On Wednesday, Marinda and I took advantage of the one sunny day of the week and took the kids to the zoo. In true Connor fashion, he insisted that we ride the train first.


After the ride, we went to look at some animals. I think everyone else in Utah had the same idea to go to the zoo on Wednesday, so we really didn't push to see everything. The monkeys are always a hit!




The zoo has really improved since we went as children! Instead of chain link fences for the big cats, there were huge walls of glass so you could be within inches of the animals. Pretty cool! This tiger was not very happy with our presence, however, and marked his territory right in Alton's face. One more reason to be grateful for the glass instead of a fence! :)






This year's zoo theme is "Zoorassic Park" and lifesize automated dinosaurs are placed throughout. Some of them spit, and this T-Rex (bigger in real life!) enthralled Connor and made Alton cry. They were pretty realistic!


After lunch, we rounded out our visit with a whirl on the carousel!










It was a fun day, and just looking at these pictures kind of makes me ache for sun. I have been complaining about weather since February, and I'm just going to stop. I have officially given up hope.

Alaina's new room!

Home decorating has been a slow-going, low priority project of mine since we moved in last September. I've been trying to tackle one room at a time and keep my budget under $150 total for each room. That budget has been a bit of a challenge since we didn't have a big girl bed for Alaina when we moved.

This is Alaina's room when we moved in. Don't judge. A changing table and a crib? All of that seems like so long ago already!


The first part of the room redo was obviously to get her a bed. After the drapes had been hung and the bed was in place, the huge expanse of wall above it bothered me. It was too big for anything framed (plus, I don't like the idea of frames above kids' beds) and all the ideas that popped in my head just didn't fit. I've seen variations of butterfly art and always loved it (Alaina loves "buh-flies"), but it goes for a pretty penny, even if it's just vinyl. Definitely not in the budget. While Anthony and the kids were away in March, I printed off these butterflies from the web in different sizes, colored as many as Alaina's magenta marker would allow, then put a tiny bead of hot glue on each corner to secure them to the wall. I was worried about the thin printer paper curling, and it has a little bit, but I like the shadows and dimension that it creates. Win!


Next came the tackling of Alaina's bows. She loves these things. As a matter of fact, she got out of bed last night at 10 for me to put a bow in her hair, then went back to sleep. They were always in her bed, in her purses, everywhere. I researched bow holders and frankly, thought that they were all hideous. I'll be the first to admit that this one is a little garish, but it goes. Frame from D.I. - $3 (spraypainted the same color as her bookshelf). Ribbon and fleece from Walmart - $6. Having Alaina's bows out of reach and off of the floor - priceless.


Alaina's other wall was offensively white, and I had visions of large, simple photos to counteract the "busyness" of the butterfly wall. I've been keeping my eyes peeled for deals on photo canvases. You can usually find great deals on 8x10s, but bigger ones are expensive and don't go on sale often! I found a groupon for a company out of California, and ordered these right away. You can imagine my disappointment when I opened the huge box to find someone else's family photos! We got all that sorted out, and I love them. The pink thing underneath is her bookshelf (it's actually the same one I had in my room as a child!).


And last, but not least, are the chinese lanterns. I've been eyeing these since she was a little baby, but I couldn't figure out how to make them work. As soon as I found her bedspread, the deal was sealed. Perhaps one day we'll buy the cords and lighting, but for now, we just enjoy the whimsical flavor they add to the room.


The final product. Not bad, if I do say so myself! :)

Birthday Party Time!

Connor and Alaina had their first real birthday party on Sunday, complete with guests, presents, cake, ice cream, balloons, and games. They loved every second of it. The theme was supposed to be round things...bubbles, balloons, water bombs, etc, but the wind had other plans for us.




Melon balls!

I had this idyllic vision of late afternoon sun, late spring warmth, kids chasing bubbles in the backyard. But alas, all bubble play was moved to the garage. The kids didn't seem to mind too much, though.






I learned through this experience that my party planning skills leave a little to be desired. I read online about how you can make your own bubble wands out of pipe cleaners, but it didn't even cross my mind to try it before the party! I think ours were a little too fuzzy and promptly collapsed at the weight of the bubble solution. Live and learn.






Connor soon tired of the faulty wands, and used his hands instead. I had shown him how to do this last year, but I can't believe he remembered without any prompting!








After the bubbles, it was time for cake and ice cream. Once again, I had dreamed up this creative idea (with the help of Mike!) of filling the centers of the kids' bundt cakes with ice cream balls rolled in colored sugar. Blue/yellow for Connor and pink/purple for Alaina.


