Too Much Fun

We've been having a lot of fun since we got here. Matt loves his job and we love being in a new place. Although we are still settling in and figuring out where things are we have made time for fun. Below is a photo of me with the kids at a cool park we like to go to. We are finding St. Charles to be a very family/kid oriented place.

 

Not too long after we arrived in St. Louis we bought a membership to the MO Botanical Garden. The first time we went there wasn't much blooming except in the Chinese Garden. On the whole we are finding this to be one of the best activities for our family. The kids can run around and go crazy and we feel the most peace there. Matt especially loves it. Forever a botanist!
 

This is Matt and the kids at an Easter Egg hunt at the Botanical Gardens the weekend before Easter weekend.
 

Ian finding an egg.
 

Self explanatory.

 

Me dancing with the kids to the Crawdad Song
 

I don't remember what was going on here. I just like the picture. Lily is a total mess like always. She's my messy kid.
 

Ian and Lily decorating/eating Easter brownies at Playgroup the Tuesday before Easter.

 

Silly Lily eating crayons. If I take my eyes off her for any amount of time she will eat crayons, play dough, and dog food. Yes, dog food! Yuck!!!
 

Ian and I at the Butterfly House surrounded by giant cockroaches. Ian was pretty nervous about getting in the bubble for the photo. We met Matt up at work one day last week to have some fun. Matt had some eye scan thing for work. His pupils were so dilated that he couldn't really work after the test but he couldn't drive home either. So we killed a little time with him till his eyes felt better.
 

Matt worked late one night so I let the kids stay up a little late, watch an episode of Dora the Explorer, and eat popcorn (We love our new Roku box). I admit it, I was letting them keep me company. They had a lot of fun with the popcorn.

A couple days ago Ian and I made cool Easter Eggs with wax paper and crayons. I got the idea off some other lady's blog. She made shamrocks. I saw it and thought, "You could do that with Easter Eggs". All you do is shave different colored crayons with a pencil sharpener onto wax paper. You fold the wax paper in half and iron it. Then you draw egg shapes all over the paper with a sharpie and cut them out. To be truthful Ian could only help with the shaving and spreading out part. Obviously I'm not letting him near a sharpie, good scissors, or an iron. 

 

In other news, we have drastically reduced the amount of t.v. our kids watch each day. They watch from 0-1 hours of t.v./day. I've decided against letting the t.v. socialize and enculturate my kids. And there you have it. Some of our happenings as of late. Until next time...

What Else Is Your Nose For?

Confessions Of A Bad Blogger

Thanks to our readers it has come to our attention that we have been negligent in certain aspects of our blog. First, it is true we are no longer Houston Lingards. In light of the fact that this is the third state we have lived in, in the last three years I felt it wise to remove any references to geographic location in our blog title. Second, we have been remiss in posting any photos of our new doggie. Third, to commemorate our big move/new job, etc., a blog makeover seemed timely and appropriate. 

Introducing "Gizmo"!!

Gizmo is half Yorkie, half Bichon. His previous owners felt guilty about keeping him penned up all day as they worked full time. So they sought to re-home him for the mere sum of $100. He came to us pretty much potty trained and well-mannered. He is 8 months old, has the sweetest temperment, and has unending patience for "the Puppy Bully" (Ian). Gizmo actually gets along really well with the kids and they really seem to love him. Ian amuses himself for a good hour or so just laughing and squealing playing chase/run away with Gizmo in the back yard. Gizmo has adjusted really well to our home and seems to be very happy. 

You may be asking, "What happened to Roxy?" Just as we got her out of the puppy phase and pretty well trained we had to re-home her. It was too difficult to have her at Marjie's with us so we found another family to love her. She was a very sweet wonderful dog. I miss her but not her hair. One thing we made sure of with our next dog is to get one that doesn't shed (virtually). Gizmo fits the bill perfectly! Also, we've never had a small dog and we're finding that we really like this small dog. BTW, Gizmo doesn't look like the above picture anymore. We shaved off all his hair because he kept getting junk tangled in it. He started looking pretty Natty Dred. More later...

 

Happy in St. Louis

A little Ian update: We were on a role getting Ian potty trained back in February, then we got the news that we had to put together a move to St. Louis in two weeks and we all fell of the potty horse. Ian is now completely uninterested in using the potty. Otherwise, he continues to be active and fun. We got a dog this week; Ian and Gizmo love to run all over the backyard exploring and searching for treasure. Sometimes they just sit together in the sandbox and play.

A little Lily update: Lily seems to have good pitch. She can match whatever tone that I hum or sing at her. She started saying ‘I love you’ this week and loves to scream at the top of her lungs and run around in circles, especially if Gizmo is around.

A little Matt update: My new job seems to be great. My coworkers seem very nice and extremely competent. The work seems like a lot of fun, we basically do the same kind of things that I did in graduate school, but on a much bigger scale using automation and robots whenever possible.

Our new ward (the St. Charles Ward) has a lot of really nice people, I’ve never showed up new in a ward and had so many of the members introduce themselves to me. I was given a calling, second counselor in the young men’s presidency, on our second week before our records had even been transferred.

I’ve had a fundamental change of attitude since moving to St. Louis. Up until this point of my life, I’ve always been working to get somewhere else; to graduate, publish, or finish something so that I could get a good job at some point in the future. Now, I have a 'good job' I find myself much more inclined and happy to do workspace or social maintenance, meaning that before I have always resented the time that I had to dedicate to common lab chores, now I am perfectly happy to think about and do routine things like thinking about safety or thinking about ways to make my workspace a more enjoyable environment. Whereas I have tended to resent the time that church calling have taken out of my family or social life, but fulfilled my obligations out of a sense of duty, trade (if I serve the Lord then he will bless me), or fear. Now, I am actually looking forward to working with the young men, going to the activities, the campouts, the dances. I guess you could say that I’ve finally arrived at the place that I’ve been trying to get my whole life and now I can start giving more focus to living my life.

"Meet Me In Saint Louis, Louis..."

Yes, we are here! We arrived yesterday. The move has gone pretty smooth so far. Of course, that is due to the two awesome men who were hired to move us. Marvin and Abel from New World Van Lines did a great job. They have a giant truck with the coolest horn. Ian had fun getting into the cab and pulling on the horn. 

It was really hard and sad for us to say good bye to "RandyGen" and other good friends we made in Houston. We will miss them so much. But we are happy we arrived here safely and hope to sign a lease agreement tomorrow so that Abel and Marvin have somewhere to bring our stuff. 

Monsanto generously provided an agent for us to help us locate a home. Joann is very knowledgeable and has been so helpful. We saw a lot of dumps today and figured out pretty fast we had to up our price or move further from Monsanto. We're staying in an awesome hotel, also courtesy of Monsanto. We really appreciate all they have done for us thus far and are very excited about our new relationship with them. Below is a little video of us at the Marriot Residence Inn. Hopefully we will blog again soon with a video of our new home!