Noah and I Are So Alike.

It is so funny to watch Noah. He reminds me so much of me when I was little. If you were in my family you would know about the infamous Here’s Bozo video. I think I even talked about it on my blog before. I said something like Ladies and Gentleman Here’s Bozo and ran in the room over and over and eventually fell down. Recently, Noah was running around the house saying Ladies and Gentleman, Start your engines or something along those lines. Another thing he does is he talks like I did when I was little. On the same video I am sitting in our plastic swimming pool and I ask my mom to get our beach towels and I said We have towels. Noah says we have *insert whatever he is talking about* and he says it the same way I did when I was well his age.

Today, I had a mess to clean up. I am assuming it was payback for the baby powder from when I was little. I dumped a whole bottle of baby powder on myself, my old best friend and all over the room. It was that dreaded Talc kind and I am sure I inhaled a ton of it and I turned out ok. Well, I thought I would be smart and put the baby powder up where Mr. Noah couldn’t reach it. He found some Wilton powdered royal icing that I totally forgot I had bought, it was in a cupcake kit. I guess I should look on the bright side and he only opened one package and not everything. It was a total mess though. Powdered Royal icing all over the counter, the floor, the stove top, and my son who decided it would be fun to make foot prints with it. He also was rolling his trains and fire trucks in it. He also had a whole package of cupcake wrappers strategically placed on the floor. I thought maybe he was trying to make cupcakes or a treat for his mommy. Well needless to say I was not amused. It was kinda funny but it was a pain to clean up. It took forever to sweep it, mop it etc, while not making icing because that would have been a total pain in the butt.

I was reminded of my grandma Rose as I was cleaning it up. We used to make paste for crafts with flour and water all the time. I also remembered doing Paper Maché with my cousin Susie, I think it was Susie. It was a long time ago, if it wasn’t Susie, it was Rory. I can’t count how many crafts we did with my grandma and assorted cousins.

After I cleaned it all up, I sat him down for a talk. He was in trouble. I wanted to know what he was doing exactly. He told me he was making it snow inside. I explained that it doesn’t snow in our house and to not get in to things he knows not to get in to. He doesn’t like to talk about it, because he knew he was in big trouble. He also learned that even mommy got in trouble when she was little. I always follow up time outs and punishments with hugs and kisses and I love yous.

Noah is definitely a character, like I was. I wonder where he comes up with this stuff.
Do you see your children doing the same silly things you did when you were a child? I would love to hear your stories.

St. Louis Hilton at the Ballpark Review

I wanted to tell you guys about the hotel, we stayed at in St. Louis. We stayed at the St. Louis Hilton at the Ball Park. It is extremely close to Busch Stadium like across the street. It is in downtown St. Louis and it is an easy walk to the Arch and many restaurants. We didn’t have to do a whole lot of driving when we were there. It is a great location and a gorgeous hotel. The lobby is beautiful. There is even a Starbucks and a restaurant in the hotel. There are also two bars. It was amazing. The hotel staff was all very nice and made our stay very comfortable. We had valet parking. It was my first experience with valet parking and it was really neat. The hotels parking lot is across the street and down the road a little ways so not having to carry our luggage that far was great. Not only that but the bellboy brought our luggage up for us and unloaded it. We were all pretty tired at the end of each day it was nice to just be able to pull up and get out of the car and walk in the hotel. The valets were very nice and we didn’t have to wait long to get our car. We had a lot to do so not spending the extra time was great.



The room was so comfortable. The beds were so soft and it felt good to lay down on them and just hang out. The view was breathtaking. We had a view of part of the Arch, the old capital building and a couple fountains. St. Louis is a gorgeous city. The TV was a nice one. It was a flat screen. Noah’s favorite channel was the hotel channel. It was pretty funny to hear him to ask to watch it. It was great to have such a nice room that we didn’t have to worry about anything to come back to.

