Chicago Part 6: Zoo

Here is the FINAL post for our fantabulous trip to Chicago!!! We went to their main zoo & it was SUPER nice! Tommy's favorite animal was the dolphins dancing. It was really fun w/ loud music & tons of dolphins lined up to do one thing right after the next. They said they wanted a bigger show this year because it was their 50th year of doing it.
My favorite animal to see was the gorillas. I don't think I've ever seen one in real life & I knew they were big, but they still surprised me with how big & muscular they were when I was right in front of them.

Victor's favorite was OF COURSE the monkeys. He is so obsessed with monkeys & would get a pet one if I'd let him!!! Here he is pretty excited to enter into the South American jungle.

It was really huge with tons of trees & waterfalls. These monkeys are WAY spoiled compared to monkeys in other zoos! I have never seen such monstrous exhibits like these.

It was fun to see so many of them too.

Here is the asian exhibit as you walk in. I just couldn't get over how lush they make it all for all to enjoy.

I don't remember what this part was supposed to be, but it was right before the zoo closed & it had been a SUPER hot humid day so most people were gone & we had this area all to ourselves. I suddenly understood how if we didn't book it out of there that we might get lost/locked in the zoo for the night!

Since it was late we pretty much had the polar bear to ourself too & he was putting on quite the show for us :)

And finally to cool off we took off Tommy's shirt & let him run around in the splashpad. His face was shear joy the entire time. I wish we'd only found it sooner during the hottest part of the day! Overall, we really enjoyed this zoo. :) :) :)

4th of July

This post is a little out of order, but I wanted to post one of my favorite holidays! I love dressing silly & all RED, WHITE, & BLUE! I always feel so much pride being able to live in the land of the FREE. I've always loved this holiday, but I love it even more ever since I lived out of the country & realized just how great our country is! Here is our family decked out for the 4th :)

I didn't plan on being in IF for the 4th, but they celebrate it so well & since we don't have a parade I thought we should go for Tommy's sake. He was really into it & didn't want to look away from all of the excitement.
One of my favorite things is making festive food so here is what I created for this year. My sister Katie helped me put it all together for her fiance's family BBQ.

I saw a picture of this on someone's blog & didn't know what they did for the star part cuz it was at a weird angle so I made up my own... blueberries on fruit pizza & then did star shaped fruit pizza for the other platter... Vic's favorite.

Here is my adorable little firecracker. It was fun making her booties, headband, & bracelet for this special occassion!

My 2 kiddos... Tommy just stares at the camera and refuses to smile at it these days no matter what sort of jumping jack, crazy tongue face Vic makes!

Summers are for barbacues!

We went to the neighbors BBQ last night and I put Whitney in this outfit for the first time & I was just tickled pink with it! Every day I am just amazed at what a little dolly she is & so fun to dress up :)
Last weekend we went to my Grandma's birthday BBQ on my dad's side. I've never been that close to them so it was really fun to get to know my cousin-in-laws a lot better. I have some really fun relatives! I wish I lived closer to get to hang out with them all more often. Here is Whitney with her Grandpa (my dad!). They look so sweet together.

Tommy loved getting spoiled & having Grandpa push him around in this car. If these things were only 5 bucks then I'd run out and get one asap. They are the smartest invention to have a long handle like that!

Here is Tommy with his first pinata. He liked it a lot better when they gave him a baseball bat to use. He is a natural baseball fan (possible infuenced by his daddy!)

Once the pinata was broken Tommy got a sucker & didn't care about the rest of the candy... he was interested in the toys though & happy to have some new bath toys :)

I helped my sister make stuff for her wedding & it was nice because Tommy was entertained by my mom's cat Yoshi. Poor thing got chased all around the house by him. I have allergies to most animals so he is never around them & thinks they are SO fascinating!

We got some free stickers in the mail so I gave them to Tommy & it is the first time he showed interest in them. He loved putting them EVERYWHERE! His favorite place to put them was Dad's hair. I should have taken a picture of the 2 of them together!

We went to our friend's house today to "swim" and Tommy was in love with their slide! He had so much fun until he was beyond exhaustion. He fell asleep before we even got him in his crib. He jumped down the stairs part & acted like it was a slide. I thought he'd cry, but he loved it.

...just look at that little daredevil's face. He gets such an adrenaline rush when he does scary things. It is so funny that they learn stuff like that so early!

Needless to say our summer has been so much FUN!

Swimming Pool Time!

Here is another extra post for poor Vic who is missing the kiddos like crazy:
I don't know why I haven't done it before now, but I decided to finally put our pool up for the summer. I can already tell it was a great investment with many hours of entertainment ahead! I blew it up while Tommy was napping & let him get in it while I was filling it up. He thought it was the greatest thing ever! As soon as I put him in it he started throwing himself all over in it & is so NOT afraid to put his head under the water. Whenever he fell all the way in he'd come up laughing :)

I don't know what goes through a kids mind, but he thought it was so much fun to fill one side with all of his outdoor toys.

After getting over the joy of having all his toys in there he decided they all needed a ride down the slide. He of course didn't want to go down the slide himself.

Why is it that kids sitting around eating bad food is so much cuter than adults?!?

Tommy loved when Anna got there with her kids. Hank made Tommy laugh & laugh! ...and once he saw the other kids laughing down the slide then he suddenly thought it was great fun too.

Time for otter-pop break number 2! (We were out there for 3 hours before the 2nd break!)

I had to snap a picture when all of these cute little babies clustered together :)

Tommy was sad to see his friends leave & was whimpering in excess so I put him in his pajamas & he kept trying to take them off because he didn't want to go to bed so I took him outside to calm him down & before I could catch him he ran & jumped in the pool fully dressed! So I let him play for another 1/2 hour (at 8:00 at night!) and finally told him that we really did have to go in & I took off his sopping clothes. He didn't like that so he went running into the yard & pouted like this for a good 5 minutes. I just had to run inside & grab the camera again for one more shot! ....haha! It was so funny to see a naked baby sitting in the middle of my lawn :)

A pleasant day at last!

Vic has been gone for 2 weeks now & is still going to be gone for another week so you can imagine that it STRESSES me out to no end to be a single working mom! I am too tired to do anything & poor Tommy is such a Daddy's boy & has been missing his dad like crazy so today was a nice change :)
Today I did my new favorite hike again. I loved doing it once a year the last couple of years & this year I decided to buy a season pass so I didn't have the excuse of not wanting to pay. I just love that the whole way up you can look over & see THIS amazing view of Shoshone Falls! (I wish Vic was in my view today too!) While this hike has a great view, it is really STEEP! I was so happy to finally con a friend into going with me today. She has babies almost the exact same months apart as I do so we were quite the site hauling 4 babies up the hill.
Don't really love this picture of me or Tommy, but I love how pretty the river is down in the canyon. I wish our city would pay to put a walk around it like Boise & Idaho Falls has. (We just have a mile path along the edge of the canyon that makes me totally nervous to have Tommy by as it has no gate seperating the path from the edge!

Since Vic is gone I wanted to fill him in on the details of our day....

Tommy loved this little playhouse at my friend's house... I think we should definitely get one some day... sooner than too much later :)

This is Tommy's new BEST friend Ava! I have never seen him play longer with any kid without getting upset or bored. He was so in love with Miss Ava that he didn't cry for lunch so I finally just fed him at 3! ...and normally he takes a nap around noon, but he was so excited to play with Ava that he never even whimpered. When I got home at 5:30 I set him in his bed & his eyes drooped shut before I could even put the crib rail up!

He was (of course) too scarred to go down the tube slide so he was tickled pink every time Ava went down it. He would get all happy & clap for her!

Tommy kept looking at the bunny in the cage so we decided to get the bunny out to pet & Tommy didn't really care to touch it. He just wanted to sit by Ava...

...and crawl & run circles around her while she held it.

Every time Tommy goes to his cousin's house he is too afraid to jump on the trampoline & I am constantly trying to show him how fun it is to bounce so I was tickled pink to see him finally conquer his fear of it. He bounced away with Ava on there & laughed the whole time!

He was NONSTOP smiles with anything he did with her. They'd run into her room & bounce on the bed together, sit in matching mini chairs & read books at the same time, etc. Ava is only 5 months older so they are pretty much on the same wave length of what activites they like to do & Tommy would just copy everything she did & follow her everywhere. Even when he decided to check out the toy room Ava didn't want to, but she stayed in there anyway to be next to Tommy. It made me so happy to see him this happy & content!

...and I can't forget Miss Whitney! Here she is laying on the grass next to Addie. I always have the longest babies! Addie is 4 months older & Whitney has already caught up to her and if you didn't notice in the pictures Tommy is bigger than Ava too!

Overflowing with LOVE!

Haha! I just swiped this off of Holly's blog. I just thought it was too cute not to share with others! Especially because I have been OVERFLOWING with love for my cute little family lately! I mean look at them... aren't they just SO cute! The water is really high at Shosone Falls this year so there was a ton of people everywhere. The water is just chugging over the sides and you can't even see the bottom because there is so much mist in the air! Even right now I just want to squish that silly boy's cheeks! He has been cracking us up lately because when he runs those chubby cheeks bounce all over, especially when he is pouting about something!

I have been thinking Tommy is so big lately because he is big for his age & because he is way bigger than Whitney, but when we took him to the park this week he looked so tiny next to the big kids, especially when they were calling him a baby. He was funny on the bridge. It must have been scarry to him because he would only crawl on it. I love this picture because it makes him look like a baby which oddly makes me happy. It's nice to think of him as a baby instead of the wild toddler that he is quickly growing into!

...and the other thing that I am CONSTANTLY wanting to squish is Whitney! She is just nonstop looking like the cutest little dolly ever! I couldn't decide which of these two pictures is cuter so I am posting them both!

Whitney's Blessing Day

Here is my little angel on her blessing day! She was really good & Vic gave a sweet blessing. She didn't want to be awake or asleep so here she is making a funny face!
Me & my baby girl.

Whitney & her Daddy Vic.

I meant to get a big group picture of everyone that came to the party, but it seemed like everyone was always scrattered since we did it in our backyard. The weather was perfect and even a little on the warm side which is a miracle for Idaho in the spring!

I am still just LOVING all of that wild hair!

I thought she looked like a little dolly when I took her to a funeral yesterday so I just had to steal another picture :)

You know the best part about this little DOLLY?!? I love dressing her up & all three of these outfits & accessories were 100% FREE by either hand-me-downs, coupons, gifts, or old stuff laying around the house!