Post birthday grandma and papa fun

The girls got a basketball hoop from my parents for their birthday.  It had been rainy and wet, so when the sun finally came out, Greg got it put together, and they played outside with grandma and papa.

I was at work, but Greg had taken the day off, so they went to the zoo and took another picture on the bear.  I really need to dig out a series of these bear pictures.

Airport for lunch outside.

Pretty sure this was playing in the car when they got home from zoo.  Yes, that would be Rebecca, upside down in her car seat, reading a book. 

Boo in the Zoo

At some point, months ago, I started talking to the girls about Halloween costumes.  To give them some ideas, I mentioned a witch, a flower, or a rainbow.  And that it exactly what they latched onto.  My rainbow idea came from the rainbow costume on here, which is one of the cutest things I've seen.  But it looked like it would require sewing, and interfacing, and still wouldn't come out quite like I hoped.  So, based on some suggestions from Greg and a friend at work, I made this one out of foam core board, tissue paper, and glue.  Lots of glue.  It made its debut at Boo in the Zoo.

 
Julie is just a ham.

Julie continues to ham it up, and about takes Becca down in the process.

Emma said that she wanted to be a witch.  Then, I bought three owl costumes.  And she still wanted to be a witch (I still had no witch costume).  And then she started saying, "I want to be an owl.  But a witch is better."  So, the three owl costumes continue to hang upstairs, with tags still on.  I'm hoping I can at least get one wear out of them next year.  It took me a while to not find an, um, "cheap" witch costume, but I think this one was ok.  Emma has since declared that this costume was "itchy," so she doesn't want to wear it next year.  Becca has decided she wants to be a witch next year, but she doesn't want to wear Emma's costume.  She wants her own witch costume.

Love them.  So, so much.

Despite all of mom's photos, we did eventually make it into the zoo.

And look, my eyes are open in a flash photo!

So much loot she had to throw it over her shoulder to carry it.

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.

A drier sort of family day

So, the Sunday after our work Family Day got rained on, it was nice out, and supposed to rain again on Monday, so we got out while we could.

We stopped at the grocery store to get some sandwiches for a picnic.  When we got there, they wanted to eat right away, so we bought them off for a little while at the playground.

Love this series of Julie... she was working on the courage...

They also started working on the balance beam.  I was trying to get them to do it without holding on.  But Rebecca was getting really frustrated that she couldn't do it herself.  She got a few good tries in.

Emma got going pretty well on the beam.

Then, the decided to climb.  Julie.

 Rebecca

Emma

Julie again.  There's a tiny big of purple nail polish left on one of her pinkies.

All the way at the top.

Isn't she cute?

 Playing with daddy.

We finally broke for lunch.  We had our sandwiches and some cheese crackers.  Em's still got the hot pink on her fingers.

Then, they spied the hopscotch grid painted on the ground.

We did finally make it into the zoo.  There's a pregnant giraffe at the zoo, due any day now.  We'd been talking about it the last time we were at the zoo, and the girls remembered it, so when we got there, Emma informed me "The mommy giraffe has a baby in her pouch.  That's what you said, mommy."  When we got up to the giraffe exhibit, she decided that the daddy giraffe had the bigger belly and was going to have the baby in his pouch.

And we'll leave it at that for now.  I think maybe we won't go back to the zoo until the baby giraffe is out of the mommy's pouch.

Julie at the zoo.

Emma has started putting her hands on her hips like that.  I know there's a trash can in the picture, but I just love it.

And, of course, we had to get our picture taken on the bear.