Father's Day/Baby Reveal

We hosted a Father's Day/Baby Reveal Party at our home on Father's day this year and had so much fun celebrating both all of the dads as well as Brandon and Mary's soon-to-be baby.

The baby reveal was first

'boy' was the overwhelming guess by the guests

The old wives weren't much help this time around

Can you see the sparkles in the air?

They are blue!  Brandon and Mary will be evening up the grand kid count by adding our third boy

After the reveal it was time for the dads to do what they do best -- sit back and relax by the grill with a beer

The 'kid' table

Another great dad eagerly awaiting the arrival of his third

much loved head of the family

nothing like a bunch of balloons to really make it a party

It is quite challenging to get a picture of all the grandkids these days.  One is missing and the others were in super silly mode!

Again with the super silly kids -- at least we finally got them all in the picture. 

Love being here in St. Louis to celebrate these days with family

Home

Walking into the house after our week out at Innsbrook was so.very.nice.  I was overwhelmed with such a feeling of gratitude and love for our home and instantly felt at peace.  It helped that before we left the kids and I got the house in tip-top shape knowing that we would be hosting Father's Day just a day after we got home.  But it was more than the fact that it was clean, it was our space and everything about it just felt good.  I don't think I was the only one who appreciated walking into our home either, one of the girls (Merrill, I think?) even commented on how soft our carpet was.  We are coming up on our 6-year-anniversary of moving to St. Louis and our house has slowly evolved over those six years to truly be our home.  It may not be the most extravagant home or the most on-trend home, or most days even the most clean and organized home.  But it's ours and I think it really reflects our personalities.  We haven't done many huge projects on the house and there are still things that we would love to do (ahem, get rid of the carpet!), we aren't the DIYers that many of our friends are, nor did we transform the house as soon as we moved in ... it's all been a slow and organic process as we changed things as we were inspired to do so.  And even though there are things about this house that make it hard to see it as our "forever" home (really just two things; one more bedroom and a more family oriented street we'd be set), and we are always checking out other homes as they come on the market to see if they would be a better fit, we've never found anything we liked enough to make us leave this house.  I love the layout of this house, the cozy feel it has, the way we've decorated it, the layout of the yard and driveway that give us so much play space, the gardens that my dad has helped us build and plant ...  The house is often cluttered with toys, and books, and remnants of projects; the basement and workroom endlessly in need of reorganization and clean-out, but it's going to take a lot to make me ever want to leave this house I think.  So, here is a record of our home as it is right now.  I hope that someday our children look back at these pictures with as much fondness for the house as I have now. (feel free to skip the the excessive pictures -- also know, it almost never looks like this! ;) ).

Last Day of Vacation

Scott didn't quite finish his puzzle.  I'm amazed he got this far!

We enjoyed an end of the week picnic with the campers and counselors -- it was muddy, but it wasn't raining!

Performing a hula hoop show for the parents

Teddy was inspired

Exiting the stage after their skit

And then we were headed home.  Looking forward to doing it all again next summer -- but maybe without the rain!