By 9am I had planned meals for the week, done the grocery shopping, and picked up the dry cleaning. The kids were dressed and fed, and we were in good shape to start the day! As they'd woken up surprisingly early for a Saturday morning, I made an attempt at an early nap for Abigail in hopes of heading out to the zoo with fresh and rested children. Abby's 2 hour nap allowed for some quality time with Jonathan, and he eagerly helped me make our lunches and pack the bags for the zoo. In fact, upon walking out of Abby's room from putting her down for a nap I discovered he was already pushing the stroller out the door towards the garage to load it into the car for our trip!
It was a beautiful day in the 70's, and the kids enjoyed the tigers, lions, seals, giraffes, elephants, and otters.
Abby enjoyed the stroll through the park from the front seat of our sit-and-stand stroller.
Telling Mommy about the lion, who is also named Jonathan.
Watching the tigers.
Abigail was hysterical. Every animal we saw she'd exclaim, "PepperDawg! PepperDawg!" When we got to the lion, she stood up looking at him and shouted, "Roooooooar!" over and over, very emphatically with quite a little growl in it, too! I was glad to catch the ROAR in action.
Snack time on the park bench.
When we decided to go see the bears, Jonathan said this time he would take a turn with the map and find out where we need to go. The map had no pictures, but we did get to the bears eventually. I just loved how matter-of-fact and serious he was about helping with navigation responsibilities.
Jonathan was just tickled by this elephant that was picking up a tire, carrying it around, and even placing it on top of his head and walking around with it like a crown.
Jonathan is always picking flowers for me, "This is for you, Mommy, put it in your hair!" I love that I finally have a picture of one of the many flowers he's given me.
We picnicked and snacked our way through the afternoon, got in a reasonable nap for Jonathan on the way home, and had a lovely evening together in which the kids managed to play quite well in the backyard. There were some disputes over wanting the same trucks, shovels, etc, but Jonathan managed to give Abby some digging tasks to contribute to his construction project (he is "laying a pipeline" in the back flowerbed), and she enthusiastically dug away and did her best to haul the dirt to the pile he was making. It was adorable to see them working together!
With magical vibes in our favor, I managed to prepare a complete homemade dinner and feed the kids at 6, then get Abby off to an early bedtime in light of her early nap, which gave Jonathan and I another 2 hours to work on puzzles and reading together. At the end of the day when Baby Monkey was MIA, he didn't lose his mind (impressive at 8:30) but called after me encouragingly, "Look for Baby Monkey when you can, Mommy, to bring him back to me soon!" Thank Goodness I discovered the little monkey only moments later behind the front couch, and he was welcomed back with enthusiasm.
We'll be even happier when David's home again, but in the mean time, we're having a good time.
Hope your weekend's just lovely!
3 comments:
Did you catch that Abby is only wearing socks at the zoo? Yep, that was the one flaw in the day. Thankfully, she was content to ride in the stroller or in my arms!
beautiful pictures!
Such sweet, sweet photos :)
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