Pictures from the Park, and the Cutest Cats Ever

The girls have just been loving all of the attention from Grandma and Grandpa S, and I think that Grandma and Grandpa have been enjoying it, too.

We went out for pizza on Friday night - my favorite pizza around! No music man, but the woman working there TOTALLY knows us.

After pizza, we went back to daycare for a party/open house. Becca slept through pretty much the whole thing (including a diaper change) -- no nap at daycare. Emma and Julie mostly liked getting to run up and down the hall and meet with their old teachers. Oh, and pull out all of the toys in the infant room. They had a snowcone machine, and even though she spit out the first few bites, Emma was all over it. Julie tasted it once, but that was it. They had some inflatable bounce houses, but there were lots of bigger kids in those, and it was starting to get late. They gave out goody bags as we were leaving, and the girls found the lollipops as soon as we got in the car.

We got going a little bit earlier than usual on Saturday morning, so we got a quick trip to the park in before our Costco run.
R


Grandma, Greg, and J


J


Becca helping push Julie


Emma (purple), Grandpa, Greg, Grandma, and Julie.


Of course, Becca and Julie fell asleep in the car on the way home from Costco, and after lunch, they went on a nap strike. Why, oh why, do they think a 15 minute nap in the car is the same as a 2 hour nap at home? They're certainly not the same in my book. Daycare has said that Becca has not been napping for very long lately. So not ready to give up naps.

Lots of playing with Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday afternoon.

Grandpa and Emma

J and Grandma

I thought that we were headed towards another nap strike on Sunday, but they eventually settled down. Good thing, because we were headed for Boo in the Zoo after nap (postponed from Saturday, partly due to the lack of nappage).

I wanted to let the girls walk through the zoo... but was a little afraid, because they've never walked that much before. And it involved walking along a path, not racing back and forth across the living room. But they did great! They walked pretty much the whole thing and carried their bags all by themselves. Of course, I knew the bags wouldn't be a problem - my girls LOVE bags.

Grandpa and Becca (have to look at the shoes to tell who's who)

Don't you just want to eat them up? R, E, J

This was the best family pic we managed this year. E, J, R

With Grandma and Grandpa E, R, J

LOVE this.

Checking out the leopard. Luckily, I know this is J, E, R... They were pretty much impossible to tell apart from behind, unless you looked at their shoes.

J

E

R. Her costume may have been a little too big.

She looks a little skeptical.


They were really taking things in this time - interested in all the other people, interested in the animals they saw. Emma was really enthralled by all of the wooden painted decorations they had up.

This one was close enough to touch. And when Emma started touching, the other girls figured she must be on to something.




They gave the girls peanut butter cups at the very first station, one in their bag and one in their hand. They would not let go of the one in their hand, nor put it in their bags.


There's a big metal (forgive my lack of better description) bear statue at the zoo that everybody gets their picture taken with. When Emma saw it, she HAD to sit on it. I think this is the happiest picture of her from the whole zoo trip. Julie was afraid of it and wanted nothing to do with it, didn't even want to get too close to it. Becca was ok with sitting on the bear, but Emma was just so happy.



Their favorite loot? The plastic cups with jack-o-lantern faces on them. (That *might* be because they don't know that there's candy in all those packages. Right now they're just toys.).


And, in dramatic conclusion to my disaster of a shower recaulking project, we called in a professional. After using sheer brute force in Round 1, I brought in some chemicals in the form of caulk softener for Round 2. I couldn't tell what was going on though - there was this really thin layer of white on the shower that wasn't there before. It almost looked like I was gouging the shower. In an effort to not do any more damage, I stopped. I was also going to be at the point of completely removing the whole door frame to remove the old caulk. For $75 and one hour, I never should have even attempted this on my own.