March 2022: Jefferson Barracks Park

Jefferson Barracks has a big outdoor skate park that we've gone to several times now, and right by it is a neat outdoor amphitheater with a little spring creek running through it that used to be a recreation spot for soldiers stationed there. It looks like on this trip I spent a lot more time playing on the rocks by the creek with the girls than watching the boys on the skate park.

I love watching toddlers work on socks and shoes.

Meanwhile Gussie and Michael were busy putting more air time on the new scooters they got for Christmas. 

March 5, 2022: Local Volleyball Tourney

I know you're not tired of seeing volleyball pictures yet! February, March, and April are very busy volleyball months, with local and travel tournaments happening two or three weekends each month. The big kids usually have other things going on or just don't want to sit in a gym for six or seven hours for the local tournaments, but Agnes usually likes to come with me still. These pictures are all just Catherine doing what she does: hitting and blocking. 

February 2022: A Little Ice

I know there were recently pictures of Edie outside in shorts and a tank top, but winter wasn't done with us yet. February opened with a big snow and closed with a bit of ice. It wasn't enough to do any major damage but it did make just enough of a slick layer to be able to get the sleds and snowboards out again.

Woops - I thought this picture was from the ice but looking at it now it appears to actually be from the big snow. No matter - I was just playing around trying to get the icicles to sparkle in the photo the same way they did in real life.

This one is definitely from the ice. The kids were outside playing in the yard and brought a couple of these in. The ice layer had coated each individual exposed leaf on the laurel bush and made perfect little ice leaf replicas that they could slide from the top of the real leaves.

I had so many pictures from the big snow that I didn't take my camera out with us when we went sledding at the park on the ice, but here are a couple cell phone pictures.

The IKEA Hack Gang.

Remember the favorite sledding path, down the hill and across the sidewalk and around a corner and down another hill and across the road? Here's Michael Jr riding the route, although I think he (slowly) slid into a parked car and didn't make it up the sidewalk on the other side of the road. [Please remember people are posted to watch for cars and they are not going nearly fast enough that they couldn't stop if a car was en route.] 

Edie was really upset that she wasn't heavy enough to ever get up enough speed to make it across the road, so I told her I would jump on the sled with her, and I gave her my phone on video for good measure. 

Here are a couple other videos from the day.

February 2022: Art Studio Update

Sometimes Catherine sends me pictures she takes of Mary at the art studio they work in, so here's a few with some updates.

I might have already posted this one with the last update - it's several of the angel canvases for the Indianapolis installment.

And working on new things.

In case you didn't already know that Mary is very fashionable and can wear many, many cool styles, here is a bit of proof.

Sometimes when a live model is in the studio and they don't have other canvas work that needs done Mary will sketch along with Gwyneth. It's really a pretty incredible and unusual opportunity.

This is a bit random but almost kind of a little bit falls into an art post so here it is. Edie told me that she really wanted to make a coloring page for Daddy for his birthday, and she wanted the coloring page to be of him at mass. A quick search told me that there are free coloring page converters online that make a simple line drawing out of just about any jpg, so the next time we were at mass I slipped into the back and took this picture.

And the nifty coloring page creator turned it into this coloring sheet:

I can't find a picture of the finished product, but Edie was very excited to get to work on her special present.

February 2022: Farewell, Good Tree

We had an engineer out to look at a couple things in the foundation of the main house and the garage, and his assessment was that this giant tree should never have been allowed to get so giant and its roots were at least contributing to and possibly solely responsible for the movement of the garage wall. I always had dreams of seeing this tree just dripping with thousands of tiny white Christmas lights, but sadly the squirrels, who literally eat Christmas lights for lunch, loved this tree as much as we did so it never happened.

It was a great climbing tree and a beautiful shape and provided shade for the garage apartment, but it looked to be either the tree or the garage, so of course we had to choose the garage. The next day with a nice bit of weather, Michael and the kids set to taking down the tree. Being more than twice the height of the garage, it wasn't a small task. They started by taking off the lower branches so there was some room to work, then tied off the top third and cut that down. With the help of a couple ropes it came down right on the sidewalk between the pergolas.

It's not often you'll see Daddy that high up in a tree.

The pair of morning doves who reside in the yard couldn't watch - they had to turn away.

Once the top was down it was a simple but tough job to saw the rest of the branches and bring the trunk down in sections. But the weather held out for a couple days and now the view in the yard is starkly different. 

The hyacinth and snow drops consoled us with their little reminders that even though there was a good bit of winter weather ahead, February is when St. Louis starts gearing up for Spring.