Catch Up - ZooBoo

Last year when my mother-in-law was here she bought us a zoo pass.  Right before the pass ran out this October we invited our friend Erin and her two daughters to do ZooBoo with us.  My kids love zoo and they love going in October because you get to trick or treat and they have some other fun things.  I'm still unsure one how I feel about the zoo right now.  I just can't get The Cove and Blackfish out of my mind and every time I'm there I wonder if they animals are disappointed by being stuck in such a small area, or if their far travels are just for food and having it delivered to them makes them happy.  I don't know.  I just can't decide how I feel about this, but I know my kids love to see the animals and I do like them doing something not TV related.  Hard place to be in, but they were happy.  We did a full loop of all the animals.  We trick or treated.  We went in the bird enclosure where a mom and son gave us their treats when they were going to leave.  As soon as we got the treat, birds started flocking over.  Cheetah was in heaven.  All the rest of the kids were excited as well.  We also went and saw the sharks which is always a treat.  

 "Wait, don't let it get too close to me!"  She made me take it right after this picture.  Cheetah on the other hand, I could barely keep her hands off this birdie!  She just wanted to scoop it right up!

 Captain E and Peach both like it but they were both a lot more laid back about it.  "Yup, we're holding a bird, no biggie."

 Cheetah's bird love was not one sided.  Here she was getting a smooch from a great big giant bird head.

Playing Catch Up - My 33rd Birthday

So during my 33 birthday I was doing a paleo challenge with my sister and some friends.  I lost a tiny bit of weight but then went carb crazy and gained everything plus back, but on my birthday I was still on the challenge so this cake was made from coconut flour and honey.  It was not bad, but certainly not the kind of cake you are used to.  

That same day my daughters asked me about mascara.  I decided to show them how it works.  Then they asked for a picture so they could see.  This is one tiny swipe on the ends of their lashes.  These girls kill me!  I would sell a kidney to have lashes like these :)

 The kids were super excited to celebrate.  More than once Cheetah tried to touch those candle.  "No baby tornado, no!"  After dinner some flowers were delivered from Dr. J.  He'd also called a friend and asked her to babysit so he could take me out to dinner.  We went to the Cheesecake Factory which is pretty much my favorite place in town.  It was a fun night.  Here, here 33 years of life :)

 I can't even remember when I took this picture or why, but it cracks me up because this is sort of our life.  Dr. J works really hard, Dr. J comes home, Dr. J passes out.  Welcome to being a doctor's wife.

 Captain E is really into making these puppets, I think the idea was planted by The Strange Case of Oragami Yoda.  And then on a totally unrelated note, what do you think of my new snow boots?  For years I've had a pair of black unassuming boots, but I felt like while I was wearing them my feet were always freezing.  For a long time I thought it was just because I was outside and it was cold.  But then I realized they were always cold inside as well.  I was complaining to my brother-in-law and he told me it sounded like my boots were to tight.  He told me if they were too tight they'd actually make my feet cold by preventing blood from circulating.  Great, so I bought myself a new pair of boots.  They are gigantic and sometimes I feel a little silly wearing them but so far so good on keeping my feet warm and Dr. J likes them because he thinks snow boots should look like snow boots.  Man that guy is funny :)

