Evidence of the need for dress shorts

We are entering the phase of the year where we feel obligated to take advantage of every day that is less than 90 degrees and/or 90% humidity.  This past weekend was warm, but gorgeous.  We went out for dinner on Friday, and then went to the park.

We've been going to this particular park for years.  They've got a nice, fenced in playground for the under 5 set, and then a bigger playground for older kids.  The girls have started making the move to the big playground in the last few months.  It's crazy for me to be there.

Crazy hair.  She never spares a drop of drama.

Someone was having a birthday party, and these two couldn't keep their eyes away.  They kept asking why we couldn't go to the birthday party.  I told them we didn't know the people.  Becca said "Well, we can tell them our names."  Luckily, we had a birthday party to go to on Saturday ... for, you know, someone we actually know.

They insist on running, even when we tell them not to.  Julie was the unlucky one this time - I watched her trip on her own foot and do an almost-face plant on the sidewalk.  Luckily all she had was a scraped knee.  Unluckily all we had was a Chipotle napkin in the car.  We used to have a first aid kit in the car, but apparently we took it out at some point.

And that's when we knew it was "last call" time on our wild and crazy Friday night at the playground.

Kites

Of course, after Emma went kite flying on her day, everyone wanted to go.

This was the day after the snow.  You can see it was 99% gone within 24 hours.

Julie's wearing her puppy dog hat.  It's black and white, so sometimes she insists it's a panda bear hat.

Love, love, love this one.

They also went to the playground (I stayed at home).  This was the week that they started playing on the "big kids" playground.  There are two at this park - the little one rated for, say, 2-5 and has a fence around it.  The big one still scares me.  It's probably a good thing I stayed at home.

They worked on going down this corkscrew.  This works just fine.  But there's another park that we go to that has something similar, but it's more like a DNA helix than a corkscrew, meaning they get about one revolution and then get their foot caught on a bar.  Emma kept trying to get it to work the same through brute force, but kept kind of tumbling down it.  The one at this park, though, is the real deal.

Forced Nature Hike

So, on Sunday of that warm weekend back in January, we needed to get out of the house.  We decided (well, to be clear, Greg and I decided) to go to a new nature park that opened just up the road from our house.  For how close it is, we really haven't been there much.  There's a pretty good stretch of trail that's paved, so we used to take the strollers out there to walk through.

So, we get there and everything is fine.  We park and get out of the car.  Start walking down the path.  And, as soon as we can't see the car anymore, Emma freaked out.  I'm not entirely sure what was so scary, but eventually what I think we got out of her was that there were no people around.  I guess that makes sense, but I was not expecting it.  Becca fed off her fear, and started to get upset, too.  Julie was perfectly fine.

From here on out, this will be known as Emma's "I hate nature" face.

And - proud parenting moment - we threatened to leave them there while we took Julie on a hike.  That was seriously what it took.  And even then, it looked like this:

I can't remember why they were covering their ears.  Something freaking them out.  Julie was out in front leading the way.  Occasionally, Emma would yell at Julie for getting too far ahead.

After about 15 minutes (and a quick consultation with the trail map via iPhone), we realized we were heading in the wrong direction if we wanted to go find the big bridge.   And I don't think Emma and Rebecca let go of Greg's hands until we got to the bridge.

And that was enough nature for one day.  We headed out of the woods at a different spot than we went in.  As we were walking, Emma started saying her feet were tired and she couldn't walk anymore.  And then she saw the playground

The part of the park closest to the road used to be a minor league baseball stadium, and they've put in new little league fields.  I really had no idea this park was there, but it was really nice.

One of my favorite pictures of Becca

If only they knew what real teeter totters were like ...

The Big Zoo

Still catching up from October.  I swear, it's been since the girls were just babies that blogging has been so hard for me to keep up with.  I can't really explain it.  Since I got a new laptop back in August, I've been trying to be much better about deleting photos, and they are SO many of them.  I've also been trying to catch up with Project Life, and adding more digital elements really speeds up the assembly time, but it means investing more time upfront on the computer... and then I don't feel like going through more photos for a blog post.

So, back in October, we went to Columbia for a family weekend/Greg's birthday weekend.  We actually had a conference with the girls' teacher on Friday afternoon, so we left after that.  On Saturday morning, we went to the "big" zoo.

The first place they wanted to go was to see the penguins.  They love the penguins!  We came back later in the afternoon for the penguin feeding.

We ended up getting a membership at this zoo, too, because they have a bunch of rides that get expensive for three kids.  So they rode this train, over and over.

The membership also got us "free" lettuce to feed to the giraffes.  It was pretty cool.  Because it was so long ago, I can't remember who actually fed the giraffes - I think it was Emma and Julie.  

We also got to go on the pony rides.  Well, Becca did.  Emma and Julie are still scared.  I had to include this first one, because Becca is a total nail biter.  She's done it forever, and I can't get her to stop.  I honestly don't think we've cut her nails since she was an infant.

There was a big fight over who got to sit on the front of the elephant, so after Becca and Emma got off, I let Julie get on by herself for a few minutes.

Between the cow at the dairy farm a few weeks before this trip, and this cow, Emma now calls this "watering the cow."

A few spins on the merry-go-round.

And then we had to play at the playground.  Apparently we cannot pass a playground without stopping.

Julie loves these "telephone" things.  She's practically hanging from this one.  And she'd make me stand over at the other end.  There's one at a playground closer to home that my girls like to monopolize as well.

And then some climbing on the lion statues.

  Emma looks so old here.

There's also a botanical garden attached to the zoo.  In the past, we've only ever taken the free tram ("train") up there, and then turned right around and came back.  But we walked through it quickly this time.  There was some big cheerleading competition going on that weekend, and the girls were fascinated.

Train

One of our local parks has a train that runs on the weekends.  Given how close it is, it's kind of shocking that we'd never been on the train.  I guess the last time we went to that park, the park was too big for the girls, and they were probably terrified of a train ride at that time.

Speaking of terrified, last week, they had someone from the Humane Society come to daycare to talk to them, and the person brought a dog.  Well, apparently the dog wanted to play with a little girl, and when the girl got up, the dog still wanted to play, so the dog started chasing her and she started yelling and screaming.  Which prompted my 3 to start screaming and crying.  They had to leave the gym and sit outside for the rest of the talk.  My kids are terrified of dogs.  Sigh.

But back to the train.

We got lollipops while we waited.

Emma looked a little nervous at first.

They loved that we went by the baseball fields - lots of yelling and pointing.

Everybody gave it the thumbs up.

We went to the playground for a little while afterwards.

Julie had to get a climb in before we left.

Then Becca started whining, "It's too hot.  I want a drink.  I want lunch."

The little things

After the Touch a Truck, we went to a moms of multiples picnic.  It was a gorgeous day, and so nice to just be outside.

What really made it special, though, was one of those little milestones that means that my girls really are growing up - - Emma managed to finally get the rhythm down and swing herself.

Sigh.

So proud.  And trying really hard to let them grow up without wishing they'd stay this age forever.