President's Day Zoo Trip

I decided to take advantage of the fact that I have Johanna on Mondays for an extra set of hands during my maternity leave and head to the zoo.  I thought it was supposed to be nice, but it was actually pretty cold and windy so we didn't stay too long.  Good thing it was their winter promotion so it was cheap admission anyways!  Kaitlin was concerned though with how the animals stayed warm when it was so cold out.  We started in the Children's Zoo which is basically like a farm with a big playground.  The girls enjoyed seeing the huge Koi tank and petting the goats and seeing the horses.  There is a new exhibit (new to us anyway) called the underground which they loved.  You go in a building which houses snakes, spiders and other creepy crawly things and they have a tunnel that goes right into the cages of the mongooses (mongeese?) with little bubbles in the ground that they can pop their heads up into their cage.  So their face is basically ground level with these things (but of course there is the glass bubble), but they can see the animals up close and personal.  They went through that thing 50 times.  Then we headed to the African Safari and saw the elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, mandrills and penguins.  Claire got a kick out of the crunchy bamboo the elephants were eating.  That's how close you can get to them now, we could hear the crunch!  We rounded it out with a carousel ride and then headed to McD's for some refueling before coming home where everyone took naps.  Great day!

Practicing their cowboy skills

What Bryn did the whole time

Up close and personal with the giraffes.  Claire is very wary of all animals so she wasn't too comfortable with the closeness.

This is what Claire did when I told her to go stick her head in the hole so I could take her picture.

Indian Princess Daddy/Daughter Dance

Scott and Kaitlin had their first Daddy Daughter dance tonight.  He sent me several pictures from the event and it sounded like they had a wonderful time.  She danced continuously from 6:45 until 9:45, with lots of running around the room and cartwheels interspersed for good measure.  He said she was the last girl standing when they shut it down at 9:45.  She is our dancing queen!

Sweetness

Claire, Bryn and I were flying solo tonight while Scott and Kaitlin went to her first Indian Princesses Father/Daughter dance.  I was nursing Bryn and Claire was entertaining herself with the iPad, looking through the pictures we have on there.  She always seems to pick the album "Bryn's Birthday Weekend" and was over at the kitchen table narrating the pics to me.  "Who's this holding Bryn?" - a pic of the Dr holding Bryn up right after she was born.  "Where you going Mommy?" - a pic of me walking the hall like we did 5,000 times that night.  And then she got really quiet, and I looked over and she was quietly crying and she goes "Mommy, can you hold me?" and I said "Sure baby, soon as I'm done here" and she sat over there and just sad as she could be and when I went and looked she was looking at a pic of me in the bed with my eyes closed during a contraction - not the most flattering pic and to her I'm sure it was very scary.  I said "oh baby, Mommy's alright, that is just a silly picture" and she said "Mommy, no close eyes and lay there, Mommy get up.  Don't be sick Mommy, no!"  Sweet girl!