Zoobilee

We were able to attend Zoobilee as a family this year at the Houston Zoo and it was just as much fun as we remembered!  Some of the favorites free things were:

-Unlimited carousel rides

-Dinosaur exhibit tour

-Snacks

-Bouncy slide & obstacle course 

-Airbrush tattoos

-Filling up our passport with stamps and getting a dinosaur poster at the end

All aboard the choo choo train!  This was not at the zoo, but a cute picture from earlier the day before when Allie dumped out her toys and climbed in the buckets on the train.

 Allie wasn't so sure about the robotic dinosaurs that looked very real.  She thought they were cool until she got a little too close.  Good thing she had Dad to hold her!

 I think we have like 200 pictures over our time at the zoo of these girls on the carousel.  There is something about a carousel that just begs for lots of pictures.... with half of them not turning out because they are blurry.

 It could be because they are so stinkin' cute!

 The animals were quite active when we got there around 5 pm.  They must have just fed them dinner, or were about to feed them.  This tiger was pacing his exhibit and then swimming over to the other side... over and over again.

 That is a look of determination!  Allie waited patiently for about 15 min for her turn on the obstacle course and she did an awesome job.  She is quite the nimble kiddo, even in her strawberry dress.  Allie wears dresses about 90% of the time, and the more they spin out, the better!  Today for church she tried on 6 different dresses, spun around to test their flowability and then decided on the one dress... that she has worn 3 Sundays in a row.  I guess I need to get more dresses that spin out!

Every once in a while, I like to add a picture of me in there to prove that I really did attend all of these activities too!

Saturday.... in the park...

 Yesterday was too beautiful of a day to not play outside. After Hadley's morning nap, we ventured over to the waterfall park by the Galleria to have a picnic, play soccer, enjoy the waterfall and shoot off our rocket balloons.  We had such a grand time and spent a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful weather and each other.  Good thing because the girls and Mike all woke up sick this morning.  Bummer!

 These are some of my most favorite pictures ever.  All the people that I love all smiling and looking at the camera, a mere feat at our house!

this picture on the left is of Allie when we first moved here, and the one on the right is with Hadley.  A little younger, but still just as cute.

Hadley signing for more, she really liked being tossed up in the air, she kept signing for more anytime we stopped.

Here is Allie being "tough"since she had gotten hurt and this is the pose we do so we don't complain all day long.  She is pretty tough.

I just love this picture because this is what I get every time Hadley starts running towards me, arms raised and a smile on her face.  I love these cute kiddos!

He did it!

On Tuesday, Mike defended his project for school and did a fantastic job!  This is one of the final steps to graduating with his Masters of Pharmacy Administration which will happen in the middle of May.  He put a lot of work and effort into this project and we could not be more proud him!  

To celebrate, we made a sign, hung a banner, and went out for dinner and dessert that night.  Hooray!

 Allie did a wonderful job coloring the sign, and Hadley added a bit of yellow, but mostly liked playing with the markers and wearing this cute hat most o the morning.

Yea Dad!  We are almost done!

Stopping to smell the roses

I have learned that I view life differently than my children. I tend to always be in more of a rush and eager to get things accomplished so I can move on to the next task, but they like to stop and smell the roses (literally). So I decided to try and walk a mile in their shoes (although we only made it about 100 yards before time ran out and we needed to go home).

We walked along the bayou and picked flowers. These are some of the good pictures.

Hadley loved just sitting in the grass and playing with everything. 

If we left her alone long enough she even taste tested all the flowers for everyone!

Allie showing off the pretty purple flowers that she plucked.

Hadley starting to walk away. 

She kept trying to make a break for it when we weren't looking. 

Allie wanted to look at everything. 

She spent time examining all the flowers, weeds, and grass.

It was all so fascinating to her.

Posing in front of the bridge. 

Me with the girls in the weeds. (And this is one of the better shots)

Rach and Hadley in the weeds. 

It was a neat view of the med center on the other side of the bayou.

All my girls. Happily distracted by everything to see.

Allie was very proud of the sunflowers she picked for our table. 

As soon as we got home we placed all the flowers in a vase on the table and 

Allie just loved to look at them all the time.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon playing in the wild flowers.

Four little ducks went out to play

We had some really old bread from last week, so we decided to go feed the ducks! (what else would you do with almost moldy bread) It was a beautiful day so we had lots of fun, but the ducks were not that interested in the bread (we must have missed the morning feeding freenzy, cause they seemed to be pretty full by the time we got to the park).

Allie and I tossing some bread to the ducks. 

Allie had to learn how to get a good toss to get the bread into the water.

Hadley wanted to try and get in the water herself. 

But she was too big for the ducks, so we kept her out of the water.

Looking longingly at the ducks swimming by and not eating our bread.

Hadley had lots of fun walking free. 

She spent most of her time chasing the pigeons that kept coming around (luckily she didn't catch any).

The girls trying to feed the birds since the ducks were not very hungry.

It was a great day at the park. We fed a few ducks, lots of pigeons, and didn't lose anyone in the pond. 

I would call that success!

Strawberry Fields Forever

This weekend we tried something new. 

We decided to do manual labor as a family! 

And since they don't realize its work, Allie and Hadley loved it (it was fun for the rest of us too). 

We went to a local farm to pick fresh strawberries!

Walking through the fields. 

All the good strawberries were in the field in the very back where not many people had come through. So we walked a long ways to get there (at least some of us walked, others got a ride).

Rach was in charge of Hadley and the camera so we don't have many pictures of her 

(this one provided the proof that she was there, and she looks cute too!).

Here we are getting lessons on which ones to pick. 

Allie knows you only can take the red ones (not pink or white).  You can also see the Tingey family in the back, picking their strawberries too.

Smiling for the family picture.

Allie showing off her haul. 

She picked a whole bucket full and did not want to let anyone else carry them the whole way home!

Me with Hadley. She just wanted to try some since she loves strawberries.

It was a fun time in the sun getting some berries. We went home and had strawberries with every meal for the next few days. Everyone had so much fun we might try this again some time.