Zoo.

Yesterday we went to the zoo with some of my family.  We had fun.  The highlights were: the company, seeing Ocelots in person (we've been doing a little bit of studying about them), playful Meercats and Otters, and the Snow Leopard (who was quite frankly a bit of a show off).

The zoo is having a photo contest for their calendar-- the winning picture will be featured on the cover of the calendar, and the winner will get $50 zoobucks and a year membership.  I don't have a membership and would LOVE to win, but there were some really impressive looking cameras & tripods, and photographers who didn't have kids hanging on them or hurrying them on to the next exhibit.  {sigh}

But it doesn't hurt to enter, so here are my best pictures from yesterday.  Please tell me which you'd pick if you were to submit one of these.  I find it helpful to hear other opinions.  If there's a "why" behind your answer that would be helpful too.

These other pictures are just other pictures from the day.

 

Other random tidbits from the day:

Monkey's hairclip fell into a turtle pond...she's still telling me that she wants her purple hairclip back.  {sigh, again}.

Moose liked the snakes.  He liked everything that he was able to see, but he took a nap and was in the stroller for a lot of the time.  It's fun that he's getting old enough to experience it with us, though.

Thanks, J and M for taking us! 

Wedding Reception turned Photo Session

My neice, Emily, got married in June.  Thankfully she had a very pretty location for the reception, and I ended up taking a million photos (not much of an exaggeration) of my girls.  Here are some:

Doesn't Em look lovely?! 

Her husband is rather a hottie too {can I say that?},

so their pictures look like they came from the store in the frame & no one put in an actual picture)

Sugar and Spice. Oh, how I love them.

Bonjour, Butterfly!

Earlier this summer we got some butterfly larvae and got to watch them grow.  It was really fascinating.  If you haven't ever done it, then you should.  I look forward to the next time.

This first picture is after four of them had become chrysalides, and the fifth (far left) was hanging in place but hadn't shed his caterpillar skin yet.  That fifth guy was funny-- he was about a day behind the others, and he just kept crawling around them and bumping into them (trying to eat them? who knows) and then they'd shake shake shake to try to get him away.  I'm pretty sure they were cursing him inside their chrysalides.

Here is a link to a really great video of the changing process.  It's FASCINATING.  I watched it happen a couple of times, and HH got to watch once.  I woke the girls up to let them see the last one (they'd missed the others), but they could barely keep their eyes open so I sent them off to bed again. 20 minutes later I noticed Monkey asleep in the hallway. 

I got to see two emerge as butterflies, and this time the girls got to see it happen (but I think HH missed them all).  I lucked out to get to see both processes, maybe, since each occurance takes just a couple of minutes.

(Here's an interesting video of the entire process in time lapse)

Anyhow, after all of the butterflies were out we had a "Butterfly Release" Party.  We read the hungry caterpillar book, and had butterfly english muffin pizzas with a few friends. 

Everyone got a chance to hold one before it flew away.  Sorry, little man H, didn't get a picture of you holding it.

 As Fancy Nancy says, "Bonjour, Butterfly!"



fun little pretty things

I'm sure you already know that I'm all about thrift stores.  I do like to shop, but I don't like to spend lots of money, and I usually have buyer's remorse if I buy something expensive.  But this time I actually bought some things NEW!  Once in a while it's nice to "splurge."  And I used a Living Social deal on this, so really it wasn't bad.

Anyhow, my new pretties: a butter crock, and a honey pot!  The butter crock is pretty handy, but the honey pot has stolen my heart.  so cute.{They don't sit next to each other in real life}
And Le Creuset has a whole line of other yellow things that I need want.
Now for a new countertop.....

Where are this poor child's parents?!!

Design Your Dream Costume Contest

If you are friends with me on Facebook, then you've already heard about this.

BUT I entered a costume design contest and I'm a semifinalist and need your vote!

Voting is on Facebook (here).  "Like" Revolution Dancewear, and then "Like" my design (pictured below).  Easy as that!

If I make the top three, then my design will be made into an actual costume and professionally photographed.  Then more voting, and the grand prize winner's STUDIO will get up to 30 costumes in the winning design.  So nothing for me, exactly, but it'd be an honor to see it made into a costume, as well as seeing it on stage at next year's recital.  So Go.  Vote for "Fern" : )

screaming mad

What do Chick and Monkey say when they are yelling at their mama?
(oh yes they DO!)

"Oh, just pinch your nose and swallow!"

Well what do you say to that? 
(All I could do was say, "No, YOU just pinch YOUR nose and swallow!" 
Then put them in a speedy timeout so that I could go in the hall to laugh.) 

Just another thing they learned from the Molly movie.

{They were mad because I'd told them to clean up their room and they didn't so I was bagging up everything from the floor to put in timeout.  The doll in the bag was the final straw. }

Dancing Chickadee

As you know, Chick has been taking ballet classes.  Her recital was in June.  She wasn't nervous, and didn't mind being on stage at all.  In fact, she seemed to really enjoy being there...not surprising, since she often will dance and sing to get people to pay attention to her. 

Anyhow, here are a couple of pictures from the other performances:



Hilarious.  As soon as the lights came on and the girl on the left saw the audience she jumped up and ran over to the edge and REFUSED to do ANYTHING. She refused to even leave the stage at the end...I suspect they had to carry her off.

My favorite Chick-related parts:



She curtsied at the end {twice} even though she wasn't ever told or taught to curtsy.  (She said she learned it from the "Molly" movie).


They danced to Jason Castro's version of
Over the Rainbow







These are the instructors. 
The amazing Miss Laurie is the one with the hat.  She was so great.



We were sitting in the very back row of the auditorium, and behind us was a little staircase and some walking space.  Chick danced along with the other performances from back there for half of the show (it was a two-hour recital).   This isn't a very great video, but it's a little snippet of her dancing in the back.

I couldn't take a video of the actual performance, but Chick did great.  It was a really fun experience for us, and she's been dancing around ever since!