Zoo

The kids and I went to the little zoo today, and we had a lovely time. I've been wanting to take them for some time now, and today it was finally nice enough to actually do it, so we did it.

We stopped first to see the "mingos." If you get a chance sometime, ask Sophie why flamingos are pink. She knows. She explained it all rather succinctly to Greg last night.

It was such a beautiful day that we had lunch outside--our first outdoor picnic of the season! While Sophie and I ate her "cheese-hamurmer" Owen played under our table. Mostly with my shoelaces. Since learning to crawl and pull himself up on things, he refuses to just sit on my lap anymore (unless he's eating!). So I held onto him with one hand and tried to eat with the other.

After lunch, we headed inside to check out the conservatory, which we'd not done before. There were a few ponds with fish in them, which Sophie was totally fascinated with. She even got down close to stick her fingers in the water of one of them. Owen would have actually crawled right into the pond if I'd let him, so I only had a few seconds to try to get a picture of him enjoying the water too.

My favorite thing to look at were all the beautiful flowers. Sophie refused to pose alone or with her brother, so I had to trick her into smelling the flowers just to get a picture of her by the colorful blooms. Owen would have happily sat by the flowers for me, however, whenever I placed him near them, he immediately was grabbing handfuls of dirt or trying to rip the petals off! In the picture below, he is straining to grab them while my hand, just out of the picture, is holding his other hand to keep him from actually succeeding.

Horse Show

My cousin Christa was in town this weekend for a horse show, so we stopped by the fairgrounds to show Sophie the horses up close and to see the horses run around the ring. Sophie requested to wear her new, never worn, mostly-white princess tennis shoes to the horse show. I explained that the barn where the horses were would be stinky and dirty and may have poop on the floor, so she agreed to wear her old ones instead. But, she did keep talking about and singing "dirty, stinky, poopy" for most of the ride to the fairgrounds!

Sophie was so excited about all the horses she got to see. She even got to go right in the stall with Christa's horse, Glitter, and even pet her. Sophie looked a little nervous--she's never been that close to a horse before--but she did great. She enjoyed watching the people ride the horses around the ring, and we enjoyed catching up with Christa for a while.

School Carnival

We attended our neighborhood school's carnival on Friday night with our friends the W's. This school could potentially be the one Sophie would attend someday, so while we went for the games and the cafeteria food, I also wanted to spy a little on what the school is like. We got to eat nachos, pizza and hotdogs in the cafeteria. Then we made our way around the building, playing the games the girls were interested in. They did the fish pond, the duck pond, golf, mouse toss (Sophie got one in!), book walk, face painting, and others I'm likely forgetting. Sophie, much to our surprise, was willing to get her face painted! When it was her turn, she sat very still, hardly breathing. Very cute! Much of her rainbow was on her shirt by the end of the night. We ended the evening with mini-donuts (the moms' request) and cashing in the tickets the girls had won. Sophie picked out a sucker and 2 princess lipglosses--one for her and one for Lydia. And Owen took a little rest.

Owen's big fun

Owen enjoyed the indoor park we visited last night. He was moving a lot slower than Greg and Sophie were, so I was able to get some pictures of his fun time. This was his first experience with playing on his own at a park. Our outdoor park has lots of tasty mulch to play on, so Owen hasn't been let down to crawl on it yet. This park was very quiet last evening, so we didn't have to risk Owen being mauled or trampled in order to let him explore a bit. He liked the little boat--just the right height to hold onto by himself. And he was fascinated with the "water" the boat was "floating" in. It was obviously a hard surface, but Owen could see through it. He kept trying to pick out the little rocks and bugs and other little critters below the surface.




The floor of the park was soft and rubbery, so Owen crawled around a bit. He's getting quite good at crawling. Now he just needs to work on his endurance.

I set Owen down by a tunnel to see what he'd do, and he decided to go for it! He thought he was pretty big stuff. He made it all the way through that slippery tunnel all by himself...with no rests on the way.

Greg's birthday

Yesterday was Greg's birthday...I won't say how old he is. He chose to go to an indoor park to play, which he's been dying to do for a few months now. I'm not kidding. He and Sophie had such a good time last time that he's been wanting to go back. So, we had our friends the W's over for dinner and then we all headed out to play at the park. When we arrived, we found out the park was closing early (previously unannounced!), so we only had a 1/2 hour to play...at least it was free. The dads and girls used their 30 minutes well--they were moving so quickly that I wasn't able to get many pictures of the fun they were having.

After our tease of a good time, we headed upstairs, lured by the sounds of drums and other musical instruments. Much to the girls' delight, a band was playing. A junior high band. Sophie and Lydia rocked out to the Star Wars theme song and even got Greg and Todd to join them eventually. We had some birthday bars as a treat. Sophie started on her cereal bar, got cleaned off, and then while we were distracted helped herself to the other more chocolatey kind I'd brought along for the adults. She didn't go to sleep until 10:15!

Library Storytime

The kids and I try to frequent our local library's storytime each week. We've been doing it most of the winter; however, Sophie still will not go and sit on the carpet with the other kids. Up front. Where she could actually see. She refuses to stand up and do actions to any of the songs the lovely teacher sings, but she does pay complete attention to the stories that are read. It could be worse, I suppose. She could be the annoying kid who constantly interrupts and tears stuff off of the white board. That'll probably be Owen someday soon. He was already yelling out, "Da-da-da!" and crawling around on the floor. I'm sure that if he ever finds the white board he'll be ripping the letters down and eating them.

One of the activities Sophie will participate in is getting a stamp on her hand at the end of storytime. She'll even go alone now. Personally, I find this part of storytime much scarier than just sitting to listen to the story! Those pre-school kids have a bit of "survival of the fittest" going on in that stamp "line." Sophie has gotten better at not just letting people go ahead of her and ending up being the last one to get a stamp.

Showing the stamp she got

Our library is in our community center, so they also open the gym up to us when storytime is over. Sophie loves this time to run around and play with balls. She likes to run back and forth across the gym, over and over. In the picture below she is stopping mid-gym to yell at me, "Count, mommy!" I'm supposed to count how long it takes her to go across and back.

This week there was a new plaything--a miniature basketball hoop. Not quite miniature enough for Sophie, though. I had to help her get the ball in the basket.

Family Outing