Full, Fun Weekend

We had such a full weekend, running from fun thing to fun thing. 

To start at the very beginning, I always try to finish up work early on Friday afternoons so I have some time for myself before Matt brings the kids home. Usually, I spend that time scrapbooking. (It's so tempting since my craft table is literally three feet from my work-desk—even more tempting than the neighborhood pool I overlook from my window!—but I can usually resist until Friday afternoons.)

I've realized lately, after a couple years of relying more and more on what they call "hybrid scrapbooking," i.e. the Project Life-type pages with the divided page protectors, that I miss doing full 12 x 12 layouts. It's great being able to get a lot of photos in easily and still do some embellishments with the divided pages, but while my 2010 and 2011 scrapbooks were a good mix of pages, 2012 only had a few artistic full-page layouts, and 2013 literally has zero. I've missed the greater creative outlet of designing a page from scratch. 

So, Friday afternoon I did a nice 12 x 12 layout with pics from the girls' swim lessons. It felt good :0)

And Saturday morning, we were back to said swim lessons! Week three out of four. Kate swam the whole length of the pool (with a back-floatation thing designed to keep them horizontal, rather than upright, like a vest). I love how she loves it! And Claire had fun too.

After grocery shopping on the way home (one of my favorite Saturday rituals—grocery shopping with the girls), we headed across the street to a birthday party for our new neighbor, turning two! I was so excited a couple months ago to see our newest neighbor had a child close to one of my girls' ages. (Another new neighbor on our street does too, but we haven't gotten to know them as well. It was great meeting a couple other neighborhood families with kids about this age at the party—they're better social connectors than we are, apparently! No surprise there—it stinks to be introverts, sometimes!)

Anyway, the party was adorable—turquoise, purple, lime green, and pink, with a flamingo motif—super cute, and I loved the puff balls hanging from the big tree in the backyard. Claire loved the veggie dip, and Kate helped the birthday girl open our gift.

 

And check out this cake! It was from Puffy Muffin, same place that did the bird's nest baby shower cake for my sister-in-law's shower a couple years ago. They do great work, and it was delicious, too.

 

Immediately after the party, (notice no one has had a nap in here—Kate never takes one anymore, and Claire refused to lay down, after only a brief catnap in the car on the way back from the grocery!) We drove down to the stables where my cousin was in from out of town to work out her horse before a show in Kentucky next week. We rarely see my aunt and cousin, and it was especially nice to see her "in her element." I've been hearing about and seeing pictures from her riding competitions for years, so it was fun to see them and meet her horse.

The kids were a little timid (and tired) but it was a neat experience for them. (By the way, Mom, here's my new haircut. I like it!)

 

Sunday was a great day at church, since it was the first day with screens in our traditional worship service! We've joined the 21st century--yippee! There was a great energy in the room, a friend and I sang "Hallelujah," by Leonard Cohen, and Matt preached a good message about the Gerasene Demoniac. 

After church, that friend and her daughter, less than a year older than Kate, joined us at the zoo. The carousel was a big hit, as always, and we tried out the Lorikeet Landing experience for the first time—an open aviary where you can feed and get up close with all these beautiful, colorful birds.

 

 Matt had three on his arm at one point, and got a few bites as they (a) fought each other for the nectar and (b) tried to see if his shirt was edible.

 

Kate was a little more timid after hearing Daddy say they were biting him.

And Claire mostly ignored the birds and hung out by the little waterfall in there, pretending she was in Hawaii, it looks like.

 

It's good to be zoo members because it doesn't matter if you only have time for a few animals, as we all had to head straight back to church for the evening casual service, The Road. (Since I had my camera in the diaper bag, anyway, from the zoo, I distracted Matt by snapping one photo during his sermon—at the moment the Brick Testament image of the naked demoniac was on the screen, of course :0)

Extra incentive to join us at The Road, if you've never tried it: we always have cookies afterwards, and sometimes (like last night!) awesome, super-sugary cupcakes. Claire screamed whenever I tried to take a bite of hers.

 

 So that was our fun weekend. My feet hurt by last night. Hope you had a nice weekend too!

Claire's First Trip to the Zoo

Last Sunday being gorgeous as it was, we made our first zoo trip of the season, which was, of course, Claire's first zoo trip ever! We broke out our awesome new double umbrella stroller so both girls could ride, and had a great afternoon.

We stumbled upon an animal show in the amphitheater, seeing a few cool birds, a hissing cockroach (that Kate and I met at ZooTwos last fall), a giant albino python, and this cool lynx.  

 Kate was a cool cat herself in her shades...

 ... and actually had a kind of bohemian chic thing going on with her new skirt from Old Navy. (She completed the look by choosing a crocheted hat to top it off, but I didn't get a picture of her wearing it.)

The 'mingos were a favorite as always, and Claire matched them in her coral pink romper.

