Ethel meets Shyla

On Saturday, Sam and I watched our buddy Shyla again. She is so full of personality. Ethel was VERY unsure of Shyla and in fact, wanted nothing to do with her. Shyla moves way too fast for Ethel and the words "gentle touches" don't really mean a lot to Shyla yet. Here is a hilarious video of Ethel and Shyla interacting on the couch.

We learned 2 things from this video.
1.) Ethel wouldn't hurt a fly.
2.) Children exhaust Ethel, and she feels much more comfortable when they walk away.

Too funny. The rest of the weekend we spent taking it easy. Did a little relaxing, took a nice long nap today, studied some Hebrew, did some laundry, and snuggled with the pup. And of course- Friday we watched the World Series. St. Louis has a redeeming factor- a stellar baseball team. World Series Champs! Sam has committed himself to being a Cardinals fan (I can't go that far). Needless to say, the city is lit up with Cardinals fans, souvenirs, parades, the whole deal. It's neat. 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Love,
Katelyn, Sam & Ethel

Fall break.

This past Friday we traveled home to Wheaton for a long weekend with our families. We enjoyed home cooked meals, throwing the "pigskin" with Jesse, Portillos that has been greatly missed, and so much more. We wanted to give five highlights of our weekend with our family. We love them dearly, and look forward to seeing them again in a few weeks. Thank you families for a wonderful weekend at home.

1.) Friday Night Lights - Watching the WNHS Sophomore and Varsity games. Jesse (#50) suffered a concussion two weeks ago and is still not completely healed. Here he is congratulating his O-line for a great play (talk about an emotional game!). His O-line was asked to move up to Varsity for the playoffs!

Sam and I ready to cheer on the team.

2.) Pumpkin Carving- picking out our pumpkins at Cosley and carving them with the Dean family! Sam carved theologian John Owen and Katelyn carved "Sam". Pretty exciting!

 

3.) The Entertainment - Ethel and her buddies, Daisy & Cody, provided. The ever eager-to-play Daisy with Ethel ignoring her, and the ever eager-to-play Ethel with Cody keeping his distance from Ethel.

4.) The Chicago Architectural Tour - and lunch at Rositys with Mom and Dad Haist! Sam would like to point out that the towers above are featured on Wilco's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and are known as the Marina City Towers downtown Chicago.

On the boat tour!

 5.) Jeopardy on the Wii - boys vs. girls. GIRLS WON!!! Unfortunately, this was not documented via camera- but lets just say, let the best team (or remote) win.

We are so thankful for family. 


Love,
Katelyn, Sam & Ethel

Fall things.

As promised, here we are blogging about fall. Unfortunately, it's 82 degrees out which is not fall in our book, but I guess this is what St. Louis has handed us. Good news is, it might be 82 degrees out but there is no humidity like the 82 degrees we felt this summer. Phew.

Onto our fall blog. The few "fall" days we've had, we have loved being outside and are trying to soak in our favorite, and shortest season. Here are a few of the things we've enjoyed most about fall:

1.) apple crisp.  

2.) pumpkin cinnamon pie.

3.) welcome wreaths.

4.) Autumn Harvest scented candles.

5.) Mums.

6.) family pictures.

We hope you are enjoying the fall weather as much as we are! Sam is off to work on a paper and I am off to babysit. Busy week ahead of us. Much love.

Katelyn, Sam & Ethel


A side note from Sam:

As you all know, I am a ridiculously huge music fan. As Katelyn can attest, it may even get out of hand from time to time... ;) But in the words of The Hold Steady, certain songs get scratched into our souls. Going along with a fall-themed post, I thought I would include a list of some excellent fall records that have provided a soundtrack to this season over the last few years!

In no particular order...

1. Hem - Rabbit Songs
2. Over the Rhine - The Long Surrender
3. Joe Henry - Civilians
4. Ron Sexsmith - Retriever
5. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
6. John Coltrane - Blue Train
7. The National - Boxer
8. Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)
9. Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
10. The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You 

Breakfast FUN bowls.

