Old Friends

Yesterday, I loaded up the kids after lunch and we traveled to the Columbus Zoo for a playdate.  In the middle of the week.  Yay!!!  We were meeting two of my friends from high school (well, technically from before that even) and their children (each have 1).  The weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!!  It was a perfect temperature - jeans & sweatshirts (which mine wasn't even needed after pulling two kids in a wagon all afternoon).  The sky was nice & clear!  

We got to the zoo around 1ish, everyone else arrived about 20 minutes later, so we got into the zoo (free thanks to Jenny, yay!) around 1:30.  Dear son had napped briefly in the van on the way, but dear daughter, *sigh* did not.  We actually stayed at the zoo until 4:30 with no major breakdowns and only slight crankiness!  The zoo was not crowded at all, but the animals really weren't that exciting either.  We did get to watch the brown bears eat, so the kids really enjoyed that!  After the zoo we went back to Jenny's apartment for play time and dinner.  The kids played together really well (except for the baby, he was a little too small to play, but he was in a great mood watching the big kids play and having diaper blowouts).  

Overall we had a great day!  We managed to get a picture of all 4 kids together - soooo adorable!!! (3.5 yrs, 10 wks, 1.5 yrs, 2 yrs - 4 under 4!!!!!!)

My Little Helper & Miss Independent

So right now my son is earning jelly beans for doing good deeds during Lent.  He'll get his jelly bean jar at Easter.  We started off a little rough, he lost his first probably 10 jelly beans due to bad behavior and had to earn all of those back.  He actually has quite a few now!  One of his best good deeds is holding the door open for everyone when we get home.  As soon as we get out f the van, he immediately goes up the steps to the garage door to the house, opens it, and holds it open until we all are inside.  It's so sweet and he immediately asks (every time) "Is this a good deed?"  He's also helping to change his sister's diaper or eat her breakfast/lunch (she can certainly do it herself but has her lazy moments).  Overall, it's very cute and he'll be very happy to get all of his jelly beans at Easter!

My daughter is officially Miss Independent.  This morning, while climbing into her chair for breakfast, all she would say was "I do it, I do it!"  She refused any help getting into her chair, eating her breakfast, washing her hands, going downstairs after breakfast, etc, etc, etc.  It's so cute, but makes me dread those teenage years!!!

In other news - the kids and I all have strep throat.  Boo.  We're all on meds and hoping daddy doesn't get it too.  Kids seem to be doing well actually, I definitely got the bad deal and feel the worst!!!!

Birthday Weekend

Wow!  What a fantastic 27th birthday!!!!  Growing up, I always caught grief on my birthday since it is April Fool's Day.  While I always had enjoyable birthdays, it still kinda sucked while in school.  I haven't really celebrated my birthday the past several years - we'd have cake, but never really did anything special.  My sister & her hubby (then either boyfriend or fiance) came to my apartment for my 21st birthday - but they were showing their old age - my sister fell asleep watching a movie.  It wasn't late.

Anyways, hubby & I really didn't do anything special for his birthday (exactly two weeks before mine).  And we really didn't have anything planned for mine - I was going to scrapbook the whole weekend.  Well, plans changed.  Or happened?  We made plans to go to the Boonshoft Museum in Dayton (great Children's museum!!) with some friends we have made (yes, we actually made friends!) from church.  We also invited them over after for some homemade pizza.  On Saturday, the Reds were having their Opening Night game.  I thought that would be soooooooooo much fun to go to.  I decided I would spend my birthday money from my parents and grandma on some good seats for the game.  My parents volunteered to come babysit for the evening so hubby and I could go.  We got dugout box seats, row H.  Which we thought, ok, row H would be row 8.  Turns out dugout box seats don't start at letter A because of the dugout.  We were in the THIRD ROW!  Right  behind the dugout.  Best seats either of us have EVER had.  The game was awesome - the Reds won, we each got a Reds Chiquita Banana blanket, and because it was the first night game there were fireworks after the game!  What an amazing date night - and a great way to celebrate both of our birthdays!!! We also pigged out, which was a nice treat. :)  So yay for an amazing birthday weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!