Project Life 2016: Week 19

My Project Life page for week 19 of 2016.

I used the Mama's Broken Heart Full Kit Freebie from LJS Designs.

Explore St. Louis: Laumeier Sculpture Park

Since we've moved, we are much closer now to a majority of the fun things to do in St. Louis. This was a huge reason we chose to buy where we did (that and the school district).  So it's so much easier now to go somewhere fun on a whim. 

So a couple weeks ago, on a Friday evening after work, we decided to head up to Laumeier Sculpture Park since it's literally less than 5 minutes from our house. It was a nice evening and we thought it would be fun to get out and enjoy the nice weather.

Here's a little Wikipedia synopsis of what Laumeier Sculpture Park is all about.

"Laumeier Sculpture Park is a 105-acre open-air museum and sculpture park located in Sunset Hills, Missouri, near St. Louis and is maintained in partnership with St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department. It houses over 60 outdoor sculptures and features a 1.4-mile (2.3 km) walking trail^, and educational programs. There is also an indoor gallery, an 1816 Tudor stone mansion, which was the former residence of Henry and Matilda Laumeier. Laumeier is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The park sees about 300,000 visitors each year and operates on a $1.5 million budget."

We had a lot of fun there and I'm looking forward to going back and maybe hiking some of the trails that they have.

5 on Friday

 

 

Happy Friday!

Today I'm linking up with Christina, April and Natasha for Five on Friday!

 Have you guys seen this commercial circulating on Facebook? It is so stinkin cute! You have to watch it.

Jackson got his first trophy this past weekend for playing T-Ball! He was so proud!!

We took Jake's mom out to a movie and dinner on Sunday afternoon for her Mother's Day gift. She decided she'd like Jackson to come along (Avery's still too little for sitting through a movie), so we saw Angry Birds and had dinner on the patio at P.F. Changs! It was such a fun day!

Jackson can never just look at the camera and smile! Ugh, he always has to make a face or act crazy!

Last weekend, I took some family pictures for my sister and her family and they turned out so cute. Here is one of her 3 adorable boys that I just had to share!

And I'll end with this sweet picture of my kiddos! They really can be sweet to each other sometimes! Ha.

 Have a great weekend!!!

Mommy and Me Pictures

As a photographer, my favorite thing to photograph is a mother with her children. As a mother myself, I just love photographing the love and bond between a mother and her children! 

So, I had really been wanting a Mommy and Me session of my own. I haven't really ever had pictures taken of just me and the kids other than snapshots. So I thought I'd rope my sister into meeting me at Forest Park for a little photo session for a Mother's Day present to myself and I'm so glad I did. She did a wonderful job. 

My kids are horrible when it comes to taking pictures. Jake says it's because they constantly have a camera in their face. Ha. That is true. So my sister had her work cut out for her. We got a late start, so we didn't get all the photos I wanted, but what we did get, I absolutely love. 

What I wanted out of this session were shots of the kids and I, individual shots of me with Avery and me with Jackson, pictures of just the kids together and then some of Avery by herself since she just turned 2 and some of Jackson by himself since we never really did a 4 year photo session. This was a lot, and just ended up being too much for one day. So we broke it up into two different days and that ended up being for the best.

Here are the shots that we took in Forest Park.

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy of the Picture on the Right: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

(Photo Courtesy: My sister, Ashlee Jacobs)

So I missed out on getting any good shots of Avery by herself and just the kids together. So this past Monday evening, I took them to a local park near our house and I got the remaining shots I wanted! Yay. It took a lot of work on my part to get these 2 to look at the camera and smile, but I did get a few keepers!

I'm so happy with these pictures! I love them so much. Now to figure out where to hang them in the new house!

Costa Rica: Part 5

The rest of our trip was mostly spent relaxing at the beach or by the pool, but we did do a couple more things nearby our resort that I want to share.

We had heard about a locally owned bar down the beach where you could always see monkeys. So Wednesday evening, in an effort to see more monkeys, we decided to walk down the beach to Monkys Bar. 

Before we even got there, we saw this adorable guy!

Once at the bar, we quickly realized there were no available tables for us. Not to worry though, they built one for us out of beer crates! Ha! Needless to say, it wasn't the most comfortable, so we didn't linger very long. Ha.

After drinking our drinks, we walked back to our hotel, but took the trail instead of the beach to try to see more monkeys. Lucky for us we saw several Howler Monkeys with their babies!! :-)

Thursday, we decided to take a ride over to Coco Beach. It was about a 20 minute or so drive. This was a little beach town that had a lot of souvenir shops and little restaurants. We wanted to get the kids and our parents some souvenirs and we had heard this was the place to go for that. So we talked to someone at the front desk who called a private taxi for us and we spent a couple hours at Coco Beach. We did some shopping and had a drink at a little bar on the beach.

Thursday was our last full day in Costa Rica. So that evening, we got a little more dressed up and had a nice, fancy dinner at one of the hotel restaurants as opposed to eating the normal buffet. We had a wonderful dinner and then caught the end of the show that night.

The next morning, we got up, had breakfast and then headed to the airport. We had a wonderful time, but we were happy to be going home to see our babies!