Photo Tales Tuesday: I Wanna Be Like You

Two years ago for Father's Day, Abby's teachers in daycare got a little white dress shirt and a cute tie to take pictures of each of the children as "dad" for a gift. It was absolutely adorable, despite the newspaper in the picture. (Mostly for comedic effect, or so I'm convinced!)

On Friday as I was getting dressed Abby kept asking to wear one of my work shirts. Since I was clearly already running late, I told her no, but promised she could put one on over the weekend. I don't have any true-white shirts, which is what she wanted. I pulled out my cream-white shirt, and that was good enough for her anyway. I don't know if she was remembering the old picture or if she really just wanted to be like me. I am going to choose the latter of the two, just as an ego boost.

After picking a shirt, Abby chose a tie that she likes. Abby knows my ties, so she asked for this one pretty specifically. Once she was ready and in her getup, she wanted a pad of paper to write on. She got tired of that pretty quickly and moved on to Anny's laptop. I love this picture the most (of the 30 I took) because she looks SO angry with whatever she had just typed!

Be sure to check out the other participants in Photo Tales Tuesday over at Laugh until you Cry:

4th of July Weekend!

Hard to believe it, but there are things that happened this weekend that we did not do. What we did this weekend was:

• Behind the Scenes tour of The World Aquarium. (It is no National Aquarium, but it was nice)
• Family Movie Night watching Megamind for the first time
• Church and catching up with folks we have not seen in weeks
• Fair Saint Louis to see a local band we like (Cut short because of fun storms)
• 4th of July Parade 
• A Carnival for lunch and fun, including Abby's first Ferris Wheel ride!
• Dinner/party at a friends house
• Fireworks with a perfect view and fun company

Glad I had an extra day to the weekend, this would have been too crazy for two days!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

One of the petting places at the aquarium! We also go to feed Otters and an Armadillo. Very cool experience for all of us.

Just a pic I like from the Fair.

A picture of (part of) the Arch as the storm approached. We were soaked by the time we got to the car, but since it rained for about 12 hours after it started, we are very glad we left when we did!

Abby waiting for the Webster Groves parade - she was mostly patient. It was wet so the parade was delayed, but fun once it got going.

Abby and I on the Ferris Wheel - her first and my first in as long as I can remember!

Fireworks in Kirkwood. We walked, which was nice because we did not have to deal with traffic. We met up with a friend from church and her little girl - glad we had company since the fireworks did not get started until 9:30! The girls frolicked and ran around while we waited.

Next weekend we are going to summer camp together! I don't think I'm going to take the camera, though. I have never actually been to summer camp as a camper - I'm looking forward to taking it all in!

Abby's Birthday: The Party!

On Sunday Abby turned four. We actually had two parties to celebrate, but one was back in May before she was done with school for the year! Luckily she understood the reason for the split scene, plus, she got cupcakes twice so that was victory for her.

This years party was similar to last years, but much smaller. Don't tell anyone, but the invitations were even extremely similar. Instead of a flower cutout we did a cupcake, but I did use the same template. Work smart - not hard, right?

Our apartment is huge for the three of us, but not huge for ten children and ten adults. This meant a picnic-party-at-the-park. Those are my favorite anyway because we did not have to clean house (frantically), and there is built in play if the kids get bored! The big concern about going all-in for an outdoor venue is that if the weather is cruddy you're stuck with it. We never seriously discussed a rain-plan, either, so it was even better that the weather was perfect for some outside time!

The theme for Abby's party came from her favorite book series - Pinkalicious! In the first book a little girl turn pink from eating too many pink cupcakes with pink icing. I would say that was the easiest party theme ever!

We made a GIANT cupcake from a special pan for Abby's first birthday party. We wanted a utensil-less event, so we did not need the huge pan this year. That left me room to be creative - I used one cup of leftover-cranberry juice and filled the rest of the way with water. It turned out the Perfect Pink:

Anny found a butterfly craft online that we tweaked/improved. This is the final product of the test version:

Even though we said "no presents" the cousins brought one - Abby is in love with what was IN the box as much as she was in love with the hugeness of the box! She insisted on carrying it to the car with no help!

 One of the activities made easy by a childrens-book-theme is that Anny read the Pinkalicious book to the whole gang. They sat, almost completely captivated by the book, for the whole thing. Fun to see that others knew the book and shouted out the punchline at the end, too!

Don't want to make the post too picture-heavy, so one last shot - this is Abby apparently playing with matches waiting to blow out her candles! She helped to make them and so she had to wait a whole 24 hours to eat them, which made them even more special for her!

Thanks to all that came to the party - we had a blast and I think all of the others did too!

For more pictures, hop over to our Picasa page: https://picasaweb.google.com/armonroe

Two more posts coming - one on "Abby at Four" and one with official doc-visit stats. That appointment is not until Monday, so it will drag out. Oh well.

Photo Tales - A Girl and Her Baloons

Alternate Title: A New Favorite Picture!

Last weekend we took an Epic Roadtrip to Casper, Wyoming, to celebrate the retirement of Anny's parents. It was not only a long road trip, but also a quick one - we left Thursday and returned home on Monday afternoon. The drive took us across the state of Missouri, across the longest state I have ever driven through (Nebraska), and into one of the most beautiful drives I have ever done into Wyoming.

This picture is a new favorite of mine. Anny's mom has had a garden for many years - her rose bushes out front are beautiful from what I hear, and her other gardens have veggies and such. This year the only thing that is growing is Rubarb because they are spending a good deal of the summer just relaxing and doing some traveling. The sign is Rhubarb there reading simply "Carol's Garden" and it's perfectly centered and all. (I would expect nothing less in their yard, to be completely honest!)

Abby loves balloons (reminder to Rob: order some for Sunday's party!) and there were about 40 balloons for the party! They were in sets of red and white for my MIL's school and sets of orange and black for my FIL's school. Abby has recently developed a love of the color black. Her favorite is still green, as it has been for about a year, but she's a fan of black crayons and markers sort of all of the sudden. She requested to play with one of the black balloon bunches - and ONLY the black ones.

(I only put so much focus on that because I really wanted to color them, but don't have the time or patience for it this week. A friend suggested the same, which I thought was pretty funny!)

Photo Tales - Week 5 - Trapped Princess

For days they were calling for rain, the severe kind, for the whole weekend last week. We had already tossed plans out the window and were trying to think of indoor fun for the family. Saturday morning they changed the forecast from severe to almost-perfect sun and blue sky! Our rain plans converted back to making outside plans really quickly.

We spent the morning at the local Renaisance Faire in Wentzville, MO. It was my brother-in-laws birthday, and for his big day he wanted to go and do that, and I was not going to turn that down! (Turns out he paid, too. And cooked us dinner. Not sure he knows what birthdays are about!) 

We spent the morning frolicking and taking in a Birds of Prey show. We followed that up with a good Ren Faire lunch: hot dogs for most, but a turkey leg for me and corn-on-the-cob for Abby! We all enjoyed walking the grounds and see people in their period clothes. We adults felt badly for the guy in full chain-mail, especially after the sun really started to blaze. He looked miserable, but was making up for it with a nice big, ice cold beer.


My favorite part was when we got to smell fresh herbs - Abby got REALLY into it. The nice woman spotted us sort of wandering, except that Abby's eyes had gotten big and friendly, so she invited us over. She told Abby to press the leaves of different things and then smell her fingers. Funny was when the host said "smell this one, it smells like gum!" Abby looked at me like "does she know I'm not four yet? I don't chew gum!" She keeps telling me that when she's seven (or is is eight?) she will be allowed to chew gum. She has a lot of life planned out already, come to think of it.


With all of the fun things that went on, it made me chuckle that all three girls were most easily attracted to the plastic playhouse that they could play with anywhere! They played on this stuff for a good half an hour or so! Abby, in particular, loves to play princess/queen games, so she had a blast. They took turns "locking" each other in the tower, and then took turns setting the captive free. This particular picture was of Abby right after she got to be the rescuer she agreed to pose for a picture, and I never pass that up!

Want to play along? Just want to see other pictures and stories? Click on the button below - it's fun to be a part of this group of folks!

Photo Tales - Week 2

(or Friday Photoblogging, or whatever - here's a picture and a story!)

Our Little Reader

Abby has always wanted to read. We have made a point of reading to her at bed time, or any time she asks, since she was about six months old. I am not a reader, but I seem to be the only one in my family line that feels that way. I blame laziness - on my part - for my lack of reading!

Abby and Anny go to the library every other week while I am still at work, so I always brace myself when I get home for what crazy books they have decided to bring home. This week they brought home "How to Raise a Dinosaur" by Natasha Wing (Pablo Bernasconi on illustrations). It's cute, and Abby became immediately obsessed with it - we have been reading it at bed time, before going to school and before dinner. She loves this book. Good stuff - it has a cute story that has a lesson (spoiler alert - if you don't feed your dinosaur it will eat you!).

The cutest part was that when I was eating breakfast yesterday I heard her "reading" the story. I looked down the hallway and saw the picture above - she had assembled her favorite toys - lots of royalty, a fairy and a bear - so that she could read the story to them!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! (new signoff for the blog? probably not - seems lame in the long run.)

Photo Tales - Week 1

Alternate Title: New Meme to Join in On!

My friend Beth over at Laugh until you Cry is starting up a fun Meme that I have been thinking about for some time now. In my head I've wanted a weekly "Picture and a Thousand Words" type of thing, but as soon as I was ready to get it out the gate I started working a job with less flexibility on time - mostly the issue that I don't get home with enough "fun" time after work. Easier, now, to grab on to Beth's fun game!

The Picture:

The Story:
I took this picture at the end of a very wonderful afternoon of just Abby and I hanging out. I set off with the goal of taking the "perfect" Easter picture of Abby. This was before the official Easter Dress arrived in the mail, but just barely. Anny was off with friends for the afternoon touring a local attraction, so I got Abby to buy in to the picture-taking fun!

We had lunch at home and then posed for some just-for-Easter types of shots with some silly eggs we got the day before. They were filled with candy, and just perfect for that day. We took some pictures in the courtyard that were really fun, and then headed to the park. Abby insisted on playing a game of chase more than playing by herself, which turned out to be uber fun for me, too!

The day turned out to be hotter than I had expected, and by the time we walked home Abby was done, or so I thought. She discovered that the brick walls were cool to the touch, even on a hot day. I had put the camera away already, but pulled it back out. With a little coaxing, she let me have another three minutes of pictures - which was just right to get this shot. I really love the contrast of her bright dress with the dark wall, but I mostly love that it was the end of a perfect daddy-daughter time!

Friday Photoblogging

Alternate Title: Wow what a week!

Saturday:
Went, on a whim, to Wetlands Day for Kids at the August A Busch Memorial Conservation Area. We got a hike in, but first Abby got to "fish" on a blue tarp, and we got to see some cool owls:

 Sunday:
A different picture from the hike at Powder Valley Nature Park, which brought about the previous post about Throwing Away Abby's Fears.

Tuesday:
Abby was going to The Butterfly House with her friends, so she got her butterfly shirt and butterfly shoes on, and of course she had to wear a silly face!

Wednesday:
Teddy Bear Pajama Party at The Magic House. By the time story time rolled around Abby was actually ready for bed, but it made for a wonderful picture:

Kind of made Thursday seem boring, so I didn't take any pics. :)

Wordless Wednesday: Playing with Colors

Have not done a Wordless Wednesday submission for a while... Go check out more at http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome/!

Abby's First Written Word!

Not the easiest to make out because she was using a workshop-pencil, but this morning Abby wrote her first word completely on her own and completely unprompted! She knows how to spell some words because she does "exercises" on the computer where she types:

• Abby M
• Mommy
• Daddy
• Dog
• Anny
• Rob

We have not pushed much on the handwritten words just yet, though she does have a dry-erase book that she often practices her letters in. You know, one of those trace and erase deals. Very cool.

Well this morning she came over to me while I was finishing my breakfast and said "I want to write MOMMY, but I can not make the 'Y' right!" We flipped over the page and I showed her that it is like a V with one big leg. She made flags. I suggested one last try and Abby nailed it!

M-O-TwoM's...Not enough room for the Y! She proceeded to write the "Y" in the only place that made sense, and that is what you see above.

She did a little doubling back, but this is pretty clearly the first word she has written.





I was sure to save that information and NOT put it on Facebook or the blog before I showed it to Anny. I made her stop by my office and she did manage to hold back the adorable-tears, but they were close.

So proud of my little girl, both for the accomplishment and for the fact that she is really excited to learn new things. LOVE HER.

2010 Picture Review

A couple of times I have taken the first line of the first blog post of each month, but 2010 was fairly light on the blog because of the craziness of two moves in five months, living with another family for four of those months, yada yada yada.

What I have done, for the most part, is keep up with picture taking.  While I have abandoned Flickr because I don't have time to keep up the way I would like to, I shifted back to Picasa.  I have worked on taking more creative shots, but most of my focus is on Abby of course.  She loves to pose, sometimes to the point of annoyance, and is almost always patient while I take five more shots.

This year I have picked a picture from each month that I have dubbed my favorite.  A friend of ours took better pictures of Abby, but I have included only pictures that I have taken.

First is a slideshow of pictures of just Abby (with one guest appearance) from 2010:


Next is a slideshow that I have dubbed "artsy" but are really just pictures I like from each month that do not include Abby.


I am trying to stretch myself on this stuff, because I am feeling like a lot of the shots I try are stuff I have done before.  Goal for 2011 I guess...

Well - Happy New Year!  Hope your 2011 is awesome!

A Year in Pictures

Abby is turning three tomorrow!  Since I have a sappy post lined up to publish in the morning, I'm sneaking this video slideshow in this evening!  I hope you enjoy the pictures!


Abby Turns Three! from Anny and Rob on Vimeo.

Wordless Wednesday - Get To Work!

More wordless fun at www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome

Brookside Gardens

We had a whirlwind of a weekend that started with two trips to two malls and ended with a nice, quiet dinner at home.  I could write ten posts and not capture the sheer awesomeness of three days with little to no requirements of schedule. 

Instead I will tell you, in pictures, about our trip to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland.  (Their website is www.brooksidegardens.org in case you want to visit!)  I will do my best to cut down the pictures to five, and include a link at the bottom for more fun!

A friend at church was not sure what she was doing on Monday morning before heading to her afternoon-starting-job.  We mentioned Brookside Gardens which peaked her interest in both hanging out and playing with her new camera.  She's always been a better shot than I am, but with her new camera that she is still learning to use, she killed me in awesomeness of shots.  That being said, here are pictures and stories from my lens.

The wildlife was really out and active on our morning jaunt - we saw several box turtles and a massive snapper.  There was one turtle in the water that was covered in moss, so much so that the fish surrounded it and were eating from what was on his shell!  Pretty amazing that they all work together.  We saw one mama turtle and the tail end of burying her eggs!  I gave her the grace of not catching that with the camera, but she ran away pretty quickly, and I got a shot then.

More than turtles, there were lots of geese out and about, all of them seemed to be dragging along their own goslings!  (I only made one Kate Plus Eight reference - go me!)  We got to see one parental goose hiss and go after another goose that got too close.  Those things can be very angry, and we kept our distance where we could.  Lots of cute little ones kept Abby on the watch - here is the first set we stumbled on:

Of course, most of our visit to the Gardens was about Abby, but I also went to capture flowers that were not out the last time we went.  Never failing to disappoint, I grabbed this one which is all around the children's play area that includes a tree house!

The real goal was to get some Abby time, and Abby pictures!  We bought her a cute stripey dress on Saturday down at Tyson's, but alas it is too big for her yet.  Might be good for mid-summer.  Hopefully!  I love that she will climb over branches and under other things, even when she is in full princess mode:

And finally, my favorite shot (of mine) for yesterday.  This is the back side of the tree pictured above.  The sun was hitting just right and Abby was doing some adventure searching back and forth.  I grabbed this one, which I love:

That was our day.  Well, that was only part of one day of a three day weekend that was filled with finding new things and visiting with friends. 