Gigi Turns 7 - Cheap/Easy Birthday Party on the Fly

 On the 17th of December my first born daughter celebrated her 7th birthday.  She asked me if she could have a party, she begged me if she could have a party, she pleaded for two weeks before her birthday for a party, but her birthday is at a horrible time of year.  Falling a week before Christmas people are usually very busy with Holiday/Family stuff.  The weather outside if horrible so unless we want to rent a venue we are trapped in our house.  Mom is already overwhelmed trying to get things done for Christmas.  But her pleas made me so sad, so a week before her birthday I sent an e-mail out to a few of our friends asking if they could come on the Tuesday of her Birthday or the Saturday before (although dad wasn't going to be there because he was on call) for a low key thrown together birthday party.  Our friends said they could come either day.  I asked Dr. J which day he would prefer, he said either was fine, but in a way that made me feel like he'd be sad if he missed it, so we decided to throw the party on Tuesday.  Tuesday night at six our guest started to arrive.  I'd made pizza dough and after all the girls got here I had them come over three at a time and make a mini pizzas.  I'd made bread sticks a little earlier (thank goodness those girls were hungry).  When the pizzas were done the kids all ate.  Then I sent the whole kit upstairs to my room to bounce in the bounce house.  Around this time Dr. J got home and I sent him up to supervise the bouncing.  After about twenty minutes they came back down for cake and presents.  Then mom's showed up.  It was short and sweet and Gigi was super happy.  I didn't do party bags.  I didn't do games. I didn't have a theme.  I didn't send out real invitations.  I didn't decorate.  I didn't have a whole class of kids here but she was so happy and the kids had fun.  If you've ever seen my summer party you know I'm just as likely as the next mom to go over board on this type of stuff, but it was nice to see that for relatively little money and effort my daughter could be happy.    

Do you like this cake.  Peach picked it up and I thought it was adorable!

Cheetah and Jess have been friends since Cheetah was born.  

 So Dr. J was a little late to the party but my friend Jessica was there and she was like having a husband there to help, only more helpful.  Sometimes I feel silly being that mom standing around at the birthday party, you know when there are five other mom's sitting there and you just feel like you are taking up more space then doing anything useful.  Well for that reason I was happy that most of the moms just dropped off, but I was also glad to have Jess because when there is just one mom there you can actually put her to work :)

Happy Birthday to my 7 year old sweetie.  I not going to say that sometimes we don't butt heads.  She can be very strong willed when she wants to be, but she is also very kind and loving.  Sometimes when I'm feeling a little frustrated with Cheetah, Gigi will scope her up and calm her down.  She is always the first one to agree to help.  I love my daughter Gigi and I'm super glad I could make her happy by throwing her this party.

Snow day - "Helping" Mom Clear the Driveway

We've had four really good snows this year but this one that happened about two weeks before Christmas was the first one that had super good snow man making snow from the get go.  It was heavy and wet and there was a ton of it.  I know because I had to shovel it off our driveway.  Each snow has conveniently happened while Dr. J is at work, which either means that Dr. J spends most of his time at work or the universe is conspiring against me....  So this day of the big snow I got up bright and early to get is shoveled.  The snow before this I couldn't find the shovel (hanging in the garage) and so for three days it just sat getting driven on and became a huge ice mess that took me days to finally clear.  I was not going to be caught in that situation again.  So I shoveled the driveway and since of course Cheetah wanted to come up I bundled her in snow gear and let her go in the front lawn, which worked out pretty nicely except I'd have to stop shoveling to retrieve her from the street or when she'd fall face first into a snow drift and have to be mom lifted out.  

After about an hour of this her siblings finally managed to make it outside. The plus side of this was I not longer was singly responsible for pulling her out of snow drifts.  The downside, someone thought it was great fun to pelt me with snowballs while I shoveled.  Remember when I said this was heavy snow, well even with the light power of a nine year old arm, these suckers kind of hurt.  I had to peg the kid a couple of times in the face before he packed it up and started building a giant snowball.  Gigi was out there to help him, although she spent quit a bit of time complaining that her hands were cold.  "Well sweetie why don't you put on your real gloves."  In the last few years I've bought her several really nice pairs, but my kids always complain they can't move their fingers enough so when she gets to choose she always picks a pair of those $1.00 knit pairs...guess what, they don't keep you very warm, especially when they get wet, but you can't argue with a six year old.  Well you can but let me tell you a secret, YOU WILL NOT WIN!

Then right before we went in Peach came out dressed like a college co-ed rather than a child ready to play in the snow.  Oh she had her snow boots on, but she also had leggings and an oversize sweater and hat perched on her head like a beret.  She made me laugh.  She pretty much just stuck to the cleared spots and stayed dry but they were all happy.  It was nice to have them outside enjoying the "fresh air" and I was glad to have the driveway cleared, even if it took me two hours to do it!  Like I said, heavy snow!

Love this panda bear!  Best Costco buy of the year.