The girls were zonked out by the end of the afternoon. We look forward to many more zoo days this spring and summer! (It was technically still winter last Sunday, after all!)

ZooTwos! (and a Mommy Confession)

Last Saturday, Kate and I went to our first session of ZooTwos, a program offered by the Nashville Zoo. Every Saturday morning for six weeks, we'll go for an hour of parent-child fun with an animal-related lesson, a craft and story, and we get to meet two animals each week up close. (They offer separate classes for toddlers, twos, threes, and I think older kids, with a weekday session and a Saturday session for us M-F working parents.)

This first week, we talked about animal tracks and walked around the room to look at several types of prints (printed on paper and adhered to the floor), then came back to the circle for our animal meet-and-greet with an opossum named Penelope and a rabbit named Amelia.

 Zoo lady holding opossum

Other kids touching rabbit

Kate didn't want to touch the animals; I'm not sure why, and she even declined the hand sanitizer brought around after the animals--I figured she'd take that even though she hadn't touched the animals! We then did a craft--decorating a mitten-shaped piece of paper with animal stamps and crayons--and came back to the circle for our story, The Mitten, about a boy who loses his snow-white mitten in the snow and a bunch of animals decide to squeeze into it all together.

Kate seemed to enjoy the class, and was very well-behaved. The kids had to sit either on their parent's lap or on the carpet square in front of the chair, and would be asked to step out if they couldn't sit still--which a couple kids didn't! When a parent took her child out, Kate said to me quietly, "They didn't listen." Nope, they didn't. Not like she's a perfect listener--especially at home--but she's much more subdued in public and in large groups.

Which brings me to my Mommy Confession... I don't know what to make of the fact that Kate is apparently pretty quiet and reserved in groups of other children. She's always been such a live wire at home--totally fearless, loud, silly, sassy--Matt and I assumed she would be the same as she got into social situations, and we were glad that hopefully she wouldn't deal with the same social awkwardness and insecurity that plagued both of us. She's never shown separation anxiety and seems comfortable with new people--being a PK and being in day care from four months onward have their benefits. However, teachers (at her old school and now here too) tell us how quiet she is at school. They have to ask her to speak up, and she's more passive in her interactions with other kids. I'm glad she's well-behaved at school, of course--and I know it's normal for kids to "let it all out" at home--but I just hope that confidence and bold personality we see in her doesn't get hidden away when around her peers.

I frame all this as a confession because I feel guilty for giving any of this a second thought.

We think she's amazing and love her no matter what. But when she was the only child not to touch the animals at ZooTwos, my immediate concern was that she would regret not seizing the opportunity--a silly thing to worry about, I guess, since toddlers mainly live in the moment and probably do not really experience "regret" the way us older people do. She's excited to go back, so I don't think it tarnished her experience in any way. It's fine if she just didn't want to touch the animals, for whatever reason, and if she's shyer than we thought she would be, but I worry about her missing out or (and this is my real concern) having a tough time socially as she gets older.

Am I overreacting? It's natural for parents to want their kids to have an easier time than they did (and for Matt and I, making friends and being social in large groups were our main challenges) but we turned out fine and I really embrace my introversion. Actually, I don't call Kate an introvert because she doesn't seem to need time alone or to get drained by other people. I guess you can be a quiet extrovert? Whatever. No need for labels anyway--other than "awesome," which she is :0)

What's your confession this week? 

Seals, Tigers, and Bears, oh my!

It's been a week, but as promised, I wanted to share more pics of our visit to Louisville last weekend, including our cool behind-the-scenes tour at the Louisville Zoo.

Kate enjoyed the tour of Nala and Popi's backyard paradise...

And Saturday afternoon, we went to the local splash park with my old friend Lindsay and her son Jack. We met the new baby, Emmalea, too! Jack is now four, but isn't too cool to play with a two-year-old girl. Sweet boy!

The playground at the splash park is the newest thing in playground-design, apparently. Matt and I joked it was like Nuni and Nuni's playground--everything was so sleek and modern, and they even had a slide that you ride by hooking your legs around the outside of the track--weird.

Sunday, we went to the zoo. Since we're members of the Nashville Zoo, we got in free! Those "reciprocal zoo" deals they have going on are great (I thought we just got a discount). The Nashville Zoo's design is so pleasant, with winding, tree-lined walkways and very natural habitats, but Louisville has a lot of big animals that Nashville does not--bears, lions, polar bears, etc.

Our special tour began in Glacier Run, a new area they've created for a more immersive arctic-animal exhibit. Taking a cue from Disney, the exhibit brings visitors into a "story," namely that a far-northern town is being encroached upon by glaciers and the animals have been getting more daring in their ventures into the town.

For this grizzly bear viewing area, designed like a loading dock, they've got a pickup truck that is half inside the windows and half outside, so you can sit in the cab and actually be jostled around by the grizzlies climbing and playing in the truck bed! The reflection obscures it somewhat, but here the bears are playing with big plastic trash cans in the truck bed.

