Our crazy lives...

We have been in St. Louis for the past week and a half and have fallen in love with the area! There is so much to do (and the best part is that most everything is free). We went to the zoo last weekend (free) and had a blast. Unfortunately, in our quick departure, I left our cable that uploads our pictures to the computer in BV. I found some cute older ones that I will post, but I will give an update, as a lot has happened in the past week and a half. Aubrey and I made a new best friend named Angela. She is our realtor here and we spent a good three days with her last week looking at homes. The good news is that we have found one, and have a contract on it! It is a 4 BR, 2 BA split level in Saint Charles, MO with a HUGE backyard (which means we will get a dog soon). We fell in love with the house the minute we walked through it and are excited to close on August 4th. Aubrey also made another friend, this one a doctor. Aubrey got pink eye and an ear infection our first week here, but the medicine has helped and she is doing much better!

Aubrey and I fly down to Dallas tonight for a Smith family reunion, and Ryan will join us Friday evening. Ryan will fly back to STL while Aubrey and mommy drive back to VA with Grandma and Grandpa Smith, and Charlie where we will stay until the baby is born. Then in August we will fly to STL permanently and move into our new home! July and August will be months of big change for us!

Ryan is really enjoying his new job and even got invited by some big shot in corporate to a spin class. So Ryan got up bright and early this morning for a 5:30 a.m. spin class. I can just picure him on a stationary bike :)! He's doing really well and learning a lot. He took a practice test for his series 7 (or maybe it was his 63) liscence yesterday, and his boss said he shouldn't have any trouble passing. We'll keep our fingers crossed and our knees bent (as my dad would say), but know the Lord will continute to bless our quickly growing family.
Well, that is more than enough reading for one sitting (if anyone is still reading by this point), so until we get that darn cable back...enjoy these old pics of Aubrey from the library in Lexington!

Uncle Charlie's graduation

I know this video is sideways, but it was too cute not to post! Our little helper. She loves to observe people and mimicks just about everything she sees.

Memorial Day bliss!

We had a blast on Memorial day with Grandma and Grandpa Smith. They took the three of us to the Virginia Safari Park and it was quite the experience! Aubrey absolutely loved the animals and got excited everytime one came up to the car. She would take one piece of grain from the bucket and hold it out for the animals to come and eat. Unfortunately, mommy is a bit overprotective and made sure the animals mouths never came close to her tiny fingers. The animals loved eating out of the buckets, and one animal even stole the bucket of feed out of Ryan's hands. One bucket down, three left. Then, the same animal went up to my mom and stole the bucket of feed out of her hands too. Another bucket down. Needless to say, we laughed until our sides hurt, and made lots of new "friends". We will certainly miss Buena Vista, and living so close to family! Enjoy some pictures from our trip to the park and then scroll to the end for the update on our job search -- we've finally made up our minds (don't skip to the end :)!

Yes, Aubrey is out of her car seat, but that is kosher at the safari park. It just wouldn't have been the same sitting in a car seat while the animals walked around outside the car. She loved it!

I've never seen a zebra this close up before! It was neat for Aubrey to see some of the animals we read about in her books up close and personal.
An ostrich...this was another first for me.
Watoosee catle...never even heard of one until I saw it at the park. They were pretty intimidating and one of them tried to attack my mom and get her food. It was funny to watch my mom pull back and roll up her window as fast as she did!
This llama looked like it had a glass eye, so naturally we had to take a picture and document it :)!
Here is a video of mom feeding one of the ostriches. They were a riot to watch eat!




Ok, so the promised update. Ryan interviewed in Atlanta, Roanoke, and St. Louis. St. Louis was our number one choice, for a number of reasons, and we had already heard back from the other two (they both wanted him). Wachovia Securities flew him out to St. Louis on a Wed. and they called him on Friday to offer him the position. The official offer wasn't available until after he passed his drug/fingerprint test and backround check (we were really nervous about that ;). Well, they finally came back with the official offer (numbers and dates and all) today and was actually considerably more than we were expecting. Ryan starts his new job with Wachovia Securities on June 16 (only two weeks away). Aubrey and I will stay here in VA (for insurance purposes) until the baby is born in July. We will really miss Ryan, but are so proud of him and how hard he has worked to provide for our growing family! So, if anyone is ever in the St. Louis area...you have some friends to visit and a place to stay :)!

A month's worth of life in a single post...I am good!

Ok, so I know it's been forever since we've posted anything, but it has been an exciting, and eventful, month for the Lenahan clan. We took a trip down to Atlanta for one of Ryan's high school best friend's wedding...CONGRATS Kent and Holly! Ryan had job interviews in Atlanta, Roanoke, and St. Louis. I'll bet you're just dying to know which job we are taking (my amazing husband was offered all 3 jobs -- no surprise to me), but you'll have to check back later for an updated post about all of that. We got our tax return and thought we'd buy Aubrey a pool to play in since it is definitely warming up around these parts. Aaron, Mary, Georgi, and Hannah visited and Georgi was baptized...CONGRATS Georgi. We had a combined birthday party for Grandpa and Georgi and just enjoyed spending time with family. That has been our month in a nutshell, so scroll down for the proof of it all!

RANDOM PICS OF AUBREY...she is growing so fast and is SO much fun, and quite creative!

Aubrey is such a girl. She found one of my slips so Ryan turned it into a dress for her. Then she had to have the heels and necklace to go with it all. Our little fashonista (although we don't expect to see people walking around in a slip dress in public...what you people do in your own homes is your business ;)

Aubrey loves pens (she drew on the wall for the first time this month) so we're trying to teach her to write on paper and not the wall.

