Going Wild at the Zoo

On Friday Clementine and I took a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo! (www.zoo.org)
We had SUCH a blast! We met up with Aunty Sissy and cousin Nolan.

I don't care if Sissy calls me "Type A," I call it creative. I brought Zoo Animal Crackers for snack. Here is Clementine feeding me a Seal.

And here she is in the interactive habitat part of the zoo being my favorite: a TURTLE!!! I've never seen such a sweet turtle!

Our favoritest part of the zoo had to be the penguins. We met up with Sissy and Nolan JUST as feeding time began! The zookeepers released a bunch of buckets of live trout into the tank and the penguins went INSANE!!!! It was amazing to see these penguins fly through the water and swallow these trout whole!

Just as we were getting ready to leave the penguin exhibit, the channel 4 news interviewed Sissy and me about the break in the weather. I gave it a big smiley face and Sissy gave it a big frown-y face.

The zoo has all these great benches and interactive parts scattered throughout the grounds. There were beautiful bronze statues of critters all over the place. The first one we came to was a hippo. Clementine bent over, clapped her hands (like "come here" to a dog or cat) and talked to the hippo! It was almost too adorable!

This gorilla was cracking me up! He was sleeping right up next to the exhibit window with his arms folded and tongue out. Every once in a while he'd open his eyes and look at us, then go right back to sleep.

This might be the same gorilla, I'm not sure:

Clementine was totally over gorillas by the time we got to the bronze statues! We tried to get her to tickle the baby but she was over it.

Just as we got to the giraffes, it was their feeding time, too! They were right up next to the gate and towered over us! We were so close to this guy!

We saw zebras way off in the distance:

And we saw a bunch of pink flamingoes:

We saw a ton of animals and really could have spent the entire weekend there! But both babies fell asleep and we had a long way to drive. It was such a fun day for all four of us!

I Really DO try!

*Sigh* Will we ever get a non-blurry picture of this little girl again? I try and I try but she is just so BUSY all the time! All my pictures of her are fuzzy or she's running out of frame.
Here we were one morning reading "Everybody Poops" at the kitchen table. I tried getting some pictures of her while she was sitting and reading.
And what does she do next? Climb ONTO the kitchen table; tongue out, of course. On the floor now, I tried to get some pictures of her playing.
This time, she wants to climb onto the couch using the ottoman for leverage.

If only I could capture this beautiful face holding still for a change....a girl can dream!

How DOES This Garden Grow??

When we moved to this house, I was certain nothing would grow here because a.) our soil is 98% clay and b.) I have never successfully grown anything.
Somehow, we've beat the odds and this gardening thing has really taken root (get it?).

Here are my crazy growing broccolli plants! One has flowers and I don't really know what that's about, but they are all growing like mad! Speaking of growing like mad, here are my two tomato plants that are slowly trying to take over my yard! We'll be drowning in tomatoes here soon! That's okay because I have big plans for these babies!

Here is my darling squash. Don't look into the center or you'll get hypnotized! My squash has grown about 5.5 inches in the last week! And it has a blossom. I'll capture that another time!

My favorite! My beautiful purplish blue hydrangeas. This is the happiest plant in my yard. I love hydrangeas!

Oh, you...the only thing NOT thriving in my yard are my two lilacs! I love lilacs and I don't know why they hate me so much! They refuse to grow even though I am giving them long deep soaks and singing to them lovingly! I don't know what I'm doing wrong!!!!

Moving on...

My sister gave me a half dozen of her rose bushes! She has about a million. These suckers were planted in May and look what they are giving me!

These blossoms are huge! The other thing I can't normally grow: my nails! But look at them here!! Are the two things related??

I was trying to give some perspective in this picture but now I can only stare at my gorgeous fingernails!

Look how many blossoms we already have!

With more about to come! Here's another one of my rose bushes with nine buds about to open!

Check out this beast!! It's growing buds like crazy!!

And this:

I don't even know what it is but it's growing, too!

So is my lavender:

For Mother's day i dropped a bunch of hints about wanting a hanging basket for our front porch. Not only did Cam get the hints, he MADE this hanging basket at work! I love it!

The Weekend to-do List

The weekend to do list was at record breaking lengths this weekend. We are truly exhausted.

Here's a snippet of what we ticked off this list:

*Unscrew 36 ugly cabinetry knobs in the kitchen and laundry room*Screw back on updated cabinetry knobs *Plant (including a re-tilling of the space to plant them + adding soil to each spot) 7 privacy trees *Plant 1 Lilac *move one rose bush and one hydrangea to get more sun *sweep and mop three bathrooms *hang/install the following: one tool organizer, one new shower head, one shelving unit, one enormous clock, one set of drapes *vaccuum stairs (trickier than it sounds) *refresh soil in veggie garden, mix it in gingerly *move furniture to make more space in the entry way and create a make-shift entertainment center in the office *vaccuum entire house *laundry (two loads with one more ready to go) *clean toilets (3)

All while juggling a 19 month old! I don't know how we fit it all in (thank goodness she's such a good napper!!) but we did AND we made it to the beach and the park!

Hovander Park

A few weeks ago, we revisited Hovander Park to check out the farm animals there. Clementine has been very "into" animals in general lately, pointing out every animal we see, saying their name if she knows it or making it's sound. It is extremely adorable.

We thought the farm would be an exciting trip for her.
But the thing that she was most excited about wasn't the animals...it was the park benches! There were three in a row and she spent ages climbing up one, sitting on it, climbing down. Onto the the next bench.


We finally got her to pay attention to the animals. There wasn't a lot there to see (maybe that's why she loved the benches so much), but we did like the turkeys.

She liked the turkeys so much, she decided to be one, too!

Here's my favorite turkey!

Garden Tour

When we moved into our house, we soon realized that yard work hadn't been a big priority for quite some time.
Our back yard was over run with weeds and grass. All along one side we had what we called Jurassic Park weeds; weeds that looked like they had been there for centuries and had mutated into behemoths. Some of them had roots as thick as my salt shaker! It was treacherous out there.
But in the last week, we have cleared out most of the unsightly weeds and have started putting in our own gems.
Here is the sunniest side of the house: my vegetable garden!! Look at these beautiful tomato plants!

This is our front porch. But you see this green bench? It was discovered in the backyard nearly covered by weeds. It works out perfectly on the porch holding my watering pot and geraniums.

This was the worst area of them all. I cleared out two totally full garbage bags worth of weeds from here this week. Now look at it! (I planted a lilac here today--and see where the cinder blocks are? That's where my composter is going to go.) This side of the house is opposite my vegetable garden--the shadiest part of the yard.

I planted this beautiful hydrangea last week and it's already growing like crazy and starting to produce color!!!

Can you see the little brocolli growing? I squealed with delight when I first saw it growing there! It's not quite ready to eat but you can tell what it is!!!

This spot in the yard was sort of a conundrum. So I threw in an entire packet of sunflower seeds thinking a few would take root. I now have 31 sunflower starts in this corner and 5-10 more in another corner! We're going to be drowning in sunflowers this summer!

Hello Pigtails, Goodbye Highchair!

I have waited for such a long time for this...

We have PIGTAILS!!!!!!

She finally has enough hair to get pigtails in there! This was her first set of piggies and her last meal in the highchair. She's such a big girl now, she can sit at the table in her booster seat!