Little road trip

The boys and I took off on a road trip (all by ourselves!) the week before last. We headed up to St. Louis to visit my friend Natalie and her cute kids. We left Dave home to work, and Nat's husband John was at a training that week, so it was just us girls and the kids.

We were only there for a couple of days, but we fit in as much as we could! We went shopping at their fun outlet mall where they had a playground and a carousel, which the kids loved. I got a ton of cute stuff (and GREAT deals) for the new baby, which was the main goal :)

At the first store, Braden was picking out sunglasses and Chris insisted that he needed some too (even though he already had some) so I let him get them, hoping it would give me some leverage with his behavior. It worked some of the time, but not completely. I would tell him I was going to put his sunglasses away if he didn't listen. Haha. Alas, we spend a good part of each day waiting for Chris to catch up or decide to stop pouting.... but he looked pretty cool. Since then he has taken to wearing them a lot, and just struts around. It's funny.

The second day, our big outing was the zoo, which was very cool. We took a train ride, which was a little disappointing- you didn't see that many animals. But it was cool to be on a train ride :) The kids all loved it.

Overall, it was a fun (hot) day!

Each day that we were there, Nat would walk the big girls to and from school. We all went a couple of times, but Chris and Jon gave me so much trouble that I gave up on that idea, but Ben LOVED it. He went faithfully every time. Nat snapped this cute picture the last morning before we left. 

These two (Ben and Blaire) are just the cutest little friends. They pick up right where they left off, and even though they play with everyone else, they are always together, and you often see them holding hands :)

Now this little stinker, was another story. He was no one's friend. He's been in this terrible phase lately where he throws fits, and will NOT let me out of his sight- it totally freaks him out. I thought by the end of our visit, he would warm up, but nope. A few times, he played okay with the other kids, but as soon as he saw Nat, he would flip out and start calling "Mom? Mom!" He warmed up to her a little, as long as I was around, he liked her, but he was a big stinker overall. It was exhausting! But he's so cute, it's hard to be mad :)

The last night, we thought it would be fun to do something fun for all the kids (the bigger girls were bummed that they were in school all day and missed all our fun) so Nat decided to throw a little early birthday party for Ben. He LOVED it. Thank you so much friends, that was the best!

Whenever we were at the house, the kids spent a lot of time playing in the backyard, while we moms (and poor Brooklyn!) sniffled through because it was crazy allergy week! The weather was beautiful that week, though, and they had lots of fun playing together. They have such a beautiful backyard and a great new playset.

We were sad to go, but we had such a great time there.

Thank you friends, for a great time!