Monthly Archives: December 2017

Best of 2017

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Happy New Year’s Eve! Enjoy some of our favorite pictures and memories from 2017!

Icy root January 2017

Dexie January 2017

February 2017 (at Forest School)

Sunset

Butkus lounging on the soil- March 2017

With Nana- March 2017

Tree hugging April 2017

Magical Woods!

Tulip April 2017

Easter Surprise 2017!

Love how these silhouette Easter eggs turned out in 2017!

Dogwood April 2017

Leslie, Dexie 2017

May 2017

Love this pic I took of our friend’s Great Dane

Visiting Laumeier Sculpture Park, late May 2017

Lots of baseball games in 2017!

Visiting Onondaga Cave with Nana and Pop July 2017

Farewell to Forest School in 2017

At Camp Timberlake in August 2017

Babyzilla started kindergarten in 2017

Total Eclipse August 2017

Greatest football game of 2017 (Lancers beat Eureka) August 2017

First time horsebackriding September 2017

Raising 4 monarchs was definitely a highlight in 2017!

Cotton 2017

Llamaland; my parents temporary St. Louis apartment! Highlight of 2017 and definitely going to be a highlight of 2018!!

Fall Festival

Halloween Chickens 2017

Halloween 2017

The Spy had several cello concerts in 2017

Tattered butterfly at The Butterfly House November 2017

Thanksgiving Day 2017

December 2017

Christmas Eve 2017

Being pregnant was also a big highlight of 2017 and less than 5 weeks to go!!

With Pop; New Year’s Eve

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2017

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Merry Christmas! Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!

Checking out the lights at “Santa’s Magical Kingdom”

First snow of the season! (barn near Spy Garden)

Sledding

Christmas village under the tree

Train station

Hiking

Candy Cane Nails

Rainy windshield

A little duck herding show at Purina Farms

Making gingerbread dough

Baking the pieces

And voila!

Making cookies for Santa

And check out this cool dried orange garland we made

Christmas Eve service was very beautiful, only causing me to tear up 7 or so times, ha!

Mary getting ready

Almost time

And the service featured my absolute favorite Christmas hymn,

Once in Royal David’s City

Once in royal David’s city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.

The kids did a great job

And the main event…

Woodland creatures sewing kit; she made this one all by herself without any assistance!

Pretty winter morning in the Missouri River Valley

Two turkeys

Season’s Greetings!

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SInce the thanksgiving animal photoshoot pics turned out so cute I tried for another photoshoot with all the animals! This time aiming to get Smoochie and I in the shot too!

Smoochie said my expectations for such a shot were “ridiculous”, but he played along; ha! Even though technically we didn’t get everyone in one shot, I’m holding my ground that there is no such thing as “realistic” when it comes to expectations. Especially at Christmastime!! Haha

Stay right here!

2.5/12.5

Chicken in the wind

I can never have enough bunny photos!

Close but where’s Dexie?!?! (and the Spy had just about had enough photos at this point!)

Dexie has the elfish eyes down in the above shot; ha!

And that’s a wrap!

I used some of the photos for a Christmas card and it turned out great. I had never done one of those family photo Christmas cards before (usually we make our own or put a picture in some regular cards) and I was impressed with the ease of the process. I used Walgreens and they were ready for pick up in less than 12 hours! Not sure why I’ve never done this before (probably because I’m always trying to be a rebel and not do “what everyone else is doing” ha!) but this exception was definitely worth it!

In other holiday happenings…

We recently visited the St. Louis Carousel at Faust Park (for a birthday party).

The St. Louis Carousel is an original 1920s carousel from the Dentzel Co. of Philadelphia. The carousel was installed at the St. Louis Highlands Amusement Park in 1929. After a fire in 1963 destroyed the park, the carousel was moved to Sylvan Springs Park and operated there until 1979. The St. Louis County Historic Buildings commission and the Faust Park Foundation raised funds to restore the Carousel, bringing it to Faust Park.

The St. Louis Carousel, with its 60 hand carved horses and four deer, is located within a climate-controlled building inside beautiful Faust Park in West St. Louis County. A not for profit corporation, the Faust Cultural Heritage Foundation, was formed to raise funds and other forms of support for the Carousel’s continual maintenance and restoration. (source)

Because it is indoors, the lighting is not the best. I was hoping for more amazing festive shots of the 90+ year old structure but indoor lighting is tricky.