We just loved this picture...it really shows off her gorgeous eyes and dimple.

Aubrey loves to play the "where's Aubrey game" and believe it or not that is what she is doing here. She looks mad, but really is a happy little girl.

Aubrey and her friend Alexys found a box to play in and it occupied them for quite some time!

Ryan comes home from working out in the morning and makes a protein shake. Aubrey LOVES to sit down with him and share a shake with her daddy! Got milk anyone?

Aubrey's new position...she squats for everything!

SWIMMING FUN!

She spent the ENTIRE time climbing in and out, and very little time actually "swimming", but they had a blast!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGI!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
I had to put this picture up because it reminded me of the time that Will bought Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for dad for Christmas (because Will really liked it). My mom gave my dad Enchanted as one of his gifts becasue she really liked it. The truth is that dad really liked it as well, so it ended up being a hit!





KENT AND HOLLY'S WEDDING!

Ryan and "the boys" from high school.

While we were in Atlanta, Scotty brought his dog Bentley with him and Aubrey just went nuts! He is the sweetest dog you will ever meet and the only damage done was when Bentley got excited and accidently knocked Aubrey over with his tail! She just followed him around and gave him kisses (yes, sloppy kisses). One of these days we'll get a dog.


Aubrey learned how to climb up on the table and thought she was such big stuff!

Aubrey was obsessed with the way her dress twirled when she spun around. She may have been the only one dancing at the time, but she sure entertained herself!

Aubrey discovered that Bentley likes her animal crackers just as much as she does!

Here is Aubrey and daddy sharing a protein shake in the morning. She is talking more and it is so fun to watch and hear!

Life in all it's random beauty...

I just love this one. My two favorite people in the world. Aubrey loves her daddy, and daddy loves when she is calm enough to snuggle (which is rare -- she's a mover and shaker)!

I went to get Aubrey out of bed the other morning and this is what I found. She had tried to take her pajamas off, but somehow only manaed to get her head free. She then proceeded to take off her pants. I guess she hates the confining nature of clothes. We'll just hope it's a phase, and a quick passing one at that :)!

Thanks Heavenly Father for those eyes...they make us smile everyday!

Aubrey expereienced her first oreo during saturday morning session of conference. Needless to say, she LOVED it. She made this huge mess with only one oreo. Now that's talent!

I don't know what to say, other than...no, I just don't know what to say. She's so entertaining!

Popsicles and a high school play

I have tried for the past two days to upload the video I took of Charlie in his play, but to no avail. I have given up and will post the pictures that I do have. Before the play my mom and dad came over for a quick BBQ...and what good is a cookout without popsicles. Aubrey LOVED her first popsicle, but couldn't quite grasp the idea of holding onto the stick. She just held onto the popsicle while her hands froze, but she didn't care. Then we went to Charlie's play, "Dinner and a Murder" and thoroughly enjoyed it. Charlie seems to excel in whatever he does (he is the goalie on the Varsity soccer team and punted the ball across the field and scored...yes scored from one end of the field all the way to the other). We're so proud of Charlie, his athleticism, acting talent, dance talent (he joined Aubrey for a dance party the other night), and his academic abilities (the kid is a genius). Anyway, we love you Charlie and thought we would take this time to tell you how proud we are of you and how much we love living near you (especially Aubrey)!

Charlie played the manager at a restaurant who hosts a murder night. One of the guests will really die, and an investigator is brought in to solve the murder and take the murderer to jail. It was very entertaining and Charlie was so much fun to watch!

Cherry Blossom Bliss!

We have decided that we live too close to too many wonderful things, and that we need to take advantage of all the opportunities around us. Fortunately, Ryan's job allows him to take time off to make things like our trip to Washington D.C. possible. Every year in March/April there is a Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. where there are thousands of Cherry Blossom trees in bloom. Not only is it gorgeous, it is a lot of fun with various activities and such. Unfortuntately, with two 1 year olds (Aubrey brought her friend Alexys with her), there is only so much time. Here is what we managed in half a day in the nation's capital.

We had to make a visit to the Museum of Natural History. There were lots of exibits, but we only made it to two of them. Here is the mammal exhibit. Aubrey and Alexys were amazed by all the animals in the room!

This one is my favorite. We went into the skeleton exhibit and here are the girls in front of a big fish skeleton making their very own fish faces (they love making fish faces)!
In the insect exhibit there was a tunnel to crawl through and all kinds of live insects. They even brought out live cockroaches and other creepy crawly things for the kids to hold. Needless to say the girls weren't intersted (or maybe it was mommy who wasn't interested, but they didn't know the difference :). They had fun just running around.
They loved looking in all the cases and seeing the different bugs and such. This is the neatest place for kids!
By the end of the day, they were both so tired that they fell asleep on the walk back to the car. There were a few moments, but overall, they were both angels the entire day!

The Jefferson Monument in all it's blossomed glory!
Break time on the mall. This was probably what the girls loved most -- getting to be outside at the mall running around. We had a picnic lunch and just had fun!



We parked and took the free shuttle into the city. It dropped us off at the Jefferson Monument which had this huge blossom tree out front. The girls just playing in all the petals on the ground until we took them away to see some sights. It was absolutely gorgeous everywhere!

Climbing the steps at the Jefferson Monument. That was a hike in and of itself but Aubrey was up for the task.
Our growing family. Aubrey was more interested in the rotunda of the Jeffeson Monument than the camera, but I suppose that's expected from a 1 year old!
We had a GREAT time and highly reccomend it to anyone in town during the season!