St. Patty's Day, Syd and Easter 2010

It's been a little while since I've made an update, so I'm going to have to make up for lost time. This is a picture of Cami and Syd's Leprechaun trap that they put out the night before St. Patrick's day. I thought this was such a clever idea, they even put Lucky Charms in the bottom of the traps because that's what Leprechaun's eat.... (as they so matter of fact told me!) :-)

As many of you already know, Syd and I got to take an ambulance ride in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago. She had a severe asthma attack, I couldn't settle it down, so I had to call 911. Bob, of course was out of town - all the craziness happens when he's gone. This was trip #2 since the girls have been born that I've had to rush to the hospital without my calm and reassuring rock. Anyhow, Syd is doing much better, still battling the pneumonia, but it's on the upswing. After Syd and I's crazy night a special delivery arrived for Ms. Sydney. A fruit bouquet from Uncle Dan and Aunt Denise. This was such a highlight for her, it made her feel so special. And, she was sweet enough to share it with Cami too. Thanks to everyone for their prayers during this very scary ordeal.
Easter 2010 was beautiful this year. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Bob had to work in the morning this year, so we went to church together Saturday night and then bright and early Sunday morning the girls enjoyed 1 of 3 Easter egg hunts of the day. I video tapped the one at our house, so no pictures of that hunt, but I did take a couple sweet pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses that were actually a birthday present from Aunt Shirley. :-)
Camryn
Sydney

My beautiful daughters

After Bob finished working we headed over to Bob and Connie's for brunch and their 2nd egg hunt. I was a picture flunkie - this was the only picture I got - but thank goodness it was an awesome one of The Walter Grandkids! So sweet!

After brunch we headed over to Uncle Dan and Aunt Denise's house for another Easter Egg hunt and dinner. Here is a picture of the girls with some of their findings. The bracelets they are wearing were an Easter present from Uncle Nick and Aunt Liz. So cute!

When we got home our living room was covered in pastel! I just got it all put away! :-)
Bob helping Cami, her basket couldn't hold anymore eggs, so daddy had to empty her basket into a bag and off she went looking for more. Between the girls and Kylie I think they each had 60 eggs to find... CRAZY!!!!!!!!

And..... Syd found the GOLDEN EGG!!!!!!

Cami, Kylie and Syd

Uncle Dan was helping me carrying up the baskets. Their yard is a lot bigger than I thought it was! I was getting out of breath making all the long hauls to the house! You can see all the onlookers in the background. They had the birds eye view up there.

Cami and Syd got to video chat with their cousin Grace who lives in Kentucky. We wish they could have been there with us in person, but since they couldn't this was almost as if they were!

Here is momma Kristie! She is 28 weeks now and looking so cute!

We hope everyone had a great Easter! Hopefully our April will be a lot less hectic and uneventful than our March was!

Bald Eagles and Bike Riding

A couple of weekends ago, we decided to hop in the car and go up to Grafton and drive along the Great River Road to see if we could spot any bald eagles. The weather that day was absolutely beautiful. So the girls were all decked out, had their bonocholars on the whole way there, ready to spot bald eagles. Well, apparently Eagles like cold and when it's warm they stay in their nests - which for us - was NOT a good thing. We looked everywhere, didn't see even one - well maybe we saw 1 - but heck it could have been a hawk for all we know.... All in all, we had a great family day together despite no Eagle spotting, so nothing gets better than that!

Grafton has this beautiful light house, so of course we had to stop there for pics!
After going to lunch at The Finn Inn, we decided to go expore Grafton and stopped at one of the shops for an ice cream cone. YUM!

When we got home, the weather was so nice, we decided to take the girls up to the park for year number 2 of learning how to ride their bikes without training wheels. THEY DID AWESOME!!!!! What a difference a year makes! They both rode by themselves, still working on starting by themselves, but otherwise they've got it! We are very excited because now we can start going bike riding at the local trails in our area.

Here is Cami

And Syd!

Ellie and I cheered them on.

My little sweeties are 6!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Cami and Syd turned 6 years old today. I can't believe that my little girls are already 6 years old. For their birthday this year they chose a party with their friends - a bowling party! The kids had a great time, a little crazy and wild at times, but the girls really enjoyed it.

Aunt Katy got the girls these great shirts to wear for their party - with these shirts EVERYONE could tell them apart! :-)

After looking at these pictures, we realized that the girls are on the wrong sides of their cake! Cam's on Syd's 1/2 and Syd is on Cam's 1/2. Whoops....

Cami getting ready to bowl a strike!

Here goes Syd! Can we get a soda, please?!?!

