going to the zoo - in january?

since the weather is crazy, we decided to enjoy it.  instead of whittling away on the never-ending-to-do-list, we spent saturday morning at the zoo.  a tad chilly, but SUPER sunny.  who would've thought that would happen in january?!?

lil miss walked around with her hands hidden in her pock-pock much of the time, and reminded us it was cooold, cooold whenever we'd leave a building.  towards the end, she opted to ride in the wagon wrapped up in a blanket.

we enjoyed hearing big brother announce the things he knew and understood, as his rendition is always entertaining.  :)

both were excited to watch the train, as usual.  but even more exciting was that daddy was with us since it was saturday. 

busy kids!

this girl has been sooo interested in coloring lately, specifically her name.  i about fell off my chair when she came to me one day with a crayon and paper saying, "help me color my name please, mommy."  how old are you, anyway?

we've been hearing lots of complete sentences, and i'm often reminded of one of her aunts as a child...  one who would sit in her room and chatter nonstop to her toys.  this girl has plenty to say, although only at home right now.  she's not extremely shy, but she definitely leaves the conversation to big bro when we're out and about.

and, the imagination on this kid is often quite hilarious as you can see.  impressive, though!

he's a tow truck for the monster truck (with stories from the recent monster jam show he went to), using a stethoscope from the doctor kit to pick up the front wheels.  it works like it was custom made!  the yellow piece is a rollbar made from the guardrail on his train track.  he had to remove it with some force i noticed, because it was on a piece of track that was intended as one piece...  he's wearing a hat and glasses like papa does when he's driving the scoop tractor, in case you were wondering.

how long does it take?

how long does it take to put something together when you've got lots of eager help?  as it turns out, a lot longer than when you're flying solo, so it's a good thing it's waaaaay more fun.  this was an all-day-long project for us, even though it would've taken some of you only a half hour.  :)

thing 1's room started with 2 twin beds, but they took up a large part of the "space" in his room because of the window, closet, bathroom door, and entry door arrangement.  and it seemed like they'd work better in thing 2's room, so we began a hunt for a different setup for thing 1.  with no designated guest room, our goal is for the kiddo's rooms to work as such whenever we have company - ideally one room with twin beds and 1 with a double bed of some sort.  i think we've accomplished it! 

the bed we got for thing 1 is a twin that extends to a king, so there's more space to play when it's just us. no separate play area in this house means the toys get carried to the living room (ALL of them, EVERY day). so, we wanted to arrange things so that hopefully there'll be more room to actually play in the bedrooms. still early, but it seems there's been some improvement in toy migration.  waaahoooo!

here are some pictures of the bed-assembling process, and the hard workers ride off into the sunset at the end (in a boat, in case you can't quite tell).

(a little work snuck in during naptime)

someone found quite the comfy perch!

trying out the newest choo-choo train...

musical furniture

guess you haven't seen much of thing 2's room yet.  probably because there hasn't been much to see except this shelf here.  well, crib is gone and big beds are in place!  we stole her brother's beds and then proceeded to arrange and rearrange other stuff. 

(more on brother's room another day.  he got a new bed too, so all that time spent at IKEA wasn't completely wasted.)

 

as an added bonus, we finally hung up the curtain that had been sitting on her dresser for EONS! stole a curtain rod from the fireplace room, and couldn't be happier with our 2.99 brand new curtain from goodwill. 

 

sorry for the bad picture!  the light coming in that window is soooooo bright that pictures are difficult during the day.

and, really liking no curtain rods in the fireplace room!  just couldn't settle on anything we really liked for curtains in there, so we're going without. there are blinds, so it's just fine until the *perfect* thing comes along.

back to thing 2's room.  the shelf in there took the place of the dresser (which we didn't really need because of the closet shelves).  the dresser moved and is VERY happy in her new home in the dining room. she's still working on settling in, though, and is a tad sad that someone from craigslist came to pick up her friend china cabinet. we, on the other hand, are delighted!

this dresser holds more, matches better, and we got a couple bucks in our pocket.  PLUS, there's one less piece of furniture that we have to keep moving around until it's "right."  maybe even one day, you'll come visit and think of it as a buffet instead of a dresser.

a few more things out of the "to sort" pile, a few more things now have a home, and a few more pictures are in place in thing 2's room.  progress feels nice!

this is one way to get comfy, i guess.

this lil munchkin likes to spend time in her bed at naptime being absolutely silent, so i'm never quite sure when she's actually gone to sleep.  once i realized she'd been like that more than one time when i walked by her door and was probably sleeping, i helped her get her lil head up onto her pillow.

 nighty-night, sweet cheeks.

i just love this kiddo's hair in the morning!

fishies!

a fun morning at the aquarium!

every time we've been to the aquarium, we only catch a glimpse of the lobsters hiding under the "rocks."  awesome to see them all so adventurous this morning.

when this guy (?) noticed us, he began to make slurping noises on the glass.  thing 2 was less than thrilled, but thing 1 thought it was pretty cool.  of course, there was less interest (and slurping) when we weren't offering food (just above the window is an open pool), but thing 2 wasn't about to get back up there for a picture.

 and, lunch at one of our favorites - chick fil a!

i can't say enough about how nice it is to be a solo adult and go here with kids.  they carry the food to your table, get a high-chair/booster if you'd like one, come by to see if you'd like refills/napkins/etc, and they're happy to swap the rinky-dink kid toys for icedream.  besides, we all like their food, and it's halfway healthy.

fun facts

we all enjoyed another quick trip to dallas this week.  since i didn't take a SINGLE picture (shame on me!) i will share some fun facts about the trip.

1.  it takes approximately 3 1/2 hours for me and 2 sweet things to try out each and every chair in IKEA.  we left the beds alone, and i wasn't about to point out that the cabinets in the kitchens often hold fun surprises.

2.  we set a new record (i think since before we had kids?) on travel time without stops.  left IKEA and made it allllll the way home in 4 hours because we DID NOT stop! 

3.  kids always try new things on trips (at least ours do).  this time, thing 1 decided to try the throw-myself-down-on-the-floor tantrum.  multiple times.  ugh.  thing 2 decided that she'd like to stay awake until 10:30.  ugh. 

4.  our rental vehicle was a newer version of our vehicle, and i wasn't even sad that it wasn't mine.  yes, it was nice to see 13,000 on the odometer instead of 198,000, but it was a little toooo bouncy for me.  i guess that's what a new suspension system'll do for ya?  plus, i'm not used to having useless info like transmission temperature to sort through when i'm trying to find the miles to empty screen.  oh yeah, one more thing - that goofy camera for reverse?  well, it shows the view on the rear view mirror which should be handy.  funny thing is, i almost backed into a car driving behind my parking spot because the camera eye didn't catch it.  OOPS.  good thing for horns.

5.  totally enjoyed our first perk from too many nights stayed with marriott.  we've gotten plenty of free rooms via rewards points, but now we've got a few other perks too - one of which is a free upgrade whenever available.  something sweet about a little extra room in a hotel!  this time, it meant we got a living room (read: play room!).

a last leads to a first

the last nap in her crib

leads to the first night in a big girl bed.

we'd mentioned it to her a few times, and she basically dismissed us.  we got that i-heard-you-but-i'm-not-acknowledging-you look. 

just before her last nap in the crib, we told her that after her nap we planned to take her crib down and put her in a big bed.  she just said - i sleep in my crib.  hmmm.....

so, on with the party to see how she'd do.

 (yes, the kiddos had quite a time jumping on the crib mattress and helping daddy take the crib apart.)

team effort to move each piece out of her room!

quite the smug/proud look on her new bed!

and she's so content to play and read there

nice notatallmatching clothes, 'eh?  she insisted on wearing underwear after her nap, so we'd probably gone thru a couple pairs of pants by this point.  she IS doing really well with undies, though, and is SO determined to wear them just like her big brother!  not going to be outdone for 1 second, this girl.

pretending to sleep...

 giggles!

she did great the first night, and has been sleeping there for a few nights now.  naps are a little harder, but still going well!  maybe has something to do with toys usually all over the floor at that time of day?  so tempting!

lovin' the new jammies from mamaw, and missin' her since she's back home now!

ahhhhh.

a couple days at a fabulous scrapbook retreat was sooooo relaxing for this mama.  it's always great to have a break, and it's even better to feel like something's being accomplished at the same time. 

this place was especially nice because there was a fully stocked kitchen (read: cold cokes and yummy food!) along with comfy beds, extra bathrooms, and tons of space to work or just relax.

fun + productivity = reason i love to scrapbook

watching the kiddos look at their albums is even more fun, and now thing 2 has something to look at too.  months 1-7 are now finished!

and, there's nothing quite like spending time with such a great group of girls!

thanks for coming so far, and i hope we get to do it again  :)

proof!

that it does snow in oklahoma once in a while.  it only lasted a few hours in the sunshine, but it was fun to see anyway.

cooking magazine

one of my bday presents this year was a subscription to cook's illustrated.  i'm not exactly sure why they call it "illustrated,"though.  true, the graphics are illustrations not photos, but there are few! 

it's not so much new recipe ideas as actual info about cooking - differences between mushrooms and how to use them, basics of making a stew, where certain types of potatoes are found, etc.  all in all - a good read! 

thanks, sis!

year in review end review end in photos:
(sorry, i was getting a little confused!)

*christmas weekend in branson*

*warm day (70!!!) at the zoo with our littlest buddies*

*new year's weekend in kansas city*

picture taking at new year's was a little spotty, but here's a glimpse of our fun!