the zoo

Since the forecast was for a nice day in the 60s today, we decided to take a trip up to the Birmingham zoo today.  Glad we did because we got to check out the new giraffe encounter! For a few dollars, the kids got to feed the giraffes some snacks. Savannah did great right from the start -- maybe because of all the practice she has had feeding Grammy's cows! You'll notice she is wearing a backpack. She brought her "zoo cup" - which is a cup that we got at the zoo in Gulf Shores that she now uses to collect pretty feathers in. Mom & Dad did some proactive feather hunting (i.e., sneaking behind the ropes that you are supposed to stay behind) to grab pretty feathers that the birds had lost). She also had a notebook and pen with her, and she was drawing pictures of animals and checking them off as we saw them.

Gage, who has also had a lot of practice feeding cows, had a tougher time, but it was all good and funny anyway. Every time the giraffe would stick his tongue out Gage would chicken out and drop the treat. But, after a few tries, he finally got the giraffe to take it from him. 

I think it's safe to say that they loved this :-)

Now, the zoo was pretty empty today, and so were the animal exhibits, unfortunately!!  There were a lot of animals off exhibit, and the zoo's offerings were rather slim!  We could not feed the lorikeets (rainbow birds), the snack bar was closed (much to Adam's disappointment), and a lot of things were closed up. BUT...we did get to feed the flamingos again, which we love!  We call them the "nibblers" because they just keep pecking at your hand gently until they get a little nugget of flamingo food. Savannah scored some pink feathers, too!  And...whenever I see flamingos, I am always reminded of when Savannah used to tell me that "flamingos poop out mangoes" - I love that :-)

 

 

tea time

We had a playdate with one of Savannah's friends from preschool, and Gage finally got dressed up in the "grandma's attic" exhibit there. Savannah and Audrey were off dressing like brides and refused to let me take a picture, but Gage got snazzied up and had a tea party with me. I have to admit -- I get a little creeped out every time they put a hat on in there. I always wonder if there's anything lurking inside those hats that we need to worry about (yuck!)

grumpy with the bumpies

Last week, Gage came down with the hives and ended up at the doctor for a steroid shot, steroids, and some heavy duty antihistamines. No idea why he got them, but they were itchy, and he was miserable.  Ice cream made it a little better...for a minute. This picture was taken when we were so excited that he was looking so much "better"! 

Bowling

Since the kids had the day off school for MLK, we decided to go bowling with our friends Lani & Ember.  They had a BLAST!  

 

After a few frames, we realized they had these little prop things that kids could set the balls on and just push them into the lane! Before that, they did a combination of granny style, sort of throwing it (yikes!), and just sitting it on the floor and pushing it. Those balls were moving down the lane so slow we were afraid they would stop halfway down the lane! We had to cheer the balls on and yell GO GO GO! But, after they found these little gems, they did great. Savannah and Ember decided to team up. So, they helped each other them up, got balls for each other, and then cheered each other on.   

Gage, well he is a piece of work, as you know.  He figured this whole bowling thing out and was Mr. Independent. He did it all by himself, and then gave me "knuckles" to celebrate the pins he hit down.

 

 And last but not least...I'm not sure what Gage was trying to do here...but I think all of you will agree - the apple does not fall far from the tree. He is definitely Adam's son.

Snowy Savannah

It is a month shy of 6 years since Savannah was born in the Valentine's Day blizzard in Ohio when we got over 2 feet of snow! We have come a long way since then, and 3 inches of snow in AL was a big deal today!  

As soon as I heard her school was getting out early I threw Gage in the car and went to school to get her so she could play in the snow.  We live on a BIG hill, so I was questioning whether that was a smart decision. Then again, I realized, I trusted myself driving in the snow a lot more than I did her bus driver!!! This is how it looked when Gage and I headed out the door to get her...

I blew up the snow tube (thank you Grammy for sending that to us back when we lived in SC!). Savannah was so excited to get outside in the snow!  Her bus drove by and was beeping at us like crazy as we stood poised to take off down the hill. She was so excited :-)

Savannah got in the snow angel action too

The kids were flying down the hill, skipping over the sidewalk and shooting into the road! 

 I think she was having fun :-)

Gage, also loved sledding!  He was much better at walking back up the hill than Savannah was. She would slip and slide the whole way up and whine for me to come help her. Gage was like a Mac truck, he just grabbed the tube and trucked it up the hill with no slipping & sliding. 

We have a BIG hill as our side yard. This picture below is taken from not even halfway down the hill!

It wasn't long before all the kids in the neighborhood descended upon our house sledding. It started melting fast!  Once our hill was a muddy mud pit, we went to the neighbors house and built a snowman.  I ran to the house to get a carrot and a scarf. 

When I got back, he had tipped forward and smashed. So, we started again, but this time my neighbor put him on the driveway, and since it was melting so fast, he was a dirty, grassy mess!  But hey -- we got to make a snowman in Alabama!

And now, not even 4 hours after we had a winter wonderland and 3 inches of beautiful white snow. The sun has been out and it's almost all gone where the sun shines!  Tomorrow, temps in the 50s. Adam says I'm not ready to move back North, but he.is.wrong! I loved playing in the snow today!

Snow day with Gage

Imagine Gage's excitement when we looked outside and saw SNOW!  This was about 2 hours ago, and it has been coming down hard ever since.

He tasted a few snowflakes

He chased after me to throw snowballs at me

He made a few snow angels

After our lunch of tomato soup, "melty cheese sandwiches", and hot cocoa with marshmallows, we are going to head out there again. Can't wait for Savannah to get home so she can play too!!!

reading & writing

Savannah is reading and writing like crazy. As we drive around she reads words on signs and says "Mom, I just read that!" as if she can't believe it herself.  One of the assignments she often does at school is to draw a picture about a story they read, and answer a question about the story.  I think what I love most is that she will try to spell anything -- like "notist" (noticed).  I love when I have to sound a word out to figure out what it was she was writing (her spellings of poinsettia and branches threw me for a loop around Xmas time!).  

She has really taken off with reading and writing. Her penmanship is getting so much better and I love that she reads books to ME now.  When she comes home with a sticker on her writing work (like she did with this one), it means that her teacher sent her to show (and read) her work to another person in the school (the principal, bookkeeper, secretary, other teachers), and that person gave her a sticker for doing such good work. I walked in the office one day and she was in there -- reading to Mrs. Judy the secretary! She LOVES when her teacher sends her to go show off her work.
p.s. you can click on the picture below to make it bigger if you can't read it

Mr. Whiskers

Our neighbors have a cat they call Mr. Whiskers. They don't like Mr. Whiskers that much. So, Mr. Whiskers hangs out at our other neighbor's house so much that they have essentially adopted him, keeping him fed and watered.  They "changed" his name to Whiskey River, but his nickname is now just River.  We still call him Mr. Whiskers, but he "answers" to any name. On the way home from the bus stop every day, Mr. Whiskers comes running out to meow at us, and we stop to go say hello to him.  He rubs all over the kids for a few minutes, soaks up some love, and then we move on.  I'm afraid he might be trying to adopt us -- apparently he ran into our house the other day when the door was open. Then again....every cat in the neighborhood seems to venture into our house at some point or another!

shiver me timbers

Gage got a pirate ship water table for Xmas.  They have one of these at the pool where the kids take swimming lessons, and he loves it.  He doesn't know it yet, but in the spring we can put batteries in and it has a pump that sprays water up through the mast, so he can have fun getting wet. We put it outside to start. But, it keeps filling up with water and it's been too cold to pay in the water outside.  Talk about shivering me timbers -- it's too cold for Mommy to sit outside with him while he plays, and he's been complaining that his hands get cold when it's wet. So, I gave in and brought it inside for the winter.  He puts Jake and the Neverland Pirates in there with TicToc the croc, and has a ball. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa Rapp :-)

New wine rack

We have had this empty nook in between our kitchen and laundry room that only had our cat dishes sitting at the bottom. After Xmas it dawned on me that it would be a nice spot for some shelving and a wine rack. Adam thought it was a great idea and he's never one to turn down a project while he's taking a few days off work, so this is how it turned out.  I love it! Now, to fill it up :-)

Ice skating

There is a skating rink near the river in Tuscaloosa this year, and we finally went today. This is the first time they have both been on skates, and the first time I have skated in more than 20 years. We were able to get double-bladed skates for both kids, but they were still slippin, sliding, and falling all over the place!  We went with our friends Lani & Ember, who helped out with Savannah & Gage - thank you!!!  Savannah said she fell down about 100 times (correct), and at one point, Gage lost his balance and in the process of trying to steady him, I lost my balance and we both fell on our behinds.  He wanted me to carry him at that point, but I convinced him to get up and keep on trying. Really fun day :-)

Snoozing with kitties

So, Savannah has had her two stuffed kitties since she was 1 (Smooth & Bumpy, named after the tags that she slides her finger into as she falls asleep - one tag is smooth, the other bumpy, obviously). This is how she falls asleep every night -- Savannah, Smooth, Bumpy, and Lola all snuggled up (Lola licks Bumpy and purrs). Savannah sure loves Lola and those kitties :-)

snoozing

We should have known it was a little too quiet upstairs.  When Savannah went to check on Gage, this is what she found - at 6pm. Tired boy.

The day after the day after Christmas

The kids are still playing, and still building and setting things up.  Everyone is still in jammies, and we are having a lazy playing kind of day (again).   Savannah has been playing with her squishy brain kit and making Barbie dresses..

Savannah ventured outside to try to catch a few snowflakes on her tongue when we had some flurries. After a few minutes outside she was very ready to come in to the warm house :-)

Gage is knee deep in legos and pirate ships and his favorite -- his "sock'em'bop'em" (as he calls it)

Mommy is trying to control her desire for order in the house to just let the kids be kids and have a mess of toys everywhere. So far, so good. I have thrown away the stale gingerbread house and put a few toys away, but the living room still looks like Christmas exploded. I have managed to keep the trees and decorations up but I'm not making any promises how long this will last....

Merry Christmas!

At 6am Gage woke up but told me that it was still dark outside so he could not get up yet. I said "it's morning buddy, you can get up" He said "no Mommy, it's dark outside and that's when Santa comes".  I told him when he was ready to get up, he should wake up his sister and come downstairs -- he made it about another 10-15 minutes and he was downstairs - without his sister yelling "Santa brought new toys!" Our usually-slow-to-get-moving-in-the-morning Savannah bolted out of bed to run for the tree. They were pretty excited by the giant stash they found :-)

 I'd say those are some genuinely happy and excited faces :-)

 

And then, the unwrapping began! The gift Gage MOST wanted was Spiderman Stunt City. He was super excited! Notice that we ended up with the weather channel on in the background - our weather radio started going off - we had tornado warnings all day, but nothing more than a big thunderstorm every materialized for us, thankfully.

 

 

They both broke out into dance more than once :-)

 

Savannah was VERY excited that the last gift she opened, was the Monster High High School that she really wanted! Okay, it was behind the Easy Bake Oven, which was first on her list (and she also got that)

  

So, we had a fun, full day of unwrapping, building, installing batteries, and playing. 

Although it was nice not to travel and we were where we should be - home - so the kiddos can wake up and have Christmas in their own house, Mommy missed being with family (and seeing the kids with Grandmas & Grandpas, Aunts & Uncles & Cousins) more than she lets on.....