Slip n Slide Saturday

After being stuck inside for the past week with my bout with bronchitis/pneumonia (as well as the seemingly non-stop rain), I thought the kids deserved some outside play time. So we headed to the store and picked up a few summertime essentials- a Slip n Slide, a baby pool for Harper, and some water guns. We came home and the big kids quickly threw on their bathing suits while Harper settled in for a nap, then it was water fun time. This was the first summer that Alden has really been able to propel himself down the slide and it hilarious watching him try to go on his belly the first few times. Eventually, he gave up and decided that sliding on his knees was so much better. Zachary, of course, was an old pro at it. Eleanor just spent the majority of the time leaning her head over the water at the end of the slide and getting her hair wet. She is so weird.




Alden sliding like "a rock star"

Eleanor enjoying the baby pool, while Harper naps.

After Harper woke up, we came in and ate lunch, then spent 30 minutes searching for her bathing suit. I swear, I am tired of losing stuff- it happens all the flippin' time. Anyway, suit was found and we headed back out. We had to move the position of the Slip n Slide because it has been raining for the past week and the ground is pretty much saturated. This resulted in a big old mud puddle in the middle of the yard. So we moved the Slide, positioned the umbrella over the baby pool, and the water fun resumed.

Girls' Day Out

The boys spent the night at Nana and Papa's so I decided that we would have a little bit of girls' day out fun. Since Eleanor enjoyed the zoo so much last week, I thought were would had to a local zoo and see what they have to offer. We've only been to this particular zoo during Christmas time because they put on a big light show and you can feed the deer from your car and any activity that let's you pet animals is going to be fun, in my opinion. I take that back- I did go to this zoo on a field trip in kindergarten when it was the M&M Zoo and my only memory from that was the turkey they had locked up in a pen. It made me upset because I couldn't understand why the turkey couldn't wander free like my grandparents' turkey. So with overcast skies and a few drops of rain (which prompted Eleanor to say on the way there "we are NOT going back"), we loaded up the van and off we went. We picked a bag of animal food and hopped on the safari bus. On the safari bus, they get a huge box of bread for you to feed the animals and I have to say that I loved it. Except for the emus. Have you ever looked at an emu closely. As God as my witness, I am a firm believer in the idea that birds and dinosaurs share some common ancestors because those damn birds had the same look in their eyes as she dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. More than once, I though to myself that at some point during the safari, it was going to be a throwdown between between me and the mu that kept eyeing Eleanor. Luckily, the emus knew what was good for them and stuck to eating the bread that people threw at them while we fed the zebras and buffalo with our hands. Also, did you know that zebras and donkeys sometime mate and you get a zonkey. I swear, when the tour dude said zonkey, I died a little inside form having to keep from laughing. Seriously, can you hear the thought bubble over the donkey's head. Wow- look that that zebra over there- she is a fine piece of striped animal. But what the heck is the zebra thinking? A donkey? That's the best you could do? There's no other zebras around. Or at least a horse? But I digress.The zonkey
Feeding the animals on the safari

After the safari, we walked around to the exhibits and fed the animals. Eleanor promptly fell in love with the goats and declared that she was going to tell Daddy that she wanted a goat (which she did as soon as got him on the phone in the car). We also saw a flock of peacocks (I really really want a peacock now), a flock of guinea hens (also want some of those), turkeys (one of the coolest birds ever I don't care what anyone says and I totally agree with Benjamin Franklin on the subject of turkeys), and all the other assorted creatures that you generally see at a zoo. This trip just reaffirms several things that I have long felt about zoos. 1. I don't like the primates. Honestly, they kind of creep me out a little bit. I mean, I kept waiting for the chimpanzee to reach over and unlock the cage then come and eat my face. 2. As much as I love animals, I am not such a fan of zoos. I want to like them but it makes me sad to see these animals all locked up. It's the same reason I refuse to go to the circus. I just feel like I want to free the animals so they can ran away. But I am a huge hypocrite because I love to go and see the animals and I would never get to see them otherwise.
But all in all, it was a fun day. Eleanor got bitten by a duck as she was feeding them but she managed to overcome the pain to feed them again. After we left the zoo, we concluded our exciting day out with a trip to McDonalds for Happy Meals and sundaes.

Take time to stop and enjoy the camera

So it has a been a while since my last post. Justin has been gone a lot in the past month (as in gone for weeks on end) but he managed to make it home for most of the week before Mothers' (Mother's, Mothers- which is it?) Day. As luck would have it, it rained for most of the week so we didn't get to get out and do very much although we did go to Hatcher Gardens one day. I've been busy with herding the kids as well getting the yard ready for spring/summer and going on a painting kick in the house. In the week leading up to Justin coming home, I managed to cut the grass, put down pine needles, plant some new flowers, get the garden cleaned out and plant a few more plants, paint the bedroom and clean the house- all of this one top of the daily laundry, preparing at least 2 (most days 3) meals a day, changing diapers, taking Eleanor to the dentist, shuffling to Alden's ragball practices and games, picking up Zachary from school, grocery shopping, and preventing 4 kids from injuring themselves. Of course, now that we have had enough rain to necessitate to building of an ark, I get to start all over with the yard stuff. So take that to people who think that stay at home moms have an easy job and just sit around and watch the soap operas. So my poor camera has become very neglected with the exception of an occasional ragball game where I basically just shoot on auto lately (something I loathe to do) because I haven't had the time keep progressing in learning how to use the camera properly and I hate to miss cute shots of Alden while playing because I was too busy toying with controls that I don't even know how to use anyway. But I am resolving to d better with picture taking and posting here.

As far as updating on the kids, they are all good.
Zachary is getting ready to finish up 3rd grade. 3rd GRADE?! He is getting so big and tall. We have had a rough patch lately in regards to him doing his share (ie. cleaning his room) but I hope that we are on the way out of that hole. He is still reading all of the time and enjoying playing outside.

As you can see, Alden is still the same Aldi. Aim a camera lens at him and he immediately does a funny face. He is loving ragball and growing at a rate of approximately a 6 inches per day. Or so it seems. He is starting to get freckles across his nose and his hair is getting curlier by the day. He keeps asking to cut it but I refuse to since I think the curls are glorious.Eleanor, for all of her sassy personality, is slowly becoming a sweet little girl. Sure, she is still her same old feisty self but she is becoming a lot more loving and cuddly. And she is such a good big sister- forever bringing toys to Harper to play with. Make no mistake, she is still Eleanor and I wouldn't want her any other way but it appears as if she might be softening up a little.Harper now has 4 teeth with 2 more coming in and crawling all over the place. She is around 20.5 lbs and such a wonderful little chunk of love. She loves to eat and will eat whatever we put in front of her. She plows through about 10 lbs of Cheerios a day. Well, maybe not 10 lbs but it seems like that much. She spends a good chunk of her day looking exactly like she looks in the pic- smiling. She tends to follow me around- just crawling and going "mamamamamama." And I promise that she does have more clothes than that onesie (which was in the last blog post)- this just happened to be on her this morning. I love the watermelon.

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