The Langkaus and Wichards come to town

We celebrated the Wichard side of the family Christmas over MLK weekend.  Jennifer and family came down from Wisconsin and Diane and Wally came up from Cape.  It was fun to have everyone together.  Walt and Baxter had A LOT of fun.  As can be seen by some of these pictures.  Baxter is always very sweet to his younger cousin.

Oh, and check out that sandwich that walt has while they watch bob play hockey.

Francine is 18 months!

Dr. Schmidt said that Francine looks great.  She is jumping, running, and talking a ton!  She knows the sounds of about 8 animals (will try to get it on video soon).  She loves to say please, especially when it is for cheese! 
We love her so much! 
I also included a picture of Walter, helping to celebrate his sister being 1 and 2/4 (as walt says)

Back in St Louis with the engaged...

Troy and Jessica actually came back to St Louis before us.  They settled right back in to their old "home".  They are getting married in St Louis on Sept 22, 2012 (if i have not told you) and they had some planning to do.  They got a lot done, and we got back to spend some good time with them as well.  We hope that someday they might come back to live in St Louis, we LOVED having them here. 

Although Francine and I will see them in March, we booked a ticket to go to LA for a long weekend over spring break.  YES!!!

More Des Moines Photos

Sorry Blog readers, I am sure that it is super annoying to see that we have updated the blog day after day (I am the most sorry to Wally!). 

Here are some more pictures from our wonderful time over the holidays in Des Moines. 

Christmas Day

We woke up and had some Santa fun before we headed out on the road.  Walt was excited about his lego sets that Santa left.  We had a great ride to Des Moines, we left around 9:45am and arrived by 4pm.  Francine and Walt were awesome on the drive. 

We got there and changed into our "dress" clothes and got ready for dinner and fun with the Ginthers.  We opened a few presents tonight.

Christmas Eve

This year we started a new sara and bob wichard family tradition.  We are going to stay home on Christmas Eve and then head to Des Moines on Christmas Day.  Diane and Wally were going to join us, but as with a lot of people this winter, Diane came down with a nasty cold.  (I am happy to report that she is feeling much better now)

So we had a great day.  We went to the Botanical Gardens Winter flower train exhibit.  My mom would have loved it, but none of us were too impressed, I mean it was beautiful, but flower-looking is not my thing.   Walt liked that they had a seek and find.  So Bob and Walt looked all over for different plants and toys.  Then we did all of our grocery shopping for the night.  Nap time,  and then off to Church.  It was a really nice Mass with the children's choir singing.   We had the kids open presents from us before bed.  Walt loved (more than toys or books) his new Mario Bros shirt.  So cute.  :)  Francine said "Yay" to just about each of her gifts. 

December at the Magic House

We actually went to the Magic House (St Louis Children's Museum) twice the week before Christmas.  We are members so we went to Cookies with Santa, and then Walt was into so many things that he wanted to go back 2 days later.  Here are a couple pictures.  yes that is Francine under a car, she was working on it :)  And walt is pretending to be an injured soldier.  

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

So this year I had some ideas for what I wanted our postcard/picture Christmas card look like, but I think that the kids are at a hard age to get them to 1.  look at me 2.  follow my strict directions and 3.  are not as concerned at getting the picture that I want. 

Here are some of the trials, I ended up going with the Francine crying on santa's lap.  It was just super cute.  And really so not like Francine.