For those of you that don't know, I have a very creative husband. It's not until these moments...when the pantry, fridge, freezer and everything else is bare, that I remember how creative he is. Frustrated about my lack of time to grocery shop, a frazzled morning and an overall bad work week... Sam brightened my day when he exclaimed from the kitchen Thursday morning, "Get ready for breakfast fun bowls!!!!!!" I walked out to find these...

Does breakfast get much better then the last of the cheerios, raisin bran and granola all mixed together with the last of the two Trader Joes chocolate chip cookie dunkers on top? I think not. I am thankful for a husband that uses his creativity to lighten my bad mood and even more thankful for a husband who always makes breakfast. Thanks hubs.

We are loving this fall weather, and living up every minute. Until next week ...(when we blog about fall!), we love you and miss you all.

Love,
Katelyn, Sam & Ethel

Early risers.

This weekend has been pretty uneventful for us, but for the sake of our devoted blog followers we will bore you with our lives :)

Friday night we were asleep by 8pm. Yay for early bedtimes. Saturday, we were up at 5:15am because Sam has started working the opening shift at Shaw's. That left me (and Ethel) with a very relaxful morning. I cleaned, organized closets, grocery shopped, began the ever growing laundry pile, and made lunch for the hubby and I when he got home around 12:30pm. Saturday afternoon, we took Ethel to get a "pedicure" (her hair grows under her feet and they have to use a special razor to buzz it off) and grabbed a pumpkin spice latte (a small taste of Heaven) on a beautiful fall day. 

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the Rogland's house for a beer brewing lesson (Sam was like a child on Christmas morning), and delicious, authentic, homemade Italian food. Mariah's meatballs are to die for! We also enjoyed a scrumptious rhubarb, strawberry and raspberry pie with homemade whipping cream. We were feasting like kings and queens!

This morning we endured another early wake up, as Sam played the drums at the church and I was the nursery coordinator this week. I missed the sermon this morning, but Sam said it was awesome and what I heard of the service from the nursery sounded great. After church we had our friends, Danielle and Justin over for tacos and have just been vegging since. We just put on a pot of french press and have a delicious looking caramel apple to devour.

We also want to send a special message to Grandpa Nelson today! It's his birthday! We wish we could be celebrating with everyone tonight, but we are looking forward to our trip home to Wheaton in October. Happy Birthday Gramps! Thanks for bringing so much joy, laughter and wisdom into our lives. We are so blessed. We love you!

We hope all of you had a great weekend and are enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

Lots of love.
Sam, Katelyn & Ethel

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Friends & fondue.

On Saturday, we had some of our new friends, the Duncans and the Garretts over for chocolate fondue. These Southern friends (from Georgia) had never had chocolate fondue before! They had no idea what they were missing out on. We had strawberries, bananas, pretzels, marshmallows and pound cake as dunkers and let me tell you- it was delicious. Great conversation, great new friends, and great dessert. We are beginning to slowly fall in love with this city and the people God has blessed our time with here. Today we had a wonderful service at South City and Katelyn and the pup enjoyed a nice long nap this afternoon on this rainy day. We hope all of you had a restful, enjoyable weekend.

Love to you all.

Sam, Katelyn & the pup

Guitar lessons.

Sam and I had the privilege of watching beautiful Shyla on Friday night. Shyla loves Ethel, so her parents found it fitting to bring her to our place to babysit. Big surprise- Ethel is still very unsure of Shyla. Julie needed to drop Shyla off before I got home from work, so Sam was going to be with Shyla for a half hour all by himself. Sam's initial reaction? "What if she poops!" You change her? No worries, he did great and no poopy diapers for him to change. 

We enjoyed watching some Yo Gabba Gabba, playing with kitchen toys and the most enjoyable part of the night - Sam teaching Shyla how to "play" the guitar. So precious. Shyla was memorized and is now a huge fan of Wilco and Townes Van Zandt. I was thrilled (not).

As much as we loved watching little Shyla (she's an angel baby), it made us realize we really do selfishly enjoy the quiet Friday nights just the two of us. I'm very thankful for all my "baby fixes" here in St. Louis :)


Love, 
Sam, Katelyn & Ethel

look at the face!!!!