Never fear, more pictures to view on flickr. It has been a while since our last post because we were a separated family for a week. Rebekah and the girls spent the past 10 days in St. Louis with her family and had all kinds of adventure. (Brad was able to see his girls on their birthday after making the drive on Friday, the 30th.) As you can see above, the barenaked ladies loved to cool off in the water of their own private patio pool. And Rebekah was able to enjoy a few mornings in one of her childhood haunts, Kirkwood Park.

And the girls loved their time in the swings.

Sydney and Abigail had their first encounter with monkeys, giraffe, and other caged creatures at the St. Louis Zoo, and saw some free roaming animals on the impressive Grant's Farm estate (a Busch establishment). Our little animals did not seem to stop their exploration of their new surroundings...since we do not have stairs in our house, the girls have not really had the opportunity to climb like they did last week. No-fear Abigail figured it out with the first two steps and can now crawl up the steps with the greatest of ease. Sydney was not far behind and was able to make it up a couple of steps. And we only had one major tumble...Sydney was able to pull a folding chair over that bumped her right between the eyes. The pictures on flickr don't really do the boo-boo justice, Sydney. All in all, it was a nice birthday week for the girls and was nice to have extra hands to corral our very active daughters.

You may have already seen the masterpiece, but I forgot to give credit where credit is due on the last post. Rebekah made one of the greatest first birthday cakes that I have ever seen for Sydney and Abigail's 1st Birthday Party. If you could only see the detail. She made a large cake that replicated one of the girls favorite toys--Mr. Star! Mr. Star will always hold a place in all of our hearts--as little babies the girls would be transfixed on him as they would lay on their backs under the playgym. If we heard his songs once, we have heard them a thousand times...but he made the girls so happy that we didn't mind.