1st Visit to the Arch

We had a beautiful day here yesterday and we were out all day..it was great being outside and enjoying St. Louis. We went to Grant's Farm again...it is a great place to go for no money. We have learned that you can park off site and walk about 5 minutes to get in for free! We love that even more.
We then went to the famous Soulard Farmers Market. There is a lot of food there! Then we decided to head downtown and walk around. We decided to go to the Arch and got a metered spot that had 50 minutes left!! This was turning into a very cheap day out in St. Louis. Here are some pics from the Arch:


Isabella was not wanting to sit and take a picture with me.
But it had the potential to be a very cute picture.
She thought she could climb the tree like Winnie the Pooh.. it was pretty funny.
I was feeling artistic.. I don't know if it is or not, but I think it looks pretty with the color of the leaves.
The Arch is really pretty and huge. I like these pictures because the sky is so blue.

Grant's Farm

So, it has been WAY to long since I have posted "real" post and I am so sorry. I am blaming it on the fact that I do not have a laptop and I hate sitting at a desk to type..so, I shall just do the blame game for now. Also, now that I am out of the first third of my pregnancy I am started to feel more energy..so, maybe I will not have as big of a problem sitting at the computer desk. We shall see..
Matt was off one day a couple of weeks ago (yes, a couple of weeks ago) so we decided to go to Grant's Farm for the morning. It is a really cool place we found out. It is the original home of the Bush family. They have turned into a an animal park (I guess you could call it). As you will see they have all sorts of animals...it was really fun for all of us.

She LOVES these!! She has a very hard time if we see one and she can't ride it.


They had two bald eagles there. They were both injured and would never
fly again so that is why they are there and can't fly away.
Palmer here is your namesake...I thought he was strong and hansom.
I thought it was a very fitting name.
The camel wasn't really that close.. it was just the angle.
The elephant, Mickey, was great! He did some amazing tricks..
Isabella loved clapping for him.
The clydesdales were one of my favorites! Those horses are huge!
All I could think about was what it would be like to ride one of them..I think
my thighs would really hurt after a while. But it would be completely worth it.

The Taco Ring!

This is a Pampered Chef recipe:

3/4-1 lb. ground meat or turkey
1 package of taco seasoning mix
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. water

2 packages of refrigerated crescent rolls

*Preheat oven to 375
*Brown meat and drain
*In a medium size bowl mix the meat, taco seasoning, cheese and water

*Unroll the crescent rolls
*Separate into the triangles and arrange the triangles on a round stone with the wide ends overlapping in center. You should have about 5-8 inch wide diameter opening in the center.
(if you do not have a round stone, then I will explain another way to arrange them on a cookie sheet at the end).
*Scoop about two tablespoon full-size of meat evenly onto th ewidest end of the each triangle (the part that you overlapped).
*Bring the points of the triangles up over the filling and tuck under the wide ends of dough at the center of the ring.
*Bake for 20-25 minutes.. check at 20 minutes though..until golden brown.

It is really good with shredded lettuce, tomato, more shredded cheese, sour cream and avacado.

** Now if you don't have a stone than you can do this instead of the ring: THE BRAID
*Unroll the 2 packages of roll
*Lay them flat with the longest sides of the rectangles across the width of the sheet. Roll dough to seal seams.
*starting on the longest sides of the baking stone, cut side of dough into eight strips, about 1/12 inches wide and 3 inches long.. then fill in the middle with the meat mixture.
*Starting at one end, lift one strip of dough; twist one turn and lay across top of filling. Prepeat, alternating sides of dough to form a braid. Fold bottom edges of dough up at ends of braid.
*Bake for same amount of time.

I hope those of you who try it will like it..don't worry if your rings or braids don't come out the way you think they should.. it is good no matter what it looks like! ENJOY!

Izzy has a new shirt!

She wasn't too excited about taking this picture, but I had to take it anyways. We are very excited about having another baby. We will be due mid-April; I am almost 7 weeks. I am starting to feel sick some of the time which is not fun with a toddler running around. I hope to get to the doctor in another two weeks or so; I'll make sure to post then when we hear that everything is going ok. We are praying that is the case and this time around we think we are going to find out what it is; we'll see.

NC videos

Here are two videos that I took at Gran's house: The one with her playing the piano is really funny. If you pay attention you see her taking bow and saying "thank you." Gran taught her that.. it is really funny.

Back from NC

Izzy and I got to go visit my family in NC last week for 9 days and it was so nice to be back there.
We had not seen my brother and his family since early November of last year. ...way to long.
All of the cousins had such a fun time together. Brantley (9) and Palmer (6) played so well with Izzy; it was so fun to hear and watch them play.



Pops and Isabella


Cousin Gibson--him and Izzy are almost the same size and they are a year apart.

Gran and Isabella.

Newness

well, as you can see I have changed the blog a little bit. I am still not sure about it, but I am trying out new things. We will see where it takes me in the coming weeks.
It is refreshing to me at this time.. so, I think I shall keep it like this for a little while.