Guess who lost their 2 front teeth yesterday?

Sammy was one excited dude when they came out!

THE TREE HOUSE IS FINISHED!!!!

Woo-hoo! The tree house is finished! Well, it is finished as far as the building phase goes. We will still stain it sometime here, but for now - it is up and ready to be played in. Any of you who live close (or far away!) and want to come and see it, please know you are welcome!!! Come on by!

Dave and his dad putting on the siding (with Josh posing for the camera, of course!)

Josh learning to use power tools.

And now... the finished product!!

 Our sweet kiddos enjoying the tree house!!!!

So, who wants to come over and play?!

Idlewild

We started school a couple of weeks ago. So far, so good. :) A few days after we started, we took a day and went to Idlewild Park - a great little park near here. Dave's parents came with us and it was a really special day. (We were easing into the school - we find it makes the transition go much better.)

We went on a Tuesday with this great deal from our local grocery store. Your whole car could get in for $95 and if you had a Giant Eagle card, you saved even more off of that! It was a great deal, as I said - esp. for our family of 7! It was a great day all around.

 Kicking off the day with Pop-Pop and the rides!!

 Mom-Mom with Sam on the balloon ride

Sam and I on the ferris wheel

 This fun little place is called Story Book Forest. A lot of the children's books "come to life" for the kids.

(Truth be told, really most of our children are too old for this part, but it was a fun little stop.)

Plus, we were studying King Arthur for our Middle Ages study, so we just had to go and stop by the sword in the stone. :)

All of us on a little bridge in the Story Book Forest

 Anna on the Good Ship Lollipop

 Josh easily removing the Sword in the Stone!

Anna pulling a little harder!

Tim as one of the 3 Little Pigs!

 Sarah doing a little dancing on the life-size blocks...

and running over her brother with the magic carpet. :) 

We also went to the water park (aka Soak Zone) and spent several hours there! The kids loved that! They got to do water slides, the wave pool and a whole adventure area for the younger three! It was very fun.

We had some pizza at the park, rode some more rides and called it a day. It was a great day and we were so glad to spend it with Pop-Pop and Mom-Mom!

First Day of School

Ah, yes, school has begun again in the Mateer household. It is always a time of excitement (and perhaps some trepidation) as the new school year gets underway. Here are some pics of the kids on their first day:

 Josh and Sarah wanted to get their pictures taken by the tree house. :)

My Birthday

OK, OK, I know what you are thinking. "What a narcissist! She is writing a blog about her own birthday!" Well, I wouldn't have done this at all, but I had several requests for the birthday pictures - esp. since something very funny happened on my birthday!

A few days before my birthday, Sarah was making me a present and Anna came up to me and said, "I don't know what to get you for your birthday!" I told her to just give me a hug; that I didn't need a present. She was insistent, though, that she wanted me to have something to open from her on my birthday. So, I told her (rather absently, I might add) to wrap me up some chocolate chips (because I do love chocolate chips.) So she and Sam (by now he had joined the party) went down to wrap up some chocolate chips.

The day of my birthday arrived and I was opening my presents. Sam and Anna had decided to wrap baby carrots in addition to the chocolate chips! The funny thing was they had wrapped them 4 days before my birthday and by the time I opened them, they were pretty old and gross looking! We laughed and laughed at their funny present! So, without further ado, here are some pictures of my birthday!

Getting a good laugh about the carrots!

St. Louis (part 4)

And now we come to the end of our wonderful vacation in St. Louis. The last day, we decided to go to a waterpark near where we were staying. It was such a fun place! The kids loved this - there were waterslides and a lazy river as well as swimming areas. The kids had fun running around playing in the sun!

Then, after a day at the waterpark, Dave and I were able to go on our special date in downtown St. Louis. Every year when we get our tax refund, Dave always asks me if there is something I want with the money. Usually, I just say, "Take me out to dinner. I'm good." This year, however, I told him I really wanted to go on a date in St. Louis when we went. So we wrote some good friends of ours from Florida (who used to live in St. Louis) and they recommended some things for us to do. At their recommendation, we went to Cunetto's House of Pasta. It was FABULOUS! Probably the best Italian meal we have ever had. 

Cunetto's House of Pasta is located in "The Hill" of St. Louis - 

known for its Italian restaurants and eateries. Even the fire hydrants were painted like the Italian flag. 

 After our time in the hill, we went back to the arch. We even got this fun picture on the wharf below the park where the arch is situated.

Dave even treated me to a ride in a horse drawn carriage through the streets of St. Louis.

 St. Louis postcard view of the arch

(The girl driving the horse told us to wait for the perfect picture of the arch. It did turn out very nice!)

What a special and fun date! It ended with fireworks at the arch for the 4th of July. 

What a wonderful, wonderful week in St. Louis. We are so thankful we were able to do it with my parents.

A very special memory indeed.

St. Louis (part 3)

Now, we come to the 4th of July. We decided to just hang out at the beautiful house my parents rented this day. We got to do things on the lake (which was directly behind our house where we stayed!) It was a fun day and everyone was feeling much better, so everyone got to participate this day! There were kayaks and paddleboats for us to use at the dock as well.

 Paddleboats on the lake!

Sarah and Tim sharing a moment

Josh on the porch of the beautiful house where we stayed

Dave and I doing a little kayaking

more paddleboating

 the kids with their souvenirs from the week

 having a blast at the beach of the lake

Dave and the kids after Josh and Dave kayaked over to the beach from our house

St. Louis (part 2)

On Wednesday, July 3rd, we went to Forest Park. This is a really neat area of downtown St. Louis where there is this huge, green, lush park - plus it has free museums throughout. (Think of Central Park, only with museums, zoos, etc. It is actually about 500 acres larger than Central Park in NYC!) This place was COOL! The Science Center was free, the zoo was free, the Missouri History museum - free! We rode the trolley all around this area (the trolley was not free - but totally worth it!) visiting the different museums. Such a fun day.

Sam got to help rebuild a model of a small dinosaur.

 Sarah learned about nanobots and Josh (and Mommy!) learned about binary numbers. Very cool.

Then we rode the trolley to the St. Louis Zoo. This place was awesome!!

 Sam with the penguins!

Grandma and Josh at the Sea Lion Sound - a huge underground tunnel where the sea lions are swimming above you! Very cool!

At the zoo. 

(Poor Tim got sick this day too and my dad graciously offered to stay with him. They had a special day together too and played games and such once Tim felt a bit better.)

We also went to the Missouri History Museum - which I was really looking forward to, but it didn't have the Charles Lingbergh display I was hoping to see. The display about the St. Louis fair was neat, though.

It was a very fun day.