Today after church we headed to the mall to get the girls ears pierced - their BIG 6th birthday present. They were all pumped up ready to go, then the closer it got the more scared they got. We walked around the mall a couple of times, they thought they were ready. Syd got up there, the lady marked her ears, then crocodile tears started rolling. They decided today wasn't the day... and maybe they will try again when they are 7 -or- 8. :-)

This year the girls wanted to make their own birthday cakes. They (of course) didn't want the same flavor of cake - Cami wanted yellow with chocolate icing and Sydney wanted Strawberry with Strawberry icing.

Happy 6th Birthday Sydney Grace!

Happy Birthday Camryn Nicole! Cami was so excited - she'd been asking for a Michael Jackson CD for awhile now - of course Mama Weier had to get it for her since she's the one that turned them into a fan!!! They love to jam to MJ in car rides with Mama.

Fight For Air Climb 2010

This weekend Bob and I participated in the Fight for Air Climb sponsored by the American Lung Association in Springfield, IL along with our friends Amy and Dan. I don't think any of us knew quite what we were getting ourselves into 4 months ago when we signed up for this... We all made it to the top and were very relieved and excited to have completed this huge challenge. It was definitely a test of mental and physical strength, endurance and willpower. I had to keep repeating to myself -I CAN DO THIS!!!!

The hotel looked a lot taller in person. 30 floors = 600 stairs.

Here was the view from our hotel room of the beautiful capitol building. (no, this will not be displayed on my bathroom wall....) The night before the climb.

Team Walter-Morra! I'm sure this was before the climb, neither of us look out of breath...Our times and our metal's. I couldn't get this picture to go horizontal...looked fine on the computer though! Who knows....

Bob - 4 minutes 30 seconds (yes, Bob rocked it! The 1/2 marathon training he is doing is definitely paying off!!!!!)

Angie - 14 minutes 26 seconds.

Our night on the town after the race Saturday night. Bob and I also celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary this weekend.

My Watermelon Martini at this awesome restaurant that Bob made us reservations to- yummy!

One of the many shots of the evening... CHEERS to a great time with great friends!
A special thanks goes out to my mom/dad and Nicole for keeping Cami and Syd this weekend so Bob and I could do this climb and get a special getaway for our Anniversary. And also to my awesome friend Jess for watching Ellie!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy (belated) Valentine's to all my blog follower's!

Saturday, we met up for dinner with Cami's and Syd's BFFs from Ms. Tia's house. All the girls were SO excited to see each other. The best part was.... all 4 of them had on the same dresses! AND - it wasn't even planned! I loved it!

Olivia, Cami, Syd, Emma

The Walter Family
Emma and Olivia with Dave and Jama

Sunday, Nicole had us over for Valentine's day dinner, which was also the first cooked meal in her and Ryan's new house. It was wonderful - Nicole's house is gorgeous and she was a great hostess!

Cami and Syd have started a new adventure and we also gained a new piece of furniture! They started taking piano lessons a couple of months ago with Mrs. Janice at Lacefield Music. They are doing GREAT!!!! From the kitchen when they are practicing I can actually hear the tunes "Yankee Doodle" and "The Muffin Man"! I thought it would be a long time before I'd actually recognize a song, but they are picking it up really fast and doing a great job at it! I'm so proud of them!!!!!

Camryn

Sydney

My two little Mozart's! :-)

Cookin' Class and Bob's Birthday

Saturday while Bob was busy drywalling the garage, I took the girls to a kids cooking class at Eckert's. Boy, did they have a great time and I was just as excited because the mess wasn't in MY kitchen! :-) The girls made 5 different things at the class and they also got to go out into the Eckert's Country Market to try all the different kinds of fruits they sold. We came home with something called an Ugli Fruit, the girls thought it was so delicious but it's definitely got a good name for the way it looks! They also got to make 2 candy treat bags to give to their "Valentine's". I was really impressed by this cooking class. The girls want to go back and do it again in March!

Sydney showing me her french toast apple and cream cheese sandwich. Here's Cami's, they were made into hearts, not sure if you can see that or not.

They also made strawberry and pretzel parfaits

Making a fruit smoothie.

Bob celebrated his 34th birthday in January. Better late on the picture post than never... :-)

The girls and I made daddy his favorite birthday cake.

Bob's birthday fell on a Tuesday, which is the girls swim lesson night, so they were super excited to get home and have this special treat that we made the night before!

For Bob's birthday, the girls and I took Bob to his favorite restaurant, Roemer Topf in Mascoutah. I asked Bob's family to join us for dinner and this was Doug's present to Bob!!!!! Of course it was shared with the whole table.