Purina Farms

St. Louis is an amazing place for families--we've been here almost a year and a half and we've barely scratched the surface of all the fun things to do with kids (almost all of which are free!). Purina Farms is owned by, get this, Purina (the dog food company); it's the site of apparently one of the top competitive dog arenas, both show dogs and sport dogs, in the country. As if that weren't cool enough, they also have a little petting zoo and a twice-daily sporting dog talent show of sorts.

It is a bit of a drive from our house since it's out in the country (something like 45 minutes or an hour), so when the opportunity came up for me to do a secret shopper visit at the nearby hotel, we decided to make a weekend of it. Free hotel room, free breakfast, free (indoor!) pool time, and free zoo/dog show added up to be a fun little last-minute vacation.

For dinner that night, we found an awesome little down-home diner in Washington, Missouri. Scott & I each got a plate piled with like 4 different fried delicacies for something like 8 bucks. AMERICA!

This is Luke rather vocally requesting (/demanding) that we read his
book.

First time in a booster seat (rather than a high chair). Such a big little
boy!

Luke's favorite thing at Purina Farms, bar none, was a bin of corn kernels with some toy tractors. He spent the better part of a half hour playing there. We literally had to drag him off to see the animals.

"Chrah! Bee wheew! Bee cooo! Bbbbbb." (Translation: "Tractor! With
big wheels! And a big scoop! Vroom.")

For the record, Luke is wearing his favorite shirt in the world. Every
time he sees it in his closet (or in the dirty laundry) he demands to
wear it. ("Sriiiiii!" --"Stripes!") Something like 2/3 of his shirts are
striped, but apparently this faded, stretched-out hand-me-down is the
coolest one. 

Luke does not own any toy tractors. Perhaps Santa
will have to remedy this.

Luke got to feed the sheep (with the help of one of
the employees). He laughed and said that the sheep
kissed him. I was just glad that he still had all five
digits. 

Yes, those are two sleepy little piggies who love to have their ears
scratched. And a remarkably friendly chicken that likes to be chased
around the bench. (I sat down next to the pigs to pat their little bums,
and the chicken climbed up into my lap, hunkered down, and pecked
gently at my shirt until I started scratching her instead of the pigs.)

Luke also got to pet a cow, goats, bunnies, dogs, cats, and an amorous horse. Last stop of the day was the dog show. By this point Luke was way past naptime and barely holding on to this side of a meltdown, so we busted out the binky while he watched the show.

He was really cutting a rug to the show music! One of these days I will actually capture it on video. Below, he's too busy stealing the orange I'm in the middle of peeling to be bothered to dance.

Good times all around. Purina Farms is one of four (literally, four) free petting zoos within an hour of our house. Did I mention that St. Louis is great?

Pumpkins!

Our ward's playgroup this week was at a pumpkin farm! All of Luke's jeans were dirty when I went hunting for clothes for him this morning, so as soon as I saw his overalls, the kid was doomed.

Yes. I'm that mom. The one that dresses the baby up like a farmer to go to the pumpkin patch. (I kind of have to when the kid is this cute.)

Nailed it. 

Luke's words this week have been big ("BEEEEEG!") and tiny (super high-pitched: "ty-yee!"), so you can imagine his delight at seeing pumpkins as big as himself right next to a crate of miniature ones. You can hear him talking about it here if you listen closely (he says pumpkin "pohn").

I think I'll just put up a bunch more pictures and leave you to it. The farm had all kinds of things to crawl on and catch tetanus from and get stuck in and generally have a good time. Luke's only injury was a head-bonk and bloody lip from a misplaced step near the top of the slide, which I considered pretty good for the day. Well, that and I accidentally locked him in the car while we were trying to leave. Mom of the year, I'm telling you.  (I changed his diaper on the front seat before getting him buckled in, and I didn't realize that he kicked the lock button on the door in the process.) In the end, he was pretty sweaty and upset with me, but also excited that he got to see a fire truck since we had to call 911 to bust him out. A little too much adventure in one day for me, I'll tell you that.

With his buddy Brian

He was mesmerized by the windmill. He kept
pointing to it and saying, "WEEEW! KY!"
("Wheel! Sky!")

Devilishly handsome. (Also, I'm glad I got this picture before the Slide
Incident, since that's the side of his head that we'll call Scarface for
the next week or two. Poor kid.)

Still got a bit of strawberry blond left.

One of Luke's favorite things in the world is to dig in the dirt (/sand
/gravel) and make little piles of it in places where dirt (/sand/gravel)
do not belong...like, say, inside the gears of this antique tractor.

Arguably Luke's favorite part. I tried explaining to him that it was an
old-fashioned fire truck, but I don't think he believed me about the fire
part. He just kept calling it "ohd chruk."

"You mean I can SIT? in this BEEEG CHRUK? Are you SERIOUS?" (You
would think he'd just met the president or something.)

Smart thinking, boys. Nothing like teamwork to drive the truck when
neither of you is even 3 feet tall.

Apparently either Heath was doing it wrong, or Luke decided he was
ready to go solo. (Me, internally: "Luke is being assertive?! YAY!")

They had to discuss the engineering plans for this pipeline for a good
ten minutes. (Well, either that or Heath was teaching Luke about
eating dirt...Luke's face afterward kind of gave him away.)

Another big tractor that I had to finally tear him away from. I swear I
didn't teach this kid to be a boy. 

It's hard to see, but he's grinning like he just won a year's supply of
cheese sticks.

Luke has no concept of shopping. At the grocery
store, he can never figure out why I won't let him eat
the cereal or crackers in our cart. He similarly didn't
seem to get that we could take a pumpkin home with
us if he found one he liked. I tried to pick one for him,
but he declared that they were all "choo HAYEE"
(too heavy). 

He did like this one since it had a "hahow" (handle),
but when I asked him if he wanted to take it home,
he said "naaaaw." (Can you see the line from his
temple to his chin where the swingset/slide
bit him? I think he'll survive.)

Perfect weather for a fun day. I love fall.

Chicago! Part 1

So, so sorry it's been so long since I've posted! I think we lost the camera for a little while after we moved, and he's a lot harder to take pictures of now that he's walking (/running/climbing) all over the place. Anyway.

We decided to take a little trip up to Chicago for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. It had been a super crazy month for Scott, and it was just a nice break for all of us from the heat of the summer & the work of moving. Neither of us had been to Chicago before and it's only 5 hours from St. Louis, so it's perfect for a little 3-day-weekend kind of vacation. It ended up that taking the train wasn't significantly more expensive or slower than driving, so we thought we'd try it just for fun.

So happy to be riding the train!

Heading out of STL, not too long after sunrise

Watching the barges on the Mississippi

Piggy jammed his mouth full so he could make a grab for the camera

After dropping our bags off at the hotel and trying to see if we could get Luke to take another little nap (no such luck), one of our first stops in Chicago was a nice long walk over to Millennium Park to get all of our wiggles out. 

Looking straight up from underneath The Bean--can you see me?

Check out that skyline!

Luke was far more interested in the birds and sticks and dirt than the landmarks, of course. (He's not normally that wobbly when he walks now--he's limping a little bit in the video because he rolled his ankle getting off the tall bed in our hotel room. He was right as rain by the next day.)

More fun Chicago pics to come!