Every night we enjoyed the pool and hot tub. This pool and hot tub was featured in George Clooney’s movie The Air Up There. I have never seen the movie but it was cool to think that George Clooney could have been sitting where I was sitting. Yes, I am a huge George Clooney fan. Noah and I danced in the pool in my arms. I sang him songs and we just had some special mommy and Noah time. He had a huge smile on his face the entire time. It was nice to have his little warm body in my arms because the water was pretty cold. My favorite thing was the hot tub. It felt so nice to be in it after a long day. It was huge. It is the biggest one I have ever seen or been in. It would accommodate a lot of people. They also had a dry sauna that I would sit in too. I love saunas. I would rather be hot than freezing cold. There was hardly anyone in the pool area when we were there which was nice. I don’t like a lot of noise when I am trying to relax. It felt like our own personal spot to go and relax.

Unfortunately, the night before we left, Noah got really sick. I was lying in bed watching Locked Up Raw. All the sudden I heard someone throwing up. I jumped up because it scared me. I was almost asleep and so I got up and my little boy was sitting up extremely sick all over the bed. I will spare you the details but it was really gross. The comforter, the sheets, his pillow pet was all covered in it. I felt so bad for Noah because it happened over and over again. I called Guest Services and explained the situation. I wasn’t sure if they were able to do anything because a lot of places don’t have overnight housekeeping. Thankfully St. Louis Hilton at the Ball Park does. Housekeeping came up to our room and changed all the bedding for us. She even left an extra sheet incase it happened again. The other times we were more prepared with towels. I was sad to check out of the hotel because it was so nice and everyone was great.

If you are in St. Louis you should stay at the St. Louis Hilton at the Ball Park because it is a great hotel that has lots of great amenities and is even there for you when your child gets sick in the middle of the night. It is a beautiful place and I would love to stay there again the next time we are visiting St. Louis.

Thank you to The St. Louis CVC for sponsoring my family's trip to St. Louis. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Magic House St. Louis Childrens Museum Review

While we were in St. Louis, we had the opportunity to visit The Magic House which is St. Louis Children’s Museum. This was definitely Noah’s favorite thing we did. The Magic House is an amazing place. The whole building is full of hands on activities for kids to do. There were so many things to do. We didn’t get to do them all but we had a lot of fun. Everything was educational. I am a strong believer that children learn through play and using their imagination vs. sitting down and learning from hearing someone talk. It was really neat to see all the children learning without realizing it. We were lucky too because the staff was dressed up for Halloween and Noah was able to Trick or Treat some right in The Magic House.





We really enjoyed working on the car and changing the tires. We also loved fishing in the pond. There was a grocery store that looked like the real thing. Noah and I enjoyed pretending to shop and playing cashier. Another great thing about The Magic House is that you can just let your child roam free and you can just sit back and watch them explore. There aren’t lines you have to wait in. It is a really different environment than the other things we did. There were different rooms and just was really fun. Noah played with Legos for about a half hour with older kids. I love watching Noah interact with others. He has great ideas and is not really shy around other kids. He went up to them and asked to play with them. He was polite and shared well.



We loved the giant water table too. Although Noah had wet pants after that, next time we should do the water table last. He didn’t mind though. He had so much fun playing with the ducks and boats and just splashing around. There were water wheels too. I had to remind Noah to walk carefully in the room with the water table because the floor was wet wet wet. He kept going back to the fishing pond and fishing. He was so proud to catch fish. I was exploring a little too. I had my mom keep an eye on Noah and I went in the bubble room. I saw on the website you can be inside a bubble. I didn’t try to do that because there were kids trying to do it. I did try the other bubble activities. My only complaint was they needed to refill the bubble solution for each of the bubble activities. I was able to make some cool bubble shapes though.



When we were ready to go Noah didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay there. I think he wanted to move in. I was thinking the whole time that they need to build one of these where we live. We have a children’s museum but it doesn’t compare to The Magic House. I also was a little bummed that we don’t live closer. I could see myself taking Noah to The Magic House on the weekends. I stopped by the gift shop and they have all kinds of cool toys. I found a few little things for Noah and a Magic House T-shirt. We waved good bye to The Magic House and talked about coming back again soon.

Thank you to The St. Louis CVC for sponsoring my family’s trip to St. Louis including tickets to The Magic House. My thoughts and opinions are my own.