And here, the "glacier" has crumbled a road into the town, raising the visitor's sense of danger before she sees the arctic beasts!

We got to go into the backsides of the habitats to see where the animals hang out when out of visitors' view. Flash wasn't working too well back there, so these pics are blurry, but I wanted to share how cool it was to be so close to the animals. The keeper called the seal over, and she jumped out of the water and slid over to us, even splashing water on us!

We stood mere feet from a polar bear, and inches from a grizzly bear! We were definitely warned not to lean near the bars in this case!

In the tropical "Islands" exhibit (where I got spat on by the orangutan, you'll recall), we saw the tigers get their lunch, jumping up and down for pieces of meat, and Mom and Matt even got some tiger drool on them from passing under a metal bridge a tiger was crossing.

We were pretty tired by the end of our tour, but dropped in on the giraffes, lions, and elephants before going. We stopped briefly by the camels, but given our track record with spit that day...

What a fun day. Check out how much Kate's grown since the last time we put her on this bronze elephant in July 2009!

Monkey Spit

Kate has developed a new bad habit--spitting out her beverage once she has a good mouthful.

It began in the car last week, when she soaked herself and the car seat straps with water. This habit went to a whole new level of unacceptability when she spit out a bunch of milk at a restaurant last night in Louisville, where we were visiting my parents for the weekend. She had two time outs at the restaurant (during one of which, a woman outside told Kate "Are you in time out? You're just too pretty to be sitting out on the concrete. You'll have to remind your mother one day what she did to you.")

After the first time, we were all watching Kate like a hawk with each gulp, making sure she swallowed it. "Kate, we see you..." We stared her down as she sat there with her lips pursed tightly, obviously keeping the mouthful inside as long as it took for us to relax. She gave us sideways glances of mock innocence and then let it rip, soaking her dress and the diaper bag on the floor next to her.

Today, we went to the Louisville Zoo and had a cool behind-the-scenes tour. We got to go with the keepers to the backside of several habitats, seeing the animals' "bedrooms," where they can go out of view from the public and get their food and other care from the keepers.

Kate was excited to see the monkeys, and the first primates we saw were the orangutans, big and hairy and swinging from their ropes. We watched the male do his little "this is my place, not yours" dance and call, while the female retreated for a minute to the other side of the habitat. When she returned, the keeper said "Bella, I saw that..." and then explained to us that Bella had water in her mouth and often liked to spit it at visitors.

The keeper kept a stern eye on Bella, who kept her lips pursed and gave innocent-looking sideways glances away from us. The keeper kept telling us about the orangutans and how the rising popularity of trans-fat-free palm oil is depleting their natural habitat in Sumatra. It must have been nearly ten minutes, but Bella showed no signs of having swallowed the water. And just as we were about to leave--SPLAT!--she got me right down the front of my dress.

Time out, Bella!

It's amazing how similar primates are. To human toddlers, at least.

I'll post more pics from our Louisville visit and the zoo tour later this week. We saw a grizzly bear from about a foot away, got panhandled by a charming ape, and learned that tigers have an impressive vertical jump. What did you do this weekend?

Fun with Grandparents

While Matt's away in Israel (read his live-blogging of the trip), Kate is having a lot of good time with her grandparents, who eagerly take on child care for what would normally be Daddy-Daughter Days, and then some.

My mom came to stay with us for several days and we had some great girl-time, shopping and dining out. She and Kate had fun playing with the play kitchen and farm and other toys...

... and, of course, reading lots of books!

And during Kate's naps, Mom cleaned, because she just can't help herself. For the record, though, Kate and I vacuumed the night before her arrival. This was Kate winding up the cord and saying "all done fafuum!"

And now, Kate and I are spending several days with Matt's parents so they can keep her during the day and I can have a much shorter commute. They've been enjoying having tea parties...

 ... eating pastries...

 ... trying on hats ...

... and going to the park.

 They also went to the zoo to see the new elephants, baby giraffe, and Kate's "adopted" meerkat. The Daddy giraffe came right up to the edge of his habitat, which was very cool, though Kate clearly did not see it as a Kodak moment.

At some point while walking miles around the zoo, Kate discovered the pockets in her skirt, and walked around like this, leading many strangers to comment what a chill child she is! (little do they know!)

I've been chopped liver for the past few days, but that's okay. Grandparents are more fun than parents any day!

Ice Cream

... sure hits the spot after a long day at the zoo!

And speaking of sweet stuff...
don't forget to enter my 500th post giveaway (and tweet and FB it for extra chances) to win a copy of the new Common English Bible, Sally Dyck's A Faithful Heart, a sampler of Kristen Welch's Don't Make Me Come Up There!: Quiet Moments for Busy Moms, some awesome Thistle Farms products, and even some scrapbook supplies!

Leave a comment (or two or three) over on this post, and I'll randomly draw a winner next Wednesday!