Instead of a pyramid of perfectly formed colored balls, the ice cream wasn't hard enough (Mike also suggested liquid nitrogen, but I think that'd be a little overkill!), and resulted in a melty blob (and a candle with a bite taken out from a little sister). Oh well, I tried. I will, however, claim some good mom points for actually making the cakes, instead of buying them from the store like I did last year. :P






Alaina goes a little comatose when she knows lots of people are looking at her.



Sneak!

At the last minute, Anthony and I decided to take advantage of the wind and bought dollar kites for all the kites. Thank goodness that part went well! :)












After the wind (and house, and trees) had claimed a few of the kits, we came back inside for presents! Since Marshy Marshmallow can't fly a kite yet, he opted to play with the streamers.


PRESENTS!



The kids with their loot from the cousins. Through the chaos of organizing this picture, I am mad that I didn't push harder to have Wes and Chris in this photo. I am kicking myself! We love you guys!

And that's the end of it! I am scared at the prospect of having another party next year! Man, I am a wimp. With Alaina's real birthday still pending, look for a future Day Out With Thomas post! Or perhaps I should call it "Time Out For Thomas" to confuse the kids like Grandma did. :)

An unpublished post from the archives of two weeks ago...

It's been a while! April has been a crazy month of ups and downs, and I don't anticipate May being much calmer (let's hope it's more ups THAN downs, though). We've been itching for spring, and as much as I have been whining about it for the last three months, it's just not coming. I suspect that this year will be much like last year, with two weeks of nice weather at the end of May, then summer. I just take heart in knowing that it will be warm eventually, and most likely in the next month!

I don't have access to my lovely big computer right now, and that's where all my camera/photo stuff is, so I thought I'd update with some older pictures. I've had high hopes for a garden this year, so the kids and I bought some shovels and started digging. We had to do it all by hand, as this was somewhat of an exploratory measure, avoiding sprinkler pipes and unearthing years of different landscaping measures. Connor and Alaina loved searching for worms, and Alaina even got a little attached to them. When we'd find one, she would inform me that we needed to find its mommy or its daddy. Eventually, we found a whole family.


Connor quickly tired of digging outside (that surprised me!), but Alaina would have done it all day. I love the dichotomy of this picture. With her, everything needs to be "peent" (pink). Peent shirt, peent pants, peents boots, peent necklace, peent hairbow, and since purple is a variation of pink, her purple bracelet is peent, too. All that peent, but still digging in the dirt. You must curl your fingers, however, to avoid getting mud on your peent nail polish.


Despite my grandiose ideas for this little strip of dirt, we quickly learned that when watered, our "garden" turns into concrete and there is little hope for plants. I must admit, I feel a little bit defeated, and just want to shake my fists at it in dismay, rather than plant in containers. One good thing about this nonexistent spring is that it will give me time to get over this and on with growing my own tomatoes in pots. Goodbye, garden dreams!


...and a couple more funny ones of the one that begs for her picture taken. :)
Every night, when I get home from work, I go check on the kids and give them a goodnight kiss. Walking in on this scared me a bit, but it's also kind of funny. How can that be comfortable?


Three year old attitude is already setting in, a few months early. Alaina received these sunglasses in her Easter basket from Grandma and Grandpa, and she believes that this is how they are meant to be worn. Connor tells her over and over that her glasses are upside down, but she refuses to listen to him. That's really Alaina in her full glory...crazy cat lady hair, upside down glasses, face full 'o 'tude, and no pants. That's my girl.


A couple of weeks ago, Wes invited us to a barbeque at his house, and I snapped this picture of Janet's magnolias. Rather than broadcast any of the photos of Grandpa Broadhead's funeral, I think this picture abstractly describes my feelings. We love you and will miss you and your happy countenance, Grandpa.

A Post of Epic Proportions

I wrote an extremely long post about our trip to San Francisco, but I guess blogger doesn't like huge entries, so here's a link to where you can view it in its entirety with no clicking, just scrolling!
http://your-amygdala.livejournal.com/233005.html

Want some pictures?

Hey, family! If you want some photos off of my blog, simply click the picture you'd like, which will take you to my photostream on Flickr. Up on the top left, there is a button that says, "ACTIONS", click on that, then click on "VIEW ALL SIZES". It will then take you to a different page with all the sizes and there is an option at the top that says, "DOWNLOAD THE LARGE SIZE OF THIS PHOTO". I know that I am terrible at emailing out pictures, so VOILA!