Painting elephants and kissing toads and crazy swans, oh my!

We had a wonderful trip to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita.  It's just a half hour away from our house and we chose a lovely, not too crowded, not too hot day to go.  Kenneth's company gives Good Friday off, so we took advantage of it and went to the zoo.  I hadn't realized it, but Grant never even remembers going to the zoo.  He was too young to remember when we went several times to the National Zoo when we lived in D.C.  We never went to the zoo in California.  It's funny though, you ask them what their favorite animals to see were and they say, "the geese and the fish."  Guess we could have just taken them to the park and they would have been just as satisfied!  Grant did mention liking the bald eagle and they took a liking to the Crazy Swan who greeted us right as we entered the zoo.  It was in a tunnel and honking very loudly and then kind of charged at us, but didn't really try to attack.  It was a little frightening for me- I can only imagine what it would have been like at the kids' height!  They named it Big Mama.  (I guess I was so frightened I didn't think about taking out the camera!)  They were glad to see her a couple of times during our visit. 
It was cool to see the kids get so excited to see an animal they had learned about in school.  We have animal science each Wednesday and we learn all kinds of interesting things about animals.  So, it was fun to go to the zoo to see all the things we have been learning.
Kate was a great baby on this trip!  She skipped her regular morning nap (wouldn't you with all the excitement of the animals and all?!?) and took a short nap in the stroller in the afternoon, but was very pleasant all day.
Here are the highlights:

Beautiful peacock!  What an incredible bird!  They were just roaming free.  The kids loved it!  They did get asked not to chase the peacocks, though.  Whoops.

Peacock guarding the door to the Amphibians and Reptiles

Kissing toads- so cute!

Hello there, kids!

Seeing the elephants do tricks. . .

and paint pictures!

Wow!  That's one talented elephant!

Lunch break

The kids liked seeing the wallaby. 

What a very strange-looking animal!  The giant ant-eater.



Arianna loved all the statues.  She sat on everyone.  I'll spare you and just share a few =)  Emma joined her this time.

Arianna and the tiger.  He was a pacer!

Grant and the bald eagles

Emma with the turkeys

Arianna on the Komodo dragan.  Yikes!  I'd don't want to meet one of them in real life!

The petting zoo part was much enjoyed!

My favorite part of the zoo was watching Kate get so excited about seeing the animals!

African farm section with a camel

Arianna with the sleeping lion.

Speaking of lions. . . Stay tuned for the post about Grant's Little Lion, as promised.

". . .funny things are everywhere"

"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere."  (To quote Dr. Seuss from One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) 

So, Kate went to the scratch paper drawer and pulled out a paper to draw on this morning.  She happened to pull out this paper that Grant drew a spider web on at church yesterday.  While the paper was on the floor, a real, live spider crawled on it!  Kenneth and I had seen the spider when we came into the kitchen this morning, but we actually thought it was dead and hadn't yet taken care of it.  The kids were tickled pink seeing a real spider on the paper web! Grant felt quite proud that his web was worthy of a real spider!  It kept them all occupied for the next 10 minutes, until Emma decided it was time to put the spider outside.

See our creepy crawly friend down there in the left corner of the web?

 

Kate was totally captivated by this spider!

The day has come. . .

We've entered a new stage, folks.  I knew this day was coming, but I did NOT think that day was yesterday.  She's figured it out.  How to climb onto the table.  Heaven help us.  She's a smart one, that Kate.  So, after dinner yesterday, Kenneth and I were looking at something on the computer in the kitchen and we turned around to see Kate on the bench at the kitchen table with a big grin on her face.  She was very pleased with herself indeed and we had to continually discourage her from climbing onto the table.  Oh boy.

Here are Kate's latest adventures.  I caught her in the act of chomping on the toothbrushes, too.

Little stinker

Here's her first Egg Hunt we had a few days before Easter with friends indoors due to rain.

Found one!

She will help herself to scratch paper and pencils.  She is so funny.

