Explore St. Louis: Cahokia Mounds

Last month, my Sister, Mom and I took the kids to Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, IL. We grew up in the town right next door and my sister actually lives in Collinsville now. We had been to the mounds as kids, but had never taken any of our kids there, so we thought it would be something cool for them to see, especially Landon, who is 7. 

Here is a little snipit from wikipedia about Cahokia Mounds:

"Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site[1], located in the Saint Louis Metro East region of Illinois, was home to the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico. The city was occupied for seven centuries as the American Indians here farmed, traded, created art, studied the sun, and built massive earthen mounds. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people lived at Cahokia when it reached its peak 800 years ago. Today, Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can walk the grounds where the Indians walked, climb to the top of a 100 ft (30 m) mound, and visit a world-class museum to learn more about life in this part of America before Columbus."

My mom stayed at the museum with Avery, while my sister and I took the kids all the way up the 154 steps, to the top of the Mound. Here are a few pictures from our little hike.

Walking the path from the parking lot to the mound.

 

Heading up Monks Mound!

The beautiful view of the city of St. Louis from the top of the mound.

The boys taking it all in.

My sister's boys, Landon and Mason.

Jackson exploring the top of the mound.

Jackson and I at the top.

The boys exploring.

 A view of the stairs from the top of the mound. You can see the landing, and then there is another set of stairs down that path to the road.

My sister with her two boys and the baby she babysits for.

Jackson and I climbing down the stairs.

There is also a Cake at Cahokia Mounds, so we had to get a picture with it too. :-)

It was a fun day and I think the kids really enjoyed it.

Jackson Lately

On June 20th, Jackson turned 32 months old. He's growing up so fast, it's just so hard to believe! He is so much fun right now! I just love all of the funny things he says and some of the things he knows and remembers just blows my mind! He can test my patience for sure, but the good definitely outweighs the bad.

He can now sing his ABC's, with a little help! It is so adorable! I really need to get it on video, but the one time I tried, he wouldn't sing it, of course! Some other favorite songs he likes to sing are 5 Little Monkeys, If You're Happy and You Know It, Row Row Row Your Boat, The DJ Shuffle Song, The Summer Song from Frozen and "Happy" by Pharrell Williams! He loves to sing and tries to sing any songs he hears, especially on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

A couple of weeks ago, after being around my nephews who call me by my actual name, Jackson started calling me Mimi (aka Amy, Ha.) Then after hearing me call Jake by his actual name, Jackson started calling his daddy "Blake" (aka Jake). He also has called me "Mom" a few times lately after being around older kids who say Mom instead of Mommy. I quickly corrected him and said no, it's mommy. :-) I'm not ready to be "Mom" yet. 

Jackson has some super funny ways of saying things that I don't want to forget. These are his latest creations:

"Feavy" for Heavy

"Bopcorn on the Cob" for Popcorn

"Light Light Bug" for Lightening Bug

"Fia" for his cousin Sophia

He used to say "Yeah Yeah" for Yes, but just in the last week or so he started saying Yes, not yeah but yes. Ha.

A couple other funny things he's said lately:

My mom was sitting outside with him and they saw an airplane in the sky, so she asked him if he had ridden on a big airplane (knowing he did back in January when we went to Phoenix), and he said yes. So she asked him where he went on the airplane and he said "Let me think" while tapping his finger on the side of his head! I have no idea where he picked up on that one. Ha.

He's also said, after hearing birds chirping outside, "What's that Sound" while holding his hand up to his ear! Not sure where he got that one from either. Ha.

After going to Pizza Hut with my parents for dinner one night, he spotted a Pizza Hut from a distance while driving with us and shouted excitedly, "Pizza Hut". He knew it was a Pizza Hut just from seeing the sign and remembered going there with my parents.

One last thing to mention about Jackson lately is, he loves riding carnival rides. We took him to his first carnival a couple weeks ago and he LOVED the rides! He had so much fun there, so we took him to Six Flags and he rode all the kiddie rides plus any adult rides he was tall enough for. We also took him to a carnival last week and he rode every ride he was tall enough for and wanted to ride the ones he wasn't tall enough for. I'm so thrilled that he isn't scared and loves rides!

Likes: Playing with and collecting cars from the Disney movie Cars, watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the movie Bolt, playing at the park, carnival rides, pizza, cinnamon rolls and oreos.

Dislikes: Pasta of any kind (crazy kid), naptime, having his picture taken and diaper changes.

 Jackson, you are so much fun and your Daddy and I just love you to pieces! You amaze me every day with the things you know and remember! You are such a blessing and joy and I can't thank God enough for allowing me to be  your Mommy!

Happy 4th of July!!

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July weekend!

Explore St. Louis: The City Garden

Another fun thing we did while I was on Maternity Leave was visit the City Garden. (Not to be confused with the Missouri Botanical Garden that I talked about yesterday.)

One Saturday in May, we met up with Jake's Mom, Brother and his Brother's Kids  to go "cake hunting" downtown. We planned to find a few cakes, have lunch and then head over to the City Garden so the kids could play in the sprinklers. Jackson had a blast swimming and playing with his cousins! Our City Garden has several sprinklers and 2 pools for the kids to swim in. They have several sculptures, throughout the park and there are often many food trucks parked there. It's a beautiful place to visit and so much fun for kids. It's also FREE!!

Here are a few pictures I took while we were there that day.

Jackson jumping over the sprinklers. :-)

Jackson and his cousin Bella in the pool.

Daddy helping Jackson jump in with Bella.

And of course, we had to get a picture with the City Garden Cake. :-)  (P. S. to see all of the 118 cakes we've found so far, you can follow along with me on FB or Instagram.)

If you notice the Pinocchio on the front of the cake, its referring to this statue. :-) 

Explore St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden

Back in May, we made our annual visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden here in St. Louis. My Mom, Sister and I go every year and take the kids. It's so pretty and a lot of fun. They have a children's garden which is where we spent a majority of our time this year. We also fed the Koi Fish in the Japanese Garden, which is my favorite part of the garden. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

 (Of course, we had to get a picture with the cake.)

The children's garden has slides,

A big boat,

a little stream to play with boats in,

a splash pad,

and a little grocery store among many other things.

There is a place in the Children's Garden where you can go inside and play with legos, dress up in different costumes, color and play in tents.

An old carriage outside of the children's garden.

Feeding the Koi Fish.

Jackson just adores his cousin Landon. :-)

We saw this home for bees as we were walking through the garden. I am terrified of bees, but it's cool to see so many of them from a distance.

A few pretty flowers in the garden. Since we spent a majority of our time in the Children's Garden I didn't get too many pictures of the flowers like I normally do.

We had a great day, and as always, I'm already looking forward to our next visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden.