Summer Zoo Trip

I didn't plan on blogging about every single trip to the zoo, but it's turning out that way. Wednesday, my mom and I took the boys to the zoo. We ended up leaving earlier than we normally do and got there right at 9:00, the only attraction that's open that early is the carousel, everything else (feeding the birds, train, pony rides, etc) doesn't open until 9:30 or 10:00. We got in before all the field trips that were there went in, so it felt like we had the entire zoo to ourselves for a long time. We start every trip out with a ride on the carousel.

We were the only ones on it, so the boys got to pick out any animal they wanted.

I think the boys look so cute when they're wearing their sunglasses.

Normally, the boys don't want to stop very long to look at any animals and they are both interested in different animals. But this time was different, all the animals were out and about (the lions and tigers are normally sleeping, but they were walking around) there was nobody there yet, so we were able to see everything really easily, and we had our new side by side double stroller which made it easier for the boys to see and get in and out of when. I don't know exactly what it was, but the boys were much more interested in seeing the animals this time and actually stopped and really looked at all the animals.

The gorilla exhibit is indoors and normally pretty packed, especially if the gorillas are out, but when we went in, there was only one other family in there. The gorilla kept walking around and then coming right up to the glass and looking at the boys. The kids couldn't stay still when it came up to the glass, they backed up because it was hard to remember there was glass there between us and the gorilla.

The boys loved feeding the giraffes. We got there right when they started at 10, so the giraffes were nice and hungry. The boys always get such a kick out of this.

I love this picture of Carter helping Evan.

All the turtles were out and a lot of them were walking around, the boys love turtles, especially Carter.

There was a sea turtle in the aquarium part that we've never seen before, so Carter was excited about that.

Both boys rode the ponies, there was nobody in front of the boys to do this, so that worked out great. The line is really slow for this since there's only a couple ponies but we've been lucky that we always go before it gets long and have never had more than one or two kids in front of us.

Sometimes Carter skips the ponies so he can ride the train a couple extra times, but this time he was excited to ride the ponies.

We love that the boys can ride the train by themselves, they are pros at this now. They love this little train, it just goes around a small circle twice, but they think it's the best thing ever.

We normally skip the petting zoo part, but we went by this time and the boys loved petting the goats.

I don't know how many times we'll be able to go over the summer when it gets really hot, so I'm glad that we went last week. The boys always have so much fun when we go. The family membership was definitely a great purchase, we have more than got our money's worth.

Play Dates and Kroc Center

Since we only had one free week until mid July, I tried to take advantage of it by staying busy and doing the things that we couldn't do while they were in school. When the boys were in school, they went Tuesday-Thursday, and that only left us Monday and Friday, so we weren't good about meeting up for playdates and things during the school year. We're hoping to attend some more over the summer. The boys age group meets on Mondays, so we went to that last week. The boys had a blast and I'm going to try and stick to going throughout the whole summer. Of course, the only time I could get a picture is when they were all eating snack, the rest of the time, all the kids were all over the place, playing and having a ball.

We decided to go back to having the boys take naps. They just weren't ready to go everyday without a nap. I always thought if we could just make it to summer that nap time would be a little easier because they'd be playing outside and just doing more than they do in the winter. So, Monday I put the boys down for a nap and explained that even if they didn't sleep they'd have to have quiet time. Evan was having meltdowns and tantrums that just weren't normal for him except when he's tired or sick, so I knew that he was just getting too tired in the afternoons. Carter started to get more shy (in school and at soccer) and it seemed to be around the time they cut out naps, so I wanted to see if napping would help that. We went back to naps on Monday and out of 6 days since, they've only skipped nap one day and that was the day they both slept in until 8am. It's so nice because with naps, they can stay up later at night, which works really well in the summer.

The boys love watermelon and we try and buy it over the summers for them. I HATE cutting up watermelon, but it's definitely one of their favorite foods, so it's worth it.

Look how happy he is to be eating watermelon!

We've been making lots of delicious vegetables for side dishes with dinners. I was even able to use some fresh basil from my garden in a few of them. I'm going to have to post the recipes I've tried because Greg and I have liked them a lot. We especially loved this sautéed zuchinni with grape tomatoes, fresh garlic and basil. It was so simple and easy and it tasted so good.

Tuesday, my mom and I took the boys to the Kroc Center for Toddler Tuesday.It's something they started doing earlier this year but it's only on Tuesday and the boys had schools on Tuesday. They're having their summer program on Tuesday until mid-july, so I wanted to take them since we had a free Tuesday before the summer program started. It's $5.00 a kid (adults are free) since we're not members, which was fine since we will only be able to go a couple of times. It starts at 10:30 and you go to a room that has toys, blocks, puzzles, etc spread out and the kids have free play. Then there's story time and a song with dance followed by a little more free play. At 11:00, all the toddlers head to the pool and they get to play until 12:00. They normally have the splash pad on, with water spraying, but they turn that off for Toddler Hour so the little kids aren't overwhelmed. The pool at the Kroc Center is amazing, it's indoors, there's a huge toddler area with a zero entry pool, slides, etc. There's a lazy river and even a huge slide for bigger kids.  My mom heard I was going and knew that I like to have another adult with me when I go new places with the boys--especially if it's a pool, so she offered to come with me and it was so helpful!

The boys had a blast! The staff got out tons of toys for the kids to play with in the water and the boys just had such a great time.

Evan LOVED the slide. It took Carter a little while to try it, but once he did, he liked it a lot.

The boys loved laying on their backs, crawling, dunking their heads and just experimenting in the water. It was the perfect depth for them.

The toys were such a hit with all the kids. I think most of them were just simple $1.00 toys from Target, but all the kids loved being able to play in the water with something.

I knew when we were there that we weren't going to have a problem with the boys napping and I was right. They were exhausted when we got home. This place was so amazing, especially for the winter months since the whole pool is indoors. A lot of moms in my mom group are members of this place in the winter and the Ymca in the summer (because they have a great outdoor pool) I've been trying to figure out how that'd work out for us, because I think that'd be a win-win for everybody in our family. I think Greg and I have come to an agreement about it too, those last several winter months really start wearing on us and to have an indoor, heated place like this to come to just a couple months out of winter, would be so great.

This one just loves for me to take pictures of him. He's always telling me to take a picture and then let him see it.

I went to the polls on Tuesday and voted. We definitely have the cutest voter stickers. My dad happened to vote and stop by afterwards, so Evan and Carter each got a voter sticker.

This week has been all about doing fun things with the boys and taking advantage of my time with them. The menu planning, cooking, cleaning, etc. has not been a priority. I knew I only had 1 full week before the summer program started and then it'd be mid july before I'd have a full week with them again, so I said "yes" as much as I could. If the boys wanted to go to McDonald's to play--yes, if I'm about to do the dishes and Evan asked me to come do a puzzle with him, I stop what I'm doing and I go do the puzzle. It's been a great week, I can clean the house next week when they're in their summer program, but this week was all about having fun and spending time with my favorite boys, so that's exactly what I did.

First Weekend of Summer

The boys had their last day of school on Thursday, May 15th. They are doing a summer program, called a Summer Playcation, at their new preschool starting on May 27th, it'll be every Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30-1:30 and goes until the middle of July. So, the boys have a week between school getting out and their summer program starting. (i'll talk more about the program next week) I wanted to try and take advantage of being out of school and make sure that the boys had a lot of fun. I tried to plan some fun things for every day that week.

Friday (their first day of summer) we took our time getting ready in the morning and then headed to the park. It was pretty chilly when we left and the boys actually had to wear hoodies and I woke pants and a light jacket. I brought some turtle food with me and we fed the turtles--I think I like doing this as much as the boys do.

 

The boys and I love seeing all the wildlife that's at the park, there's tons of snakes (down below in the gated off pond, close enough to see but nowhere near us) frogs, geese, turtles and unfortunately fire ants. After we got done feeding the turtles, we started heading back to the park and the boys stopped to jump on a pile of dirt, then they both started screaming about something biting them. They were both covered with fire ants. If you've never been bit by a fire ant, it's hurts--bad!! I think it hurts more than any bee sting I've ever had. I had to get the boys shoes and socks off and knock off all the fire ants that were biting them, while the boys were screaming and crying. It was awful. I finally got them off and the boys calmed down, which was not easy, but they finally calmed down and were able to go back to playing.  

 

The boys love this monkey bar area and love hanging and climbing over it.  

 

They played there for a few minutes and then Evan ran over to the playground/slide area where there's a see saw. He called for Carter to come ride it with him and Carter took off.  

 

As soon as he got on the pavement, he fell and skinned both his knees. He hadn't been calmed down from the fire ant incident for more than 5-10 minutes when this happened. He was a mess. It took awhile to get him calm enough to pick him up and carry him to the car. He was screaming to take him to a doctor, his legs were broken, etc. We had planned on going to the library after the park, but we changed our plans and went to Walmart to get some bandaids instead (now I have several in my purse for times like this)

 

He cried and cried on the way to Walmart. when we got there, he had to lie down in the cart because of his knees. Carter is definitely our more dramatic one, I wish ya'll could have heard him through Walmart (he wasn't crying, but he'd whimper every now and then and was just very, very pitiful) or saw him when I got him out and he had to walk 2 steps to the car to get in, oh my. But, we got some bandaids (which I had to open right there in the aisle, before his legs fell off) and then I let the boys pick out some food to have a picnic lunch at home.

 

After our dramatic morning, I decided maybe being outside wasn't such a good idea, plus it was super windy. So, we had our picnic in the floor of our living room. The boys loved it, they thought they were something getting to do that. I even got the grill out and grilled their hotdogs for them, which they loved.

 

The boys liked being able to lay down and just have more freedom than they do at the table.

 

 After lunch, the boys worked on these Melissa and Doug puzzles I got them. I was in Kid-To-Kid (a consignment shop) when I saw these. I've been wanting to get the boys these for awhile and with it being a consignment store and I had a coupon, it ended up only being 6.00! Evan loves to do puzzles, but Carter ended up liking these even more than Evan.

 

He loved counting what he had left to do, like "I need 3 more green triangles"  

 

That night, the boys had their last soccer game. Carter started out the season strong, he did good in the first few practices and games, but then he decided he was done. He started acting shy and didn't want to go on the field anymore. He seemed fine if we'd get there early and it was just a few kids playing before everybody showed up, he liked that, but as soon as it started getting crowded, he'd come by me and refuse to go play. We didn't push it though, we want sports to be a positive experience. They're so young and we just signed them up to start exposing them to sports. We didn't even know there were going to be games when we signed them up, we thought it'd just be practices and some fun drills and stuff. We're not playing sports over the summer and we may take fall off also and not sign them up for anything again until next spring. Another mom took several pictures from the last game and emailed them to us.

 

This is what the last few games looked like for Carter. Before we got there, he'd be fine and when we left he'd act like he liked soccer, but just wasn't interested in playing when there were a lot of people around.

 

 

The season was very, very unorganized. We didn't have a coach until the last minute, several games were cancelled because of weather, our coach quit in the middle of the season, and it was just very hectic and unorganized. None of us really knew much about soccer, I think only one kid had played before, but we were playing against teams that were much more organized and experienced. Had we known how it was going to go, we would have held out another season or two before signing them up. They were the youngest on their team, the other kids were 4-5 years old (but hadn't turned 5 by the cut off date for the older kid soccer). Sign up started at age 3 and it was for "soccer school" (verses "soccer", which is what it said for the 5 and up) so we were expecting something a little different.

Evan playing.

All the kids got a little trophy at the end of the season. The boys LOVE that trophy. They carried it around everywhere for the first few days after until we made them put it on their dresser to look at (after one of them got hurt on one)

Carter was so excited to get a trophy, but was not thrilled to have to go up and get it in front of anybody.

And this is the face Carter makes when he doesn't want to take a picture. He is stubborn as a mule and if he doesn't want to smile or do something, he's not going to do it.

 A few other pictures from our weekend.

Playing with the bubble machine.

Both boys are obsessed with sun glasses right now and like to wear them in the car and sometimes when we're outside.

The boys have worked on these puzzles several times.

That weekend, I forgot my phone several times at the house and wasn't able to get pictures of everything, but we made a few trips to some parks, including a sand park on Fort Gordon. The weather was beautiful, so we packed up a big bag of the boys sand toys and we went to the sand park and played for about 2 hours. The boys had such a blast and I did too, actually. Greg set up a folding chair in the shade right next to us and the boys and I built sand castles, dug, and just had a blast.