Our Newest Bicycle

Our early bday present to Samuel (or is it really a present for me?)

And that's a hula hoop around my neck. We're on our way to Lillian's birthday party (that's her gift).

Well, anyway, now we can ride together again. I just have to toss the Ibert and Shira on the front and away we go.PS Samuel loves it. He kept shouting faster! faster! and giggling the entire time we were on it. And asked to ride it every single day after we got it. His balance on it is pretty amazing considering his feet barely reach the pedals and a good portion of the time, the only thing keeping him on is his balance and grip on the handle bars. That's my boy!

Minnesota Grandma and Grandpa come to town

and read stories

do art projectsbuild stuffand play with babies

Hotel, Dinner with Wine, and Brunch in the Morning

Ahh, it's good when Grandma and Grandpa come to town...The most gorgeous man on the planetDinner at Canteen

The time we got out of bed in the morning

Happy Hollow Zoo

Just reopened and has been the talk of the town, so when a friend announced on Facebook that they would be there, and we didn't have our usual Wednesday plans, we headed on over. It was all it was cracked up to be and we walked away with a membership. With any luck, the crowds will clear out soon enough, and it might be added to a regular weekly or biweekly rotation this summer.This was the view that I saw for most of our time at the zoo. Samuel would stop at each animal exhibit for a solid 45 seconds, make sure that he located the animal, ask what it was called, and then would practically sprint to the next exhibit, saying, "I want to see more animals." That was the mantra of the day. "I want to see more animals."
The Samuel that I observed at the zoo was a confident and determined 3 year old that I hadn't seen before. He was so decisive about where he wanted to go and what he wanted to see. As you can see in this picture, I clearly wasn't moving fast enough for his pleasure. (That's the back of Sophia - Samuel also told her what to do and where to go.)

Samuel feeds a cooperative dwarf Zebu (not a cow)

By far Samuel's favorite part was feeding the animals. Unfortunately for Samuel (and all the other kids) the petting zoo animals were clearly some of the most well fed beings on the planet. I've never seen a goat turn down food, but these goats were actively trying to avoid the children that wanted to feed them.

Yummy Artichokes

March 2008...

April 2010...I would have included a plated pic, but they were eaten too quickly :)

Remember that grass?

...that Samuel brought home from preschool and I figured was promptly killed by overwatering...

but that I feared I would be weeding out of our bay tree planter?

Shira Crawls!

Shira is trying SOOO hard to crawl.

We hadn't really thought about her movement or lack thereof, until we had her 9 month appointment and I realized we should check out the Dr. Sears book to see what the developmental milestones are for this age range. Ahh, the poor forgotten second child.

Anyway, we realized that we should maybe encourage Shira to crawl, since this is around the right time, and neither she nor we had made any effort. Within two weeks she went from not even trying to move out of a seated position to constantly being on her hands and knees. She just didn't want to make the effort without us paying attention ;)

So now she slithers all over the floor, spins herself around, gets on all fours and back to the seated position, goes backwards, but the actually crawling forward seems to be just a couple of days off.

Update:
I wrote this post a few days ago and hadn't had the opportunity to post it yet. As of yesterday, Shira is crawling! She doesn't go very far yet, just a couple steps, then she gets on her tummy to rest, but so far she is moving even further today, than yesterday. I imagine she will be zooming around the entire house in just a couple of weeks.