Play date @ the Zoo

We had BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend and so we decided to take full advantage of it and spend Saturday outside at the zoo with some friends. When I say it was nice weather, I mean really nice...low 70's which is not normal at all. All it did was make us want spring and summer even more! When we got to the zoo I had our big camera and didn't realize till we were there that it was dead. So I don't have many pictures but wanted to share what I did have. Ben actually got me this handheld video camera for Christmas and it happens to take pictures as well. They turned out pretty good too.

Brooks riding the carousel...even though he doesn't look happy here, he was and he didn't want to get off.



Miss Emma Bean on the carousel



Emma being silly



We went to the zoo with Kristen, Julia, Griffin and Patrick and here is our attempt at getting a picture of the kiddos together. I think if we had tried to do it somewhere else, without the sun shining directly in their eyes, it would have turned out better!





A few animals along the way...







Brooks looking at the monkeys



Julia & Emma (this one is a little blurry but still cute)



That's about all the pictures I got. We had a great time and we are so glad Kristen invited us to get together!

Morgan

Fun @ the McWane Center

Last Friday we had a fun playdate with Kristen, Julia and Griffin. We met them through our Mommy & Me dance class that me and Emma do every week. Kristen asked if we'd like to go to the McWane Center and of course that sounded like a lot of fun. Emma's only been once before, which was almost a year ago, but she remembered (with great detail) it when I mentioned it Friday morning. She AMAZES me with her memory! I wasn't exactly sure how it would go with it just being me, Emma and Brooks with no extra hands to help but they had a BLAST! And I should add, I did too! They were so good and so happy the entire time. I think Emma and Brooks, including Julia and Griffin, would have stayed till they kicked us out if they could have! Here are some pictures from the day!

Griffin, Julia and Emma



Julia



Emma



The girls together





Emma & Brooks (Brooks loved this car)





All the kids had fun playing with this "grocery" area and it entertained them for quite a while.



Brooks doing his part playing grocery!



Squishy hands as Emma calls it (this is actually what she remembered with so much detail earlier that morning)





All together now!



They had lots of fun hunting for dinosaur bones.



They were pretty fascinated with the shark and stingray tank (especially Brooks). Here is Julia, Emma, Kristen and Griffin.





This is a picture Kristen snapped of Brooks having too much fun with it! Don't worry there was no shark or stingray near us!



Getting ready to leave!



We had so much fun!!

Morgan

Brooks' First "Real" Haircut

We took Brooks last Tuesday to get his first "real" haircut. I say "real" because I've cut it myself twice now. But his hair is filling in so much and had just taken on a whole new level, I decided I wasn't going to try and cut it again. I also didn't care for the way it turned out around his ears the last time I cut it so that was another determining factor. I didn't know what to expect, I figured he wouldn't like it, but we took things to bribe him with in hopes that he'd do fine. Yea, he wasn't interested in any of that and hated every minute of it. It was really funny! I took him to the guy that cuts my hair and you can tell he's cut a few kids hair before because he kept on cutting with Brooks squirming and screaming all over the place and it turned out perfect. I was quite impressed. So here are some pictures from the first cut!

I asked him on the way there if he was going to sit in the chair like a big boy and he said yea, I then asked him if was going to get a big boy haircut and he said yea. He was so happy when we got there too, I figured it would go well! But not so much! :)

Before





Getting started...









He was being SUCH A BIG BOY up until this point...when he decided to put the towel on his shoulders to keep the hair off of him, he did not like that at all!





Doing a little better here!



And that didn't last too long...



Almost done...



Now all done and looking like such a big boy (insert mommy wanting to cry here because I'm not ready for either of them to grow up or look grown up for that matter)!!



A few more of him after we got home!







And we can't leave out Emma Bean even though she had no desire to go with us to get his hair cut!





Morgan

Gotta love playing train...Choo Choo!

I know this is a not so good picture, but it was taken with my phone in our garage. I went home week before last and Emma, Brooks, my mom and Ben's mom were all in the garage playing. This is a regular thing in the afternoon but this day just happened to be too cute and funny. The picture is my mom pulling the wagon and then they tied up Brooks' tricycle and Emma's riding on it. I've posted before about Emma's LOVE of her stuffed animals and this picture (although blurry) just shows once again how special they are to her. She's got 5 in the wagon and 1 behind her on the tricycle. Meet Raggedy Ann, the beloved Papa Bear, Lucy, Mary Kate, Mary Ellen and Papa Bear 2 (behind her). She's a mess and I could just eat her up!! Her imagination is so great...makes you want to be a kid all over again!



Morgan

Scraping the Ice off this blog...

I've been MIA this week, well it's just been a weird week all together! We were hit with an Ice Storm Sunday night into Monday and everything was shut down Monday. Some businesses started opening back up Tuesday half a day (as did my work) but we couldn't get up our hill because of the ice, so we were stuck at home another day. Ben was kind enough to go scrape the hill because he was worried about the 2 neighbors that did leave getting back later that night. If he had not scraped the hill we'd still be there. I actually called city hall where we live and they said they'd send a sand truck out but never did...go figure! It's been bitterly cold here all week and things won't start looking up till probably Saturday or Sunday when rain comes in...fun times!

Anyway, last Friday we had a play date at A Play Place (where Emma had her birthday party) with some friends from dance class. That morning I also found out Shannon, Harper, Henley, Eron & Marley were going to be there as well. Emma and Brooks had a blast. I didn't get too many pictures because my camera was acting up and because I was chasing Brooks around but wanted to share what I did get.

Here is Brooks thinking he's big enough to climb, and had I let him he probably could have. He's a monkey!


Playing in the clubhouse


My cutie pie


Julia, Maddie & Emma (they were all making silly faces the entire time, this was the best picture I got)


Round & Round we go (all the girls)








Emma & Harper (best buddies)


Julie, Emma & Maddie right before we left


Hopefully it will warm up here very soon...I'm ready for Spring and Summer actually! But anything above freezing at this point sounds good to me!

Morgan