Calling All Relatives

One of the things that we absolutely love about Saint Louis is the variety of activities that they have for families absolutely free. Take for example the Clayton Art Festival. Every year they block off a significant portion of Clayton (a suburb of St. Louis) and bring in artists from all over the nation (but mainly from the midwest). As part of the celebration they bring in food, entertainment, and most importantly free children's activities. One of the things that Baker and Katie were able to make this year is crazy paper hats:



Next we went over to the table where they got to make marble art. As you can see they put a paper in the box, cover a varitey of marbles with different color paints, and then let the kids have at it.




These are only 2 examples of the activities we did that day. They also had sand art, clay sculpting, and a variety of other activities. And the best part, all of it was F-R-E-E free. Music to a cheap man's ears. The great thing is Saint Louis has 60 other activities exactly like this one going on each and every weekend. We've absolutely loved living here and invite all of those interested to come and visit and partake of this beautiful city.

IT'S A B-IRL!!!

After weeks of questioning and guessing we had our ultrasound today and we found out that it was a little baby B-IRL. For those of you who don't know what that means, let me explain. Heather and I for the past month and a half have been toying with the idea of waiting until the birth of the baby to find out if it is a boy or a girl. My main reservation was how Katie was going to respond; she has been convinced that it is going to be a little girl. I was afraid that if she didn't know until the day of that it was a boy then she would be very disappointed. However, for the past several weeks she has been very open to the idea that it might be a boy or a girl. So finally I asked her. I said, "Katie, what if mommy and daddy don't find out what we are having until we go to the hospital." Her response, "whatever, I'd love it either way" (what an angel she is). With my major reservation deflected I had relatively little justification to not take the plunge; despite the fact that we were still questioning ourselves as we walked into the Dr's office. So long story short: we still don't know what we are having. Although Heather swears that she saw a little device floating in the amniotic fluid. I told her that her mind was playing tricks on her because she was trying as hard as she could to find out, without finding out. Overall, it was a fun experience (although it took everything we had to not look at the screen when they told us to look away). In the end, we still feel fairly confident that it is a girl but Heather's "UFO sighting" (Unidentified Floating Object) has introduced a small glimmer of doubt. Either way we are thrilled and look forward to holding this little baby in our arms.