Happy 4th of July!

After a yummy dinner with the folks in Hartsburg; Rick, Kieran and I headed to Jeff City for the capitol city's annual 4th of July celebration down town. Despite the incredible heat and crowds, it was a pretty fun time. Here Kieran is enjoying the cooling mist in the beer tent outside a bar on High Street while Mommy enjoys a beer ;)

After a Star Wars play date this week with the Marshall boys, Kieran decided he had to have a light-saber all his own... what luck that a street vender had this fantastic plastic, light up sword?!

The light-saber was a huge hit...

Kieran "battling" the stroller ;)

A wild child... post a giant sugary cupcake, Pez and a couple hours in 100+ heat... he was a bit strung out...

But he is still my sweet, sweet boy :)

Kieran watching the fireworks.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

A trip to St. Louis...

Planning the trip with a little help from Kieran... Our Chicago transplant friends in St. Louis invited us to a reunion dinner party with some other Chicago friends who were in town visiting for the weekend. We decided to make a day of it and visit the Museum of Transportation and Magic House too.

The Transportation Museum was a bit of a bust yet again this trip as we still couldn't get into the children's Imagination Station exhibit- turns out it is only opened to the public weekday mornings, which isn't entirely clear on their web site. In any case, we decided to stay long enough to ride the little train around the grounds a couple times and then left for an early lunch.

He was pretty excited about riding the train. He told me he was going to tell his papa all about it when he got home ;)

The Magic House was a big hit- despite the crowds.

Unfortunately, Kieran's favorite exhibit from last year was temporarily out of order so we didn't stay in this nook too long.

Playing with the pneumatic tubes... love this expression.

Doing a little construction work... Safety first little guy!

Dad lends a hand :)

Our little workin' man!

The water area was a huge hit this year- we spent nearly an hour in this section as Kieran poured, floated and splashed around in the giant water table.

Love this expression- he had so much fun "squirting" his dad!

"Gottcha!"

"Fishing" in the little pool.

Kieran tried his hand at being a mechanic...

The work order,  "This part's gonna' take at least two weeks to get in lady..."

Working under the car...

Love this pose :)

Talking to Camden on the phone in the tree-house.

Tumbling down the three story slide...

"Blast off!"

Magic Kieran floating a ball on a stream of air!

The quintessential Magic House experience... Kieran wasn't so sure about this exhibit.

Kieran washing onto the shores of Plymouth Rock...

Feeding daddy some corn on the boat.

Playing dress up for the "first Thanksgiving"

More corn for daddy...

This kid loves corn.

Good-bye magic house- see you next year!

After the Magic House we drove to Irene and Greg's house for dinner. Here, Kieran shows off his musical talent on their Rock Band game... I think he was singing "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" ;)

Mom backs Kieran on the base- while drinking a delicious and freshly made watermelon and mint mojito ;)

Kieran tries his hand at drumming...

Rick actually really got into Rock Band. He drummed, played the guitar and sang- a lot! I love that he still surprises me after all these years ;)

Kieran gives Jeff some musical advice while Greg rocks out and Irene supervises.

Kieran was pretty impressed with Irene's Yoda collection :)

Kieran with an official Harry Potter wand.