{So Proud}

Caroline's first self portrait!

I'M SO PROUD!

...and here's the girls doing it together!

I'M SO PROUD!

I hear Louis calling to me, "MOM! Come take my picture!"

...and when I come around the corner he shoots me.

(Insert really spitty shooting noises here.)

Nice princess shoes, Bud.

so... proud?

{Zoobies}

You cannot visit the Tautphaus Park Zoo without taking this picture. Cannot.

Or this one either.

We saw lions,

and tigers,

and zebras....?

Hmmm... oh, there's our bear. Oh my!

Lovin' Maren's penguin walk...

We saw the super stinky flamingos that make Aly gag,

and camels (Watch out! They spit!),

and we learned that persnickety zoo peacocks like Cheezits, but not plain 'ole bread or Ritz crackers.

We paid real money to feed goats, even though we do it every day in our back yard.

We posed as Mother Hen,

Like Lou's new smirk face?

We saw everything our little zoo had to offer, and generally had a zoorific good time.

Three cheers for Laura, who had a charged battery for her camera when I did not. She did a wonderful job with the photos, don't you think?

{We've been adopted}

This sweet little stray kitty has adopted us! She definitely didn't do a background check, because we've never had a "real" pet before -- only fishies and a hermit crab (we found Mr. Crabs on the beach in Puerto Rico, than Santa brought him back to Utah for us). In fact, I'm thirty years old and I've never had a "real" pet, either. Sad, but true. Maybe Cookie can be my therapy kitty.




We talked Todd into letting us keep her, and she is totally spoiled. Caroline spends every waking moment she's not at school torturing *ahem* I mean loving up Cookie.


And whenever she manages to escape Caroline, Elizabeth is there to rescue her. I'm not sure who's more in love.

She swears Cookie LOVES to swing.

Cookie is an outside kitty (I want a mouser!), but that doesn't stop Caroline from giving her a little peek inside at what's she's missing.