Here's another thing she discovered.  Good thing those rails don't go up to far!

So proud and happy!

I love her face in this picture.  I had a pot of cold cooked potatoes in the refrigerator that I took out to eat for lunch and Kate took the lid off and chowed down!

Kate loves to get into everything!  Here she is in Grant's tie holding a pencil and a toothbrush- her 2 favorite things.

Kate loves loves being outside and she loves the ladybugs!  If you look closely, you can see one on her finger.

There it is in flight!

She discovered she can push the bathroom stool into the kitchen and get into lots more drawers!
 

Here's that little munchkin climbing up on the bench and dancing.

 

Science Friday: Parachutes!



Boy, I felt like I spent most of the day untangling parachutes and/or getting them off the roof and out of trees, but the kids sure did have a ball with this week's science project.  They were not content just to have a weight on the end of the parachute, of course.  No, not my children.  They had to attach an animal.  The kids informed me that the animals liked their rides in the morning so well, they bought the parachutes in the afternoon (for which they paid anywhere from$50-$100).  Wow!  It was a fun day. 

 

I love our neighbor's pink flowering trees.

After trying throwing the parachutes from the front porch, they moved to the chicken coop!

 

 

Puttin' on the Ritz

I mentioned that Kenneth and I went to a dance at Church.  Well the theme of the dance was 'Puttin' on the Ritz and they had a photo booth with some props.  Here we are:

We had a lot of fun at this dance.  Kenneth was such a good sport to just have fun with me even if it put him out of his comfort zone a little (picture him doing the chicken dance!!!!)

I love you, Kenneth!

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter Weekend.  Kenneth's company gives him Good Friday off, so we went to the zoo that day, which was a lot of fun (post to come soon).  Saturday we worked around the yard and prepared for Sunday (among other preparations, I got all over-zealous again and MADE Easter candy- Strawberry Crème truffles with only 4 ingredients- yummy and healthy) and then Kenneth and I went out on a real live date!  With a paid babysitter and everything!  Our Stake hosted an Adult Dance.  It was fabulous.  I sure love my sweet husband of almost 10 years.  We had a great time together. 
Church on Easter was wonderful: wonderful talks during Sacrament Meeting, wonderful musical number, great lesson in Primary (that's where I serve- I did not teach, just got to listen) and just a happy day all around.  Our neighbor was nice to take our family picture when we got home from church.  I didn't buy any new dresses or anything, we just wore what we have.  (Shopping is just not fun for me right now.  Too much work.)
And, here's our Easter Sunday celebrations pictures starting with breakfast:

With 9 AM church, I knew I couldn't handle anything fancy for breakfast.  Enter this fun idea.  Kenneth and I filled them the night before (except for the banana) and stuck them in the fridge ready to go.  The kids LOVED them!

 In case you are wondering they are filled with: mini-muffins, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, raisins, Cheerios, strawberries, almonds, mini red pepper, banana.

Hard-boiled egg with carrot and chia seeds as the face

Grant opening his eggs

This is their kind of meal- a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Arianna's breakfast.  This might just become a tradition!

I love my family!!  We had a great Easter

Kate's second Easter, first Easter Egg Hunt (well, we had a small one with some friends on Thursday, but that was in the house due to rain)

Ready for the hunt

He is getting so old!  I can hardly handle it!

Arianna

Egg hidden on the chicken coop

She got the hang of it very quickly

Small woman on a mission

So excited!

Thanks for helping me, Dad!

Dried Mangoes!  He was so excited about these!!!!!

Checking out their spoils. 

Pistachios- Grant was so excited about these, too! 

Kate getting some dried mangoes

Dad put together a scavenger hunt with clues for the big kids.  They had fun, even if it was drizzling.  The clues led them to games from the Thrift Store.  They have been playing Scrabble Junior almost non-stop since!

Had the Baldaufs over for dinner on Sunday.  (Kenneth's cousin's family)