Another Day At The Zoo

We went to the zoo again today...or yesterday I guess. We went during the week without Shane. My van was filled to the brim! Three babies and four adults. We drove the hour and a half to the zoo and when we got there it was crazy field trip day or something. There were at least a dozen buses filled with kids. It's not really that big of zoo to have that many people in it. :) We still had fun though. Dane brought a leash thing for Nokie but Nokie was happy in the stroller or Dane's arms so I put it on Heidi. I have never been one to like the idea of leashes for kids. Just seems a little strange. But...I have to say it was the greatest thing ever...at least for Heidi. She is a crazy run everywhere before you even know she's gone kind of girl. She had a blast running around the entire zoo not really realizing that I had hold of her. She loved the aquarium. She ran from fish tank to fish tank. Very cute. I love this shot of Dane and Noke....it's cool how their reflections are showing.

 

This is a pretty cool shot of my mom and Natalie too. That big 'ol lion walking around in the background was awesome.

Dad and Heidi in front of the lions. There is a female lion behind him. I'm just glad that they are all in there and we were over here! 

We sat down to eat lunch across from the monkeys. They were having a shouting contest with the other monkeys and swinging from tree to tree. Really loud! They used to have the best corn dogs and french fries at this little food place but they said they didn't carry them anymore. So sad. Instead we got mushy fries and hamburgers that tasted like cardboard. Boo!! At least I brought some food for the girls to eat!

Nokie was super tired near the end of our visit. She is used to taking her naps much earlier and did not feel like being at the zoo anymore. She was pretty happy though when Dane put her on her shoulders. After seeing the elephants we pretty much did a speed walk through the rest of the zoo. On the way home, Heidi was out in two seconds after walking/running the whole zoo. Nokie was a little over tired and finally fell asleep 20 min into the ride home and Nat only slept after everyone else fell asleep. So the ride home was pretty peaceful!

Silly Girls

So last night the girls are in the kitchen eating some yogurt and I'm in the living room, and all of a sudden I hear Natalie laughing hysterically. A great big belly laugh. So I go in the kitchen and they are both making faces at each other. Seriously...I have the cutest girls ever!

Have you ever had one of those moments? Where no matter what has been going on, or how crazy things may be, everything just seems perfect? I had one of those moments tonight. I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. I don't know about you, but that is one of our favorite meals. So yummy! Anyway, we are sitting down to eat and I mix my peas with my potatoes, like always. Natalie sees me and she does the same with her food. Usually she won't go near peas but tonight she tried them mixed with her potatoes and she loved them. So then I showed her how I would take my potatoes with peas in them, dip it in the ketchup and then pick up a bite of meatloaf. The perfect bite. She did the exact same thing! So cute! And she ate a ton. :)

So then after dinner, Shane and I are cleaning up the kitchen. The girls are being great and it's almost bedtime so I ask them if they'd like to color. We get out the crayons and the paper and we start coloring. I'm coloring with Heidi and Natalie is coloring her own. Then she decides she wants to help me and Heidi color so she moves to the other side of the table. Shane comes to sit at the table and Natalie hands him her paper and some crayons and tells him to color too. And that is my perfect moment. The whole night seemed wonderful, but in that moment I wanted to freeze time. We were all sitting at the table together coloring. It was so peaceful and happy. 

Such a beautiful spring day! Everything is so green. We got our yard spruced up a bit...I can't wait to plant some flowers. This is a picture of what we see behind our yard. I love that we don't have people living behind us. Thank goodness for water drainage areas. :)

 The girls have been playing on their play set non stop lately. Natalie likes to drive us around. It's not easy for me to climb up into their play house but when I do she loves it. Heidi just started climbing up the "rock wall" on the play set. It scares me half to death! She is such a crazy dare devil!

That is Heidi's favorite look. Like...don't mess with me...I can't see you...I'm going to do something that you don't want me to do...all wrapped up in one look. I love this shot of Natalie. She looks like such a big girl. I can't believe she is going to be 3 next month! So crazy!!

The Melting Pot

 

As part of my birthday, my parents took Shane and me to the Melting Pot for dinner. We had such a great time!! We left at 5 and drove all the way to Columbia, SC and didn't get home till after 11. Dinner was so much fun. We got a table with two fondue pots so that we could try different things. We took our time and enjoyed every course. Our waiter was great. He was new and very funny. (Don't touch my glass!) The best part, of course, was dessert. We got Yin and Yang,  which is dark chocolate and white chocolate and then my parents got the Flaming Turtle, milk chocolate, caramel and pecans flambeed at the table. So cool! They were both really yummy. My favorites were the strawberries and brownies but I think everyone else liked the cheesecake and bananas. Fine with me! I got all the stuff I liked best! It was really great just being able to hang out with my parents and talk and really enjoy our meal. A great birthday gift!

 

Yay for Birthdays!

Chocolate Cake...but not just any chocolate cake. My famous chocolate cake, and chocolate frosting with chocolate chips cake,

Papa Johns Pizza,

and Presents!! YAY!!

