Friday, February 25, 2011

The Zoo

Last Sunday, we decided to take a trip to the zoo since the weather was perfect. Also, Shannon had told me that admission was only $5 during the month of February and my hubby can't resist a deal like that. So off we went after early morning church. Well, it turns out the rest of Dallas can't resist a deal like that either...it took us over 45 minutes to park and buy our tickets. We thought we had made a huge mistake. The crowds, however, weren't bad at all once we finally got into the zoo.
Waiting in line SO patiently
What Matthew (thankfully) did while we waited in the long line...this didn't last long though of course ;-) Caroline immediately wanted to see the elephants. We saw some always-funny-looking baboons along the way:
Caroline said, "Why did God paint their bottoms purple?"....hahaha, my funny girl Walking up to see the elephants...so exciting
They were eating and were so close we could have touched them. Caroline was in awe and just stared at them with her eyes big and her mouth wide open.

Checkin' out the elephants with Matt

Then we were off to see Caroline's favorite animals at the zoo...the giraffes!

They were also so close we could have touched them...the zoo sells food to feed them out of your hand. Caroline watched them up close like this for a very looooooong time. She's still talking about it.
Looking at the cheetah
My sweet, precious bald, blue-eyed boy...I could just stare at this face all day. In the pic below, I think Matthew is thinking "eeeeeeeeeeeeek, mommy! don't let the sun burn my white head!"Matthew had this "stunned" look about him the whole time. He didn't know what was going on. He was a little happier once we took his pants off...he was hot!
More interested in his ball than the animals
Okay, you know you're the mom of a toddler and an infant when you see this lion basking lazily in the sun and feel actual, real jealousy of the animal. Oh how I wanted to be that lion right then. Am I crazy? I mean doesn't he just make you want to be lounging on a beach in Hawaii right now? :-)
The gorilla that was just "too scary"...I don't blame her
Looking at...
...this guy. I would NOT want to be caught between those teeth!
Caroline loved this big tortoise because it reminded her of a tortoise on a Little Einsteins episode:

The pics stop here. I had to sit down and feed Matthew so Matt took Caroline to the other part of the zoo. He forgot to take my camera so we didn't get anymore pictures. We loved our outing to the zoo...fun was had by all!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What do you do...

...when you're iced in for a week? Have a Valentine's fun day of course. Recently, when we were stuck in the house due to ice on the roads that refused to melt, we kept ourselves occupied by getting ready for Valentine's Day. I pulled some activities off of dltk-kids' website and we got busy!
We started with this "Box of Chocolates Shape Match Up"

"Mommy, I'm ready for you to cut out my shapes!"
Ta-da!
If you're wondering what Matthew was up to during this activity...
playing in the bumbo chair (of course)
and his playmat
A Valentine's Lunch

Making something sweet
Peanut Butter Cookies...yum!
Time to make a Valentine Butterfly
Caroline painted the heart wings

Then we sorted them from biggest to smallest...she needed my help with this part
There we go!
She colored her butterfly's "hands"
Then we put it all together!
Finished product
Proudly showing off her butterfly
(of course, her baby Ally is never far behind...Ally is named after my friend, Laura's, baby girl :-)
On to reading time and nap...Caroline picked out this "Love" book
Matthew usually joins us for reading time...we all cuddle up in Caroline's bed. It's one of my favorite times of the day!
After nap, it was time for Caroline's MOST favorite activity of the day..."Find the Hearts"
I cut out some red hearts and hid them all over our living room. Then I called Caroline in to find them. She'd come racing into the room, so excited:


Showing me her hearts
Go, Caroline, Go
Spotting a heart on Matthew's chair...can you find it?
Counting, to make sure she found all of them
There's one!
We did this "hide and seek" game over and over again. I lost count of how many times. It was definitely the highlight of Caroline's day and gave us something fun to do while waiting for Matt to get home (always the slowest part of the day). Overall, we had a great Valentine's Fun Day which helped us to not go too stir crazy during "The Great Ice Debacle of 2011"