Wordless Wednesday - At the Park with Daddy

More wordless fun at www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome/

Wordless Wednesday - Cutie

Just goofing around after work last week and got this shot.  She's a cutie, and knows it!

More wordless fun at http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome/

Wordless Wednesday: Face Meets Dirt

Our tough little girl took a spill - and I grabbed the camera and THEN cleaned her up!

More wordless entries at www.wordlesswednesday.com!

Our Little Family

Abby is getting better at repetition when it comes to her art work.  Her lines are straighter and her circles are more rounded than eggs now.

In the last few months she has even moved on to drawing "people," as defined by Abby.  Earlier this week she was tasked with drawing her family, and that she did.  Here is the picture, and below I will give you her words to me about it:

I asked her this morning about her picture. She explained to me that the one on the left if "My Mother," "Abby Minroe" is in the middle and "Dally" is on the right. There was no explanation for the green blob up there, believe me I asked. 

As you can see clearly, we all have eyes and mouths.  Only recently have we begun to develop legs, and the arms are new as of this week.  Maybe we are merely tadpoles in her mind! Some day I'll be able to hop!

Daddy Daughter Date

We have always been fans of Chick-Fil-A, and last night that appreciation grew even more!

About a week ago I saw on Facebook that the Chick-Fil-A in Columbia Mall was going to have a Daddy Daughter Dinner night.  I popped an email over to Anny and suggested that she go out with a friend of ours and I would take Abby to dinner.  She agreed and I signed up!  About an hour later, though, I got a phone call from their PR person asking me if I was open on the time or had one specifically in mind.  I told her that I could be open on the early side, but too late and Abby might be a Crabby.  She then told me that they "hoped" it would be successful, and were now down to one open spot and a wait list for everyone else.  The last slot they had was at 5:30 and I took it!  (Sorry other dads, I won't be around next time, you take those slots.)

I hung up and then realized that on Tuesday I had a staff retreat at work.  Argh.  On a normal work day I would be able to sneak out a little early to try and beat the traffic.  On a retreat day I would have no control over my time.  That is okay, just something I did not factor in when agreeing to a 5:30 dinner date! 

As it turned out the retreat ended right on time, which was a little late for my preferred plan but not going to stop me.  I flipped on the traffic.  Backed up the whole way from where I was to home.  It would easily take me an hour to get home, then an hour to get to Columbia.  That would be 6:00.  Anny and I had talked about this on Monday, though, and agreed that we could meet somewhere and swap cars.  We met close to the middle, but clearly at a convenient place in Calverton, made the swap and headed our separate ways.

Abby and I got to the mall a few minutes early, or in Abby time "just right" for getting on the merry-go-round!  So we did that once and headed down to the potty.  We both did what we do in such a place and still ended up at Chick-Fil-A about ten minutes early.  They are close to the play area, and closer to a shoe store.  I mentioned that we were in the 5:30 seating and knew we were early, but I thought I would give them a heads up.  They noted that a lot of the 5:30's showed up a little early.  All of them, actually!  The tables were ready for us, though, so we sat immediately.

Our table - in the food court remember - was set our right for a date, even down to the doily!  Abby was given a long stemmed rose to celebrate, too!

We had a table to ourselves, and even had a waitress!  That is a little funny at a fast food joint, but appreciated because I didn't have to wait in line!  We had our normal fare - Abby got nuggets, I got a grilled chicken sandwich.  Abby at the strawberries, oranges and grapes from the fruit cups and I got the apples.  Then we both share a chocolate shake.  Delightful!

I was sure to thank the PR person, whose name is escaping me.  It was a fun event and gave me an excuse to take my daughter our and spend time with just her. 

We went and played in the play ground for a while, Abby even found an older girl to chase for a while.  It was funny, but made it hard to drag her away!  The only thing that worked was the promise of a trip to the pet store (we look, don't buy).  After that we went over to the merry-go-round for a final ride and then headed home.

It was fun and I look forward to more Daddy/Daughter dates in the future!  Maybe next time I'll upgrade the restaurant - a stand alone Chick-Fil-A instead of the food court! 

Wordless Wednesday: A Perfect Nap

More wordless fun at www.wordlesswednesday.com