Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

Earlier this week Little and I were invited to visit the zoo with my friend Lindsey and her son. We had never been to our local zoo and were excited about the opportunity to go.

At first, Little wasn’t sure what the whole point was. We pulled the strollers up to the first exhibit of monkeys (gibbons, actually) and the waterfall at the front of the enclosure caught Little’s attention right away. It took her a few minutes to figure out that we were pointing to the gibbons, but once she did she pointed and grinned as they swung around and played.

There is currently a butterfly house set up in one area of the zoo. Little really enjoyed seeing the flowers and watching the butterflies flutter around and fly right past her face. I thought it was neat to see all of the different types of butterflies and the beautiful colors and wing patterns. It is amazing the variation God created on something as small as the butterfly.

Most of the time Little seemed a bit ambivalent toward the animals; she would point to them, but she doesn’t really identify them yet. She did get excited when she spotted the animals in their habitats and would point and smile.

One of our favorite exhibits was the polar bears and sea lions. The habitat is set up where you can see the bears from outside (like a standard exhibit) but there is also a building you can enter and view them through floor to ceiling windows. The windows look into the pools of the habitats of both the polar bears and sea lions; you can see the animals up close swimming and diving and playing.  It was very neat to see them so close. Little really enjoyed watching the sea lions play because she could see them well as they swam back and forth across the viewing area.

We saw all manner of animals from flamingos to butterflies to tigers to bears to elephants. It was fun for me to see the animals but more so to watch Little’s face light up as she discovered new things.

For my loyal readers: Thanks for continuing to stop by the last few weeks while posting has been so light. I’m hopeful that I’ll be posting more regularly again before long, but I think it might take a few days to get back into the habit.

So really, I can only blame the pregnancy “ickies” for a portion of my lack of blogging; the other part would have to do with a lack of blogging material around here of late (or maybe it is just that my mind is unable to process events into even mediocre bits of writing).

The most exciting event of the last week would have to be that Little has discovered the joy of standing with her head on the floor looking between her legs. Her new pose never fails to make her laugh. Quite honestly it is pretty funny to see her flipped over like that; add to that the fact that I get to hear that sweet little laugh and it is a pretty fun turn of events.

In other news, we actually had RAIN this weekend! For good portions of both Saturday and Sunday we had water falling from the sky in a nice soaking rain. Although we’ve received some rain in the last few weeks it has always been a hard rain lasting only a few minutes so a lot of the water has run off; this weekend the ground actually had time to absorb the watery goodness. I think the grass and flowers (what is left of them) are grateful for a good drink of water. We are grateful that the drought has officially ended, but we are still woefully behind on precipitation for the year.

Last but not least, Amy at Crunchy Domestic Goddess is hosting a giveaway for a Tummy 2 Tummy instructional babywearing DVD. If you are interested, click here.

And there you have another action-packed and entertaining post. I’m hopeful that I will have something a bit more post-worthy to write about soon.

Sorry for two giveaway posts in a row, but really, that’s all I’ve got right now.

Steph is giving away a gorgeous Strawberry Fields Forever sling from Rockin’ Baby. Winning this sling would be a wonderful start to my collection of babywearing accessories for Little #2 that will be gracing our household in a few months. Rockin’ Baby has some really fantastic fabric combinations on their pouches and slings; better start saving my dollars in the event I don’t win.

Hop over to Adventures in Babywearing for more info on the contest and to see the pretty prize.

Okay, I’m sad to admit that Little is in pretty desperate need of new shoes (seeing how her only pair is too small). So, when Steph posted a giveaway for Vincent Shoes (adorable shoes, btw) I knew I had to sign up. Now I’ve finally gotten around to it.

If you’re interested, the contest ends tonight, so hurry over to Adventures in Babywearing and sign up!

Earlier this week Matt and I had the pleasure of visiting with three of the four children belonging to our friends D & D. This brought the total number of children in our house to four, because, you know, Little was still here too; children present were H (11 yo), N (5.5 yo), E (2.5 yo), and Little (13 months old).

We enjoyed playing inside and outside with everything from bubbles to the Wii. H & N really had fun playing Wii bowling, and N was excited because he bowled a strike in pretty much every game he played. Matt pulled the boys and Little around the yard in our wagon which apparently was a great time. I kept hearing cries of “faster” accompanied by lots of laughter and few breaks for the man doing all the work. I appreciated the time I was able to spend with H (D & D’s oldest daughter) getting to know her a bit and just having the opportunity to talk to her about school, friends, and soccer.

Little wasn’t real sure what to think about having so many other children in the house. She watched the boys, got upset when Matt went outside with the boys but not her, and waited patiently (for a one year old) for her turn in the wagon. She was good and played well, but you could tell she was a bit unsure about why those people were at her house.

After everyone left and Little was in bed Matt and I sat on the couch relaxing and enjoying the calm. We had a brief peek into the life of a family with four children, and I believe that our thoughts can be summed up in Matt’s statement: “I’m glad they usually come one at a time!”