A day at the zoo!

This is a little overdue...but the pictures are definitely worth posting!! A few weeks ago, we went to the zoo with Daniel's friend from Little Gym along with his Mom and sister. It was a very nice day and we all had a good time! We were very amused at watching the boys run around and scream as if they had never been to the zoo before despite the fact that we all have annual memberships! I'm sure that we'll be taking more trips there this summer as well!

We did a few things on this trip that were firsts for Daniel...but definitely won't be missed on future trips! We let the kids feed the birds which was...well the first word that comes to mind is LOUD! There were lots of chirping birds and lots of screaming kids... but it was fun to watch. I think a few of us were victims of bird bites as well!

I liked this picture of Gloria and Moto Moto from Madagascar (as Sydney explained to us)!

The carousel ride was a big hit with all of the kids! The ride was a little longer than usual, but I don't think any of them minded one bit! This was also a first for Daniel- I'm not sure why we haven't ever ridden it at the zoo before, but I'm sure he won't let his Daddy off the hook next time!

Last up was the train ride! The boys were screaming that it was time to ride the train NOW...even though that meant our trip to the zoo was over. The train ride was a good ending to a nice visit to the zoo! I can still hear Daniel exclaiming "That was AWESOME"...that was the best!

And we're outta here...

If you would like to see a few more pictures, you can look here: Adventures in Aldridge Land. Thanks for the pictures Leslie!

Silly Kids!

I've neglected the blog lately, so I thought I would post some pictures of our silly kids from this past month! They are silly and very fun kids (pretty cute too)! :-) Enjoy!!

Mmmmm...Cheryl & Co

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The butterflies...

Have you seen those infomercials for "Butterfly gardens"? We thought Daniel would enjoy watching the progression from caterpillar to beautiful butterfly so we ordered the kit. We bought ours from Insectlore, but I am sure that there are probably other sources out there as well! You get a jar with caterpillars and a mesh container. They guarantee that you will get at least 3 butterflies.

There are 5 tiny caterpillars in a jar that has some kind of food on the bottom. It took about 13 days from the day that we got them until they were all formed into chrysalids (cocoons). Then we transferred them into the "butterfly garden". Once in the butterfly garden, it took about another 8-10 days for all of the butterflies to emerge! Once they emerged from the chrysalids, we put fresh cut oranges and sugar water in the bottom. We watched them for a few days and then released them in our front yard. I wondered how Daniel would react to releasing them, but he understood that we had to release them for them to live! I don't have the heart to tell him that the lifespan of a butterfly is only 2-4 weeks!

Although slow at times, it was an interesting observation! As with life, there are times where you see lots of activity and other times where it just seems like nothing is happening. So, there were a few times where he lost interest since you couldn't see anything changing (heck..I even lost interest after awhile). But there were other times that he was very excited about the changes! I do think that the commercial is a little misleading because it says "in just 10 days you will have beautiful butterlies". The entire process for us was about 25 days. You can see from the pictures that the caterpillars to grow pretty fast and it does get messy in that cup by the end. The weather needs to be at least 55 degrees to release them and if you have a garden or flowers, they seem to hang around for awhile- at least ours have! Definitely something I would do again though!

He looked through the catalog and saw other things that they offered. I quickly nixed the frog...I'm not up for that one yet! We might do the ladybugs if we do this again...although I wonder what my Mom would think of that as she once had a ladybug infestation that she wasn't too thrilled about!

Say cheese....

Just wanted to share some pictures that we took this morning while we were playing around.... Man I love those kids and their smiles- they melt me everytime!! :-)

(For the record...no, she doesn't have tears in her eyes- just the way the flash hit her eyes, I guess. We were having fun laughing :-) )

Need an Easter gift??

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Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

We went to our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt this weekend and the kids had a good time! Unfortunately, they didn't stagger the times like the previous year which is really nice when you have kids that fall into different age categories! But, we figured Arianna wouldn't get too much out of it yet and honestly, I didn't want to trudge her around that massive crowd for the 0-4 age group. The 5-8 age group was a little smaller (although more aggressive) and Tony decided to put Daniel over there. I think he got about 10 eggs which was plenty (and I think maybe the "limit" although some kids had well over 20). He enjoyed it nonetheless and wants to "do this again tomorrow". We'll make sure Arianna has a fun Easter Egg hunt next weekend with her big brother! She looks a little scared in the picture with the Easter bunny- I don't think she really had enough time to be scared- it was more of a "Mom- why did you just dump me here and run??" They did great though! (And luckily the Easter Bunny this year was MUCH better than the drowned rat looking one last year!). Overall it was a nice start to a LONG day!!

Forget walking...let's sprint

Arianna definitely got the hang of walking! She took her first steps the week of March 8th and these videos were taken the next week. She's even better/ faster now! Look out world!!