk. Below are a few pictures that don't even come close to capturing the artistic beauty of the sculptures.

If you look closely enough you can see the kids' arms sticking out of the teeth.

The fist stop on the kids' list was the maze in the Victorian Gardens. They had a fun time trying to find their way out. If Amy wouldn't have given them some clues, they might have been stuck in there all day.

Here are just a sprinkling of the flowers that we spotted along our walk.Aside from the pretty irises, peonies, and Niki sculptures, we also enjoyed the Dale Chihuly glass works. These incredibly colorful pieces of art were breathtaking. I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to assemble some of these pieces. Below are some pictures and here you can watch a short video of the artist and his exhibition at the Missouri Botanical Garden..After our fantastic morning at the botanical gardens, we headed to the St. Louis Zoo. I don't know what we were thinking when planned to visit two attractions that required lots and lots of walking in one day. But it all worked out very well because the weather was moderate, not too hot and humid, and it was wonderful to be outside.

Although I have a ton of zoo pictures, some of which the boys took, I decided not to bore you with those. Except for a couple of pictures of the kids with a cobra. Not a real cobra a cobra statue. These pictures are memorable because the cobra was the cause of the first melt down of the trip. I don't know exactly what happened but it involved Ethan and taking his picture. In fact we had to travel back to the cobra just to take another picture of Ethan and the cobra. Did I mention that it was just a STATUE!

Picture One - Notice that Ethan is hiding behind Mac. He's mad and hiding.Picture Two - if you know Ethan, his face says it all. He's now in the picture but still mad.

Picture three - Ethan's starting to recover from his melt-down and finally takes a "happy" picture. You can tell by Grayson's expression that he's just about at his limit of taking pictures with the stupid cobra.

Aside from the little cobra incident, it was a very fun day. And the good thing about the St. Louis Zoo is that it's free! So you won't feel bad if you're too tired to walk another inch and just want to go home, even though you haven't seen it all.

"Schools Out" Vacation - Part One - St. Charles

The boys in front of the Missouri River

As a way to celebrate the last day of school, we took a little trip to St. Louis with our friends. I have been to St. Louis many times and always have a great time there, and this trip was no exception. Because I have so many pictures to share I'm going to break this post into three parts. Part One - St. Charles.

Grayson, Ethan, Mac, Louis, Clark and Seaman the Dog

The first stop along our journey was a visit to St. Charles. It was a beautiful day to be outside and we ventured down to Frontier Park which is situated along the Missouri River. There the boys were mesmerized by a cottonwood tree. We also checked out part of the Katy trail and the Louis and Clark monument.

Cottonwood Tree

Then we walked along Main street and went into a few shops. I dragged everyone to one shop in particular, The English Shop, where I was in search of German Kinder Surprise Eggs. Last time I was in St. Charles I bought some of these eggs in this store. The eggs have a yummy chocolate shell and then on the inside of the shell is a toy surprise that has to be assembled. We were all disappointed to learn that Kinder Surprise Eggs can longer be sold in the US due to safety concerns. I guess we'll have to take a trip to Germany if we want to buy more of those. What The English Shop lacks in chocolate eggs, they make up for in beautiful teapots, teacups and tea. Those alone are worth a visit!

The kids in front of the English Shop

After poking our heads into a few stores, a beautiful sculptured piano caught Mac's eye. Of course we wandered in to take a peek. The gallery owner was very cordial and to our surprise, invited the kids to touch the one-of-a-kind, sculptural Mason and Hamlin (with $100,000 price tag) piano, even play it. I wanted to take a picture but didn't. So as I'm writing this post I googled the gallery and found a picture. Not only did I find a picture, I also learned that the kind, patient and modest gallery owner was actually the artist, George Denninger. Three of his other sculptured pianos are now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I'm very impressed and wished I would have known this information while we were standing in his gallery talking to him, instead of after the fact.

This is George Denninger sculptured piano that the kids touched and played

We ended our afternoon in St. Charles, with what became our daily ritual, eating ice cream. Ah, life doesn't get much better than that!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Herb garden

Ours grows in pretty rock planters and beds made from an old locus tree.

Rock beds are filled with sweet potatoes, lettuces, carrots, tomatoes, peppers and herbs

The start of some lettuces and herbs

For those of you wondering what Keith has been up to lately, here's your answer : He has spent many hours in the yard preparing our summer gardens. He recently finished using up the last of our rock (17 tons) that we had delivered over a year ago. He built three very beautiful and useful rock planters that are already filled with sprouting produce and herbs. A true labor of love. Keith built this planter around the locus tree stump that was cut down.
Hops that Keith grows for his special home brew Newly planted blueberry bushes

A few weeks ago we had four mature trees cut down and although its sad to see them go, it certainly has brightened up our yard and made it more conducive for growing a garden. One of the trees had to be cut down by a tree climber because of it's location - it was in between the utility wires and very close to the house. It was fascinating to watch this very experienced climber do his job. We're hoping to replace some of the trees with fruit trees.

Expert tree climber at work

The kids also found a use for some of the cut wood. They built a fort around their favorite climbing tree, and named it the Hobbit Hut. Hmm....see if you can figure out what types of books Mac has read this past year. The Hobbit Hut

Our flowers have also just started to bloom. I took pictures of a few of my favorites; however, it had rained just before I took these and the poppies and the peonies weren't all the way open, but they still look beautiful none the less.

Iris

Poppy

Peony (My favorite!)

Girly Cakes

I LOVE making cakes for little girls. Whenever I get an order to make a cake for a little girl, I get really excited over the creative possibilities. Maybe it's because I live with three boys (four if you count the dog) and I'm constantly surrounded by all things boy, that I crave the frilly, flowery, and pinkness that comes with little girls. Whatever the reason, I had a blast making these cakes for two very charming little girls.

The order for the first cake was for an almost eight-year old who wanted chocolate cake, chocolate filling, and chocolate icing, and flowers. My original idea was to wrap the cake in chocolate fondant. However, you cannot buy ready made chocolate fondant here, and I tried my very best to make it myself. Both recipes that I tried didn't turn out at all. I found the first recipe on line, and the second was from the book, The Cake Bible.

The first recipe was awful. It was extremely dry and hard to use, and didn't even taste that great. The second recipe, from The Cake Bible came out a little better but it was still very crumbly and dry, making it too hard to roll out, even after adding more water like the recipe suggested. It did however taste good, kind of like a tootsie roll. (The boys kept coming in the kitchen to steal some of the dough) Unfortunately, good taste alone wasn't cutting it and that recipe got trashed as quickly as the first.

After several ingredients and hours later, I gave up on the chocolate fondant idea and decided to use chocolate butter cream instead. I think the end result turned out pretty, and it tasted good too.

I made the second cake for a three-year old who wanted pink inside and out. The cake itself was chocolate and the filling strawberry butter cream - hence the pink on the inside. Her birthday invitation was pink and green, and I wanted to tie some green into the decorations so I added a green vine with pink flowers. Also requested were the polka dots on the outside of the cake.