What a perfect day! The night before my birthday I made a cake and cupcakes. I thought all the kids would like those better. Anyway...I let Natalie help me decorate the cupcakes. She got to add sprinkles. She was so excited...we celebrated by eating one. :)

I have to say that my favorite part of the whole day was eating cake. I know...it's so sad. But I have been missing my sweets and it really hit the spot. :)

The other favorite part of the day was having my family around to celebrate with.

Rose Marie and Me

Me and Daddy

Sabrina and Kingston, Heidi trying to give Kingston a kiss

I was so excited to actually blow out all the candles. This might have been a first for me!

My cute girls

Heidi did not want to give Shane kisses. She's so funny

I love this picture! Natalie and Bumpa are so cute together!

Opening some of my wonderful gifts

Pictures from Colie

When Colie was here she took a bunch of picture of the girls. They turned out amazing! I just got the cd today and wanted to share them.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Today I took Heidi in for her 18 month checkup. She is actually a little over 18 1/2 months but whatever. She was so happy the whole time. She kept playing with the seat belt on her stroller...she is obsessed with seat belts lately. She likes to click it all by herself! The doctor said she was doing great. She passed all the importatnt milestones. She is 22.4 lbs and 31.5 inches long. He did say she has a big head....must get that from her daddy! :) After the doctor appointment we went for shots. We sat in the waiting room and played the "Where is your....(insert body part)?" That game makes her very happy. When we were actually ready to get shots, the nurse asked her if she was ready and she nodded her head yes. She had no idea what was coming...so sad! She was happily looking around the room at all the cute pictures when the first shot came and she was not very happy! Thankfully the nurse was very quick and I got to pick her right up. She was much better after she got her sticker. She got her chicken pox vaccine today which is a live virus vaccine. Kinda freaks me out a little.

I let the girls color today. I let Natalie color all the time...she loves coloring and is really good at it. Heidi on the other hand...not so much. She likes to color for a little bit, then she'll move to coloring on the table and then she'll start throwing the crayons. But...this time I caught them being cute together before the chaos started. :) I just love my girls!

AAGGHH!!!

Seriously?? What a day! This morning, I take the girls to the store and Natalie has a complete meltdown over nothing. She is crying and screaming in the store so I take her out of the cart and give her a hug. We have a little talk...she's all good,I'm worn out. I run around the store, get everything done and head home. Then, I'm making dinner in the crockpot and the ground beef that I JUST bought at the store is ROTTEN. Ok...really? I don't have time to go back to the store before the kids go down. So I throw the rest of the food in the crock pot and put the rotten meat in a bag to take back later when Shane is home. Hopefully I'll have time to take back the bad meat and get some new meat and then add it to the soup and still have it taste good. So then after lunch I put the girls down for a nap and eat some lunch. Natalie wasn't sleeping at all so I went up stairs to help her fall asleep. Usually I'll put her back in bed and sing to her and she'll go right to sleep. Today she did not want to sleep! It's so frusterating! It took me an HOUR today to get her to fall asleep. I just don't know what to do. How do you get an almost 3 year old to sleep during her nap? She is such a good sleeper, once she actually falls asleep. At night she is perfect. It's just the middle of the day...I can't get her to sleep by herself. If I just leave her and let her play in her room by herself she is super cranky for the rest of the afternoon. Anyone have any suggestions??? The day is only half over and I am completely worn out!!

For those of you who don't know, it's Master's week. (That's a golf tournament) So for the people who live here that means schools are closed, people who live here leave, restaurants are twice the price, and you don't go anywhere near downtown because of all the people. It's pretty crazy. So Shane and I weren't thinking and we headed to the zoo...which is what everyone else with kids was thinking too. It was pretty crowded but we still had fun.

The penguins were by far the best part of the whole day. Natalie loves penguins! They were swimming like crazy and whenever they would swim by she would get that look on her face. She was just soo happy!

We let the girls feed the birds. Natalie is really good at it. Heidi just liked to watch. One of the birds climbed right onto Shane's hand and ate the food. I, on the other hand, don't like birds. I just took the pictures!

The lion was actually out and walking around. Very cool. They had lots of active animals actually. The tiger kept growling at everyone...kinda scary! I kept thinking of all those tigers that escape and eat people. We moved by him pretty fast. The bears were wrestling with each other too. It was really fun. Giraffes are Natalie's other favorite animal. There were a lot of people around the giraffes so we weren't able to see them as close as some of the other animals.

When we went to the aquarium, Natalie would sit on the ledge right next to the fish. She kept pointing to all the fish and she tried to make fishy faces to them. This was her fishy face. :)

After the zoo we let the girls play outside while I made dinner. Heidi is so crazy! They were both just playing on the grass and in the dirt and the next second I look outside and she is up in the playhouse! She went down the slide all by herself. There was so much static that her hair would stand straight up! Too funny! The weather was so beautiful we all ended up playing outside.