Tiny Zoo

For our last "official" day of vacation, we headed over to the tiny zoo to see the camel, reindeer, and the Christmas train.

Country Village

We made a trip out to Country Village in Bothell to see the Christmas decorations and ride the train.

The weather was nice enough, and the village was adorable.  However, a note for anyone else who might have this brilliant idea; it would be useful to know that in the winter, the train doesn't run on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

The kids were surprisingly okay with the disappointment, although we did have to answer a whole lot of questions about why the train was "closed today".  But, Cecily got to chase some chickens and Parker climbed the pirate ship and ride a bunch of carousel horsies.

We also finally managed to go out for Keith's birthday lunch, only one day late.

Family Photos

Since Keith was on vacation, I took the opportunity to schedule an update to our family photos.  The 3rd was the most convenient date, so as you can guess, Keith was super-excited to spend his birthday morning getting photos taken.  But, to make it better, we had plans to go out for a nice lunch after the photos were done.  Unfortunately, I woke up with terrible back pain and I could barely walk, so I decided to take some medication to help a little with the pain...which was a bad, bad idea.  I had a terrible reaction and the day was pretty much ruined.  I held it together enough for a few photos, but I spent the rest of the morning lying down while they took shots of the kiddos.  But now, we have lovely photos to memorialize Keith's worst birthday ever:

Zoo Trip

Today, we had an early-birthday breakfast with Keith's parents.

After breakfast, we took the kids to the zoo.

It was absolutely freezing, but it was sunny and beautiful and hardly anyone was there so we had the place to ourselves.

Here, Cecily is "rock-a-baby"-ing the baby elephant's trunk.

Parker's Artwork

I'm starting a new series, titled "Parker's Artwork" where I'll highlight some of the great works of art by our budding artist.

Doesn't that make it sound more elegant than "I can't keep all this stuff forever so I'll memorialize it here on the blog"

He made this ceramic pumpkin in art class and then they glazed it another day.

This one is an actual pumpkin they picked out in the field (the pre-school field, not an actual pumpkin field - super authentic) and painted, