Story Time

They put this whole little set up together by themselves last week.

Personally, I think Momo and Bear could be paying a little more attention.

Rockin' the princess shirt

Catching up, part 3

The rest of last weekend we just enjoyed playing outside.  Most people play outside until it gets dark in the summer.  But for us, that's more likely to happen in the fall.  We've had a really great string of gorgeous weekends.

R throwing leaves up in the air.

R under the tree

Emma and Julie exploring

Julie picking up leaves to throw

Catching up, part 2

On the way home from Zoo Atlanta, we stopped at Archivers, and by then it was time for dinner.  And then it was time for dessert.  I can't remember the last time we had Krispy Kreme, but there it was...

Becca decided to eat around the outside of the doughnut.

Catching up, part 1

Last weekend, we went to the zoo in Atlanta, which insists on calling itself Zoo Atlanta, not the Atlanta Zoo.  I let that slide and bought the Groupon a few months ago.  Plus, the girls were free until they turn 3.  And if you've read my recent "Acts of Animal Terrorism" posts, you're probably wondering why we went to the zoo again.  Groupon.  And we needed something different to do.  Oh, and Archiver's was on the way home.

The girls totally shocked me, though, and loved the zoo!  They weren't afraid to look at anything, really, though Julie and Emma wouldn't go near the gorilla statue.

They all had to give the giraffe statue a hug, though.

What's it going to take to get a picture for the Christmas card????

We spent a lot of time watching the monkeys - they all wanted to watch the baby monkeys on the "grandma" and "daddy" monkeys.  It was awfully cute, although I 'm not sure why they were assuming that the ones carrying the babies weren't the mommy monkeys?

They had some monkey statues which were equally as attractive as the monkeys themselves, apparently.  Becca tried to sit in the mommy monkey's lap.

It took them a long time to realize that the mommy monkey also had a baby, and then they kept wanting to pat the baby.

There was also a treehouse exhibit, and they ran right over to this giant nest and had to play in it.

There were two observation points for the bears - the first one that you come to gives you a view from the top, but we couldn't really see much from there.  We had to walk a bit out of the way before we came down to the ground-level observation point, and the whole time Emma kept talking about having to see "her bears."

E, finally getting to see "her" bears

Right next to the bears were some tigers.  Well, a "mommy" tiger and two tiger cubs.  The girls asked where the daddy tiger was.  I told them he was at work.  They've been asking that a lot lately, with stories that we read.  Now they say, "Daddy at work?"

I didn't think I'd ever see my kids that close to a tiger exhibit.  Now, they did start backing up when the tiger started walking toward the glass...  But the two cubs (way over to the left, kind of in the glare) were a big enough draw, I guess.

One of the draws of this particular zoo is the new panda exhibit.  Of course, two were sleeping, and they were cleaning the cages of the other two while we were there.  But the girls still loved to see the sleeping one.  Which led to the panda souvenir store.  Which was supposed to just result in some panda bear socks (because they were so excited about the monkey socks I had on that day), but instead resulted in panda sock and another $45 worth of stuffed panda bears.

The other draw of this zoo?  The rides.  A merry-go-round, and a train.  I thought they were going to freak out when they saw it.  We were at the start of the line, and I saw a line of three panda bears all together.  Somehow I thought we'd get away with all riding together.  But Emma?  Did not want a panda bear.  She wanted "her bear,"  So she and I scrambled to find a non-panda bear.  And?  She loved every last minute of it.

Greg rode with Becca and Julie, who loved their panda bears.  He said Julie squealed every time it went up and down for the first minute or so.  I just got a chance to grab a quick picture before we got off.  You know, since Emma's bear was of course half way around the merry-go-round from the row of pandas.

We also rode the train.  I'll admit, I was afraid they were going to freak.  Because I had no idea there were two dark tunnels on this train ride.  I saw Becca's eyes get bigger than I've ever seen them... but other than that, they loved it!

We just had a great day.  A great family fun day.  The weather was perfect and a little cool, but so nice to be outside all day.  We ended up parking in a residential area, and when we got back to the car, the girls wanted to walk up and down the sidewalk to shuffle in the leaves.

:)  A really good day.

Buying time

I know, I know.  It's been a crazy week.  And I have lots to post.  But it's getting late again, and I still have more pressing things that need to get done tonight.

So for now, we're alive and well.  And to buy some more time, I'll share with you a photo that makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.

E

Random Notes from the Week

My kids love to collect acorns, from our back yard to anywhere that we go to (yes, including random parking lots). I love this picture of Julie collecting them at the farm a few weeks ago.

They are starting to recognize E's, R's, and J's when we label things. They also like to pretend to write our names, but they say "I gonna draw your name."

*Sometimes* they call elephants "olophants," but not all the time.

They also confuse "octopus" and "hippopotamus."

I love that when they're talking about their sister, they refer to her as "my Julie," "my Becca," and "my Emma."

Instead of "ABC"s, they call it "ABCD"s.  And anything with words or letters on it has "ABCD"s on it.

Becca loves ketchup.  And if you're not watching her closely, she'll just stick her hand in it and eat it off her fingers.

When the girls see the large exposed duct work in the grocery store or in restaurants, they call it "slides."

Emma and Becca say, "I want a blanket on to keep me cold."

Emma started calling her bear "Bear Grace."  (Grace is her middle name.)  And then she started calling Greg "Daddy Grace."

And just some random notes on Halloween before I forget...  There were A LOT of kids out.  It was kind of nice.  It's felt recently like Halloween was changing, losing some of its neighborly character.  But there really was a community vibe to it, which was nice.  We also went to a house of nurse who works in the NICU and recognized us (we didn't recognize her) - had no idea she was in our neighborhood!

And just to be totally random, the zoo had been posting pictures on their facebook page of the animals eating the leftover pumpkins from Boo in the Zoo.  And for some reason, I find it insanely adorable.

Becca likes green beans.

A lot.

Another milestone

Last week, we went to Five Guys for dinner, and the girls had their first peanuts.  We had to go through the whole "don't eat the shell" thing quite a few times, but they eventually got it.  And do you know the best way we came up with to explain it?  "It's like eating edamame."  I don't think I would have ever predicted that my kids would learn to shell edamame before they learned to shell peanuts.  Or, should I say, "pea-nups."

Sometimes we got just a little bit frustrated.

Happy Halloween!

Sorry, was hoping to actually get this up on Halloween, but 3 overtired, over-sugared toddlers means one heck of a bed time.

I'm not sure if you remember last year, but Trick or Treating was pretty much a bust.  The girls were scared after about 2 houses.  But they practiced their "Trick or Treat"s and "Thank you"s with the nanny all day long, and kept saying, "I wanna go get candy."  "Are we going to get candy, mommy?"

We took them out for a good, solid hour or so.  They were still afraid to go up to doors without holding our hands, and Julie flat out refused to say "Trick or treat" to anyone (even the guy that didn't give her any candy because she wouldn't say it, which I thought was a little harsh for a not-even-three-year-old).  But every time we got back out to the street, Emma would say, "I wanna get more candy."

I got a few pictures before we left.  I wanted to take some out front, but they clearly wanted to be playing in the back yard instead.  And they've started making these awful faces and saying "cheese" every time I take their picture.

The dogs were out next door.  She's a little on guard.

I didn't get many pictures while we were out, but Julie was leading the charge when we left the house.

We let them have a few pieces of candy when we got home.  Becca and Julie went right for the Smartees, and Emma for the gummies.

Then we moved on to chocolate.

Julie's first peanut butter cup... and she let me finish it!  Score.


They came home with quite a haul.

Oh, and that blue book in there?  Yeah, that's a Bible.  Sorry - I don't believe Halloween should be chance to proselytize to my kids.