Louisville Zoo

First up were my favorite animals the giraffes.

The younger 4 enjoyed the petting zoo.

It was a real battle to get Janey Kate to only touch their backs.

Look at Emma's dress.  We had to take a picture with the vw van.

We walked around the corner and saw this guy and Creed took off running the other way.

The best exhibit was the polar bear.  He has a stick in his mouth;  he would dive down in the water and put the stick in a crevice in a rock and then swim back up.  A few seconds later, he'd come diving back down and pull it out and take it back up.  He did this over and over again.  I talked with a college student that was doing research, and she said it was a game he played.  She said the other polar bears would sometimes take it out and not put it back so the first thing this bear would do when he went in the water was to  check and make sure a stick was in there.  If it wasn't, he'd go find one and put it there.  We watched for a long time.  So amazing that an animal that massive could swim back to the top of the water.

The Louiville zoo is a lot of walking and a lot of hills.  3/4 of the way through Janey Kate shared the stroller with Creed and moved to Elizabeth's back.

We had a bit of adventure when we visited the Jaguar.  One of the kids noticed 3 dollars on the ground between the railing and the cage.  Anne Michal wanted to climb over and get it.  That suggestion didn't quite fly with me.

So then we tried to get Jack to let  Anne Michal and me hang him upside, but for some reason he didn't quite trust us.  We were trying to figure out what we could do when a gentleman, his wife, and granddaughter walked up.

He tried to help us and then offered to hang Jack upside down.  Jack said that would be ok.  I said, "You mean you trust a complete stranger over your own family!!!!!"  He told me he'd rather a male do it.  :-)  So then the man suggested that the two of us do it.

He managed to collect the money and we reeled him back in.  Notice how close he was to the Jaguar.  We told the man we were doing it more for the adventure than the three dollars and he agreed that he'd have a story to tell!

They always want a snake picture of their Aunt Melissa.

We loved this guy too.  He was right up close in our faces(behind glass) and had the longest eyelashes.  He kept moving his eyes back and forth watching everyone.

Janey Kate's First Haircut

All three older girls had their first haircut done by the same person so we decided to cut Janey Kate's hair on vacation so we could continue the tradition.

 Talking about what we are going to do...

 If you have had much Janey Kate experience, you know how amazing it is that she is letting a perfect stranger cut her hair.

 I think the fact that it doubled with her first Smarties experience helped!

The finished haircut. I was worried the curls would be gone, but it still flips up a bit. :-)

Old Fashioned Fun

   A few weeks ago I posted on facebook asking if anyone knew were there were any merry-go-rounds and see-saws.  A friend posted about a little park on Lake Belton outside of Temple so this morning we told the kids to fill up their water bottles and we were going on a bear hunt.  I have no idea why I said a bear hunt and judging by the 5324 questions it ignited from the eight-year-old alone, it might not have been the best choice of words.
   I got a little nervous as we were driving there thinking they'd be disappointed with our surprise trip when they found out it was just an old playground.  They didn't let me down.  We drove up and one of the kids said, "Hey!!!!  There is a merry-go-round!!."
   Anne Michal said, "I think that is why we are here."  Then she turned and looked the other way and said, "Wow!  There is a see-saw! Cool!" 
   We had a lot of fun playing for the next couple of hours on the playground and walking down to the lake to skip rocks.

 Love this one!

 Turning pink from the slide.

 Skipping rocks.

 Or trying to anyway...

 A roly poly = treasure to a 4 yr old.

 Janey Kate and Creed loved these horse swings.

 This is the try-to-convince-mama-these-things-really-are-dangerous trick.

 My turn.  I actually fell off one when I was a kid and scraped my face all up; yet, I still think they should have kept merry-go-rounds on the playground!

I played on monkey bars just like these every day in the fourth doing amazing death-defying feats(at least in my head).  I got a huge blister that covered my entire palm and popped open.  I was rather proud of it. Kids are losing these basic "rites of passage,"

Jack got on the see-saw and asked, "Now, what do you do on these things?"  Really????  See, this is a prime example of why America's kids are being dumbed down.  Physics 101 has been removed from the playground!!

 Love this one, too....

Happy Birthday Creed and Lizzy!!!

 On Tuesday, Creed turned 4.  The poor kid was really sick with respiratory junk and kept tossing his cookies every time he coughed so he felt utterly puny.  He kept telling us his birthday was "tomorrow" but he finally said, "I guess I can open my presents today, but my birthday will be tomorrow."

 One of his big birthday wishes was a green water gun.

 Love the dimple...cars and stickers from his aunt.

 The obligatory birthday shirt.

 I made him a Braves...Jason Heyward t-shirt.

 Then today Elizabeth turned 13.  Jon and I took her to lunch and we shopped a bit.  I usually try to get her a creative gift so we gave her these cake push pop containers so this afternoon we made a coke cake and then made pops with cake, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries.  We also layered some with ice cream, cake, and hot fudge.

 Cheers!! 

 Happy Birthday to my favorite 4 yr old and favorite 13 year old!!!!!  Thanking God for the great gifts you are!!!