4th Festivities

The Spence Family had a wonderful 4th of July! The holiday can be summed up in several words...fun, friends, food, and fireworks! We did plan to take Kyle to our neighborhood Children's 4th of July parade with his very festive, red, white, and blue wagon, but unfortunately the weather didn't fully cooperate and we woke up to a downpour. The rain stopped soon before the parade was to begin, but we still decided to skip the parade since the weather was unpredictable.

Saturday evening we did have a small get together with a couple of other families at our house. We barbequed...hamburgers, bratwurst, and chicken, enjoyed adult conversation, and watched the children play. Kyle did have a little "goody bag" for each of his little friends, complete with an American Flag, a red, white, and blue lei, bubbles, candy, and everyone's favorite, a star balloon. Later in the evening we headed out to view some fireworks hosted by a local park. Everyone had an enjoyable time and was a great way to spend the holiday!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from The Spence Family!

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable day with family and friends! We have several fun, festive activities planned for the holiday...certainly hoping the weather will cooperate! Have fun and most importantly...be safe!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

Easter Egg Hunt

This morning The Spence Family headed to an Easter Egg Hunt at a local park. This is the first year Kyle has been to a public egg hunt since last year the weather was very cold and rainy. Today, however, the weather was just perfect for the festive outdoor event and Kyle had an absolute ball! He even had his very own theme for the Easter Egg Hunt - Thomas the Train, including a Thomas Easter basket and of course he was decked out in his Thomas attire. The hunt was separated into several areas depending on the children's ages, which is a great idea. All the eggs were found in a matter of minutes, but there were so many other activities to keep the children entertained...including the opportunity to meet and pose with the Easter Bunny!

Actually, Kyle's favorite part of the outing deserves it's very own post, so please be on the look out for the fun, cute pictures tomorrow!

April Fool's Day - Kyle Style

Happy April Fool's Day!

We have had a very "colorful" April Fool's Day in The Spence house! I really wanted to play a little practical joke on Kyle, so this morning at breakfast I gave him blue milk. He was a little caught off guard, but it didn't take him long to realize that blue milk is actually very yummy! Kyle did think it was entertaining that his mouth, tongue, and teeth were blue!

After school, Kyle had a little more April Fool's Day Fun, with a "colorful jokes" coloring sheet. Although, Kyle is only three, I still wanted to celebrate the holiday and make April Fool's Day a little toddler friendly. Kyle doesn't understand what April Fool's is all about...I want to keep it that way as long as possible! I can only imagine the practical jokes he will play on Mommy and Daddy in the future!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!!

Kyle was decked out in his festive shirt for St. Patrick's Day...Kiss Me I'm Irish! Kyle made sure he wasn't going to be pinched by anyone! Kyle and I celebrated the holiday with a shamrock craft, festive green cupcakes, and St. Patrick's Day balloon. We planned to make shamrock sugar cookies, but that didn't happen today so we will have another reason to celebrate tomorrow as well. As you can see, I had more fun playing with my new favorite website!

Hope everyone had a festive, fun filled St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Mardi Gras

HAPPY MARDI GRAS

FROM THE SPENCES

Being from New Orleans, I obviously grew up with Mardi Gras, traveling from one parade to the next, attempting to catch every bead and doubloon that came my way! I would love for Kyle to have the opportunity to experience Mardi Gras as he grows up. Kyle has been once when he was sixteen months old and I know he won't remember the trip. We were just in New Orleans last month so we weren't able to make another trip so soon, but I would love to make it an annual tradition for our family!

We had to have our own little family celebration here in St. Louis...including decorating the entrance to our house with Mardi Gras decorations.

Recently, Kyle received a little Mardi Gras "care package" from CeCe and Poppy (my parents) who still live in New Orleans. The package included the Mardi Gras shirt he is wearing in the pictures above and purple, green, and gold beads to give to his classmates. To dress it up, I packaged the beads in purple bags and made Happy Mardi Gras tags. Kyle wore his Mardi Gras shirt to preschool today and also brought the gift bags! As mentioned in a previous post, we brought a king cake back from our recent trip for Kyle's preschool class to enjoy! I enjoy helping to bring additional fun to his preschool experience!

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! I had a low key day with my "Two Boys". John and I have been under the weather and Kyle has a slight cold so we stayed in and plan to celebrate in the near future with a special dinner.

Our low key Valentine's did include cupcakes decorated for the occasion. Kyle throughly enjoyed the treat, hence the big smiles in the pictures below. As with any toddler, the icing is his favorite...it's a wonder he actually fell asleep tonight...LOL!

"My Boys" really treated me like a queen this Valentine's Day...first really sweet sentimental cards, a dozen red roses, and was topped off with a gift certificate for a one hour body massage. The massage also, includes free baby sitting by John for the outing...LOL! I can't wait till my day of pampering!

Once again, I hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day! Please share your special moments from the day...I would love to hear about your Valentine's Day activities!

Six More Weeks

Happy Groundhog Day!

This morning, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow...meaning six more weeks of winter. Unfortunately, this isn't what the majority of people were hoping to hear...including me! It sure would have been a nice treat to see spring arrive a little earlier this year! The month of January flew by, so hopefully the next six weeks will too! Until springtime, enjoy the remainder of the winter season!

Groundhog Day History Lesson:

- Since 1886, Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, has failed to see it 15 times, and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

-The last year the groundhog didn't see his shadow was in 2007. If you are interested in the history of Groundhog Day, you can visit this website.

Past Holiday Cards

I thought it would be fun to show our previous holiday cards since Kyle came along in 2005. I always enjoy looking at past cards to see how much Kyle has grown and changed from year to year.

2005 - Photo of Kyle in the NICU

Typically we don't include an update letter, but in 2005 we did to update our family and friends on Kyle's progress so I wanted to include that with the post.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

First and foremost we would like to thank everyone for their continued thoughts and prayers for Kyle.

Kyle has been making wonderful progress. He is rapidly approaching five pounds and has started taking two bottles per day. We have had the opportunity to hold, feed, and bath Kyle on a daily basis. We are even becoming pros at diaper changing! It has been great to witness the day-to-day journey he has taken since birth. We are hoping to welcome Kyle home sometime in the beginning of the New Year! (actual day was 12-30-05)

We hope your Holiday Season will be as special as ours!

2006 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a Very Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your time with family and friends!

Tis The Season

Every year, John climbs on the roof of our house to put up Christmas lights and a wreath on our house. Each year, I'm afraid that he is going to slide off the roof and break every bone in his entire body. I'm happy to say...Not this year! This year, we decided to have a company put up some of our Christmas decor. Two weeks ago, they put the lights along our roof line, lights in the two trees in front of our house, and two lighted wreaths. If anything goes wrong with their decorations they will come out to fix the problem. One of the bows on the wreath is crooked from the wind so I will be calling them to fix the bow as well as a light bulb which is burned out. The remainder of the decorations we will put up ourselves, but it will be much more enjoyable this year knowing that John won't be climbing on the roof!

I'm so anxious to start decorating and turn on the lights! One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to drive around and look at Christmas lights. This will definitely be an annual tradition we will do with Kyle throughout the years.

H Is For...

HALLOWEEN

It has been quite a while since I have written a post from my ABC's of Blogging Project.

I have always enjoyed Halloween, but since having a child it brings a different level of fun. As amazing as it is, to me at least, Kyle has celebrated three Halloween's. I can't believe Halloween is just three months away. The past couple of weeks, while shopping in a few stores, Halloween displays are already set up. It seems to get earlier and earlier each year. Well, for now, we will still be enjoying the summertime.

Kyle's 1st Halloween was celebrated in the NICU as The Tin Man, from the Wizard of Oz. A little girl in the NICU next to him was Dorothy. They were such a cute little couple. We actually purchased his costume from Build A Bear and as you can see it was still way too big for him.

Halloween '06. Mommy and Daddy had different ideas about what Kyle should be for Halloween, so he actually had two different costumes. Mommy wanted her Little Munchkin to be a pumpkin and Daddy wanted a little dinosaur.

Rombach's Pumpkin Patch - Oct. '06 Rombach's Pumpkin Patch - Oct. '07

Halloween '07. Kyle was a lion...ROAR!!! Mommy with her Little Lion - '07

A Is For...

B Is For...

C Is For...

D Is For...

E Is For...

F Is For...

G Is For...

Day Two - The Great Wolf Lodge

Happy 4th of July, once again! As I'm typing this post, I'm sitting on our patio watching a beautiful fireworks display. Can you hear me saying...Ooohhh!!!! Aaahhhh?!?

We had another great day here at The Great Wolf Lodge. Typically, John and I aren't big breakfast eaters, but on vacation it is a must! We started the day eating breakfast at one of the restaurants in the lodge. Strange thing is, breakfast seems to be Kyle's favorite meal of the day!

Since, we spent our time at the indoor waterpark yesterday, we decided to spend the morning at the outdoor water facility. It was a beautiful day in Kansas City...actually at times it was a little chilly. The pool was awesome with a very shallow area which was perfect for Kyle. He loved floating around in his water boat and this gave John and me an opportunity to relax in the water as well. This was true, until the pool police told us that his boat was an unapproved flotation device and he had to wear a flotation vest.

This afternoon, we went to explore an outdoor mall located just down the road from the lodge. We did a little bit of shopping and we all scored a little something. We stopped and ate dinner at a restaurant called The Yard House....really good food and atmosphere. After dinner, we came back to the room so John and Kyle could prepare once again to head to the waterpark. I chose to relax and read a book by the pool. About an hour later, I was jealous, so I had to join in the fun. We spent another couple of hours in the pools, slides, etc. Fun, Fun, Fun!!

Believe it or not, Kyle managed all of these activities with no nap. He really did well, but is out like a light tonight to rest up for tomorrow's adventures.

I didn't take many pictures today, but not to worry, I do have a few to share!

Kyle was decked out in his patriotic attire for the day!

Having fun in his boat until we were busted by the pool police!

Now, this is the life!!!

Happy 4th of July

Wishing everyone a Happy and Safe 4th of July! Enjoy the weekend with your family and friends.

Happy Birthday...

TO MY HUSBAND

We have double the celebrations today since today is my husband's birthday and also Memorial Day! We enjoyed a pretty low key day...just the way John wanted it to be! John received a digital photo frame (shown below) for his birthday. He's being eyeing this for a while and is excited to display it on his desk at work. I'm sure all the pictures he will upload will be of My Little Munchkin. A couple of other "gifts" I gave him were being able to sleep in this morning and cleaning out my closet. As much as I hate to say it, John usually wakes up with Kyle on the weekends, so sleeping in was a much needed gift. My poor closet has been needing major attention for a really long time and it always "scared" him so I cleaned it just for him! It's the silly little things these days that mean so much!

I am in the process of preparing his special birthday dinner. It consists of our usual special occasion menu...filet mignon, roasted potatoes, and corn on the cob. It has been a wet weekend in STL so we weren't able to enjoy any outdoor festivities to celebrate the weekend.

Hope everyone had a wonderful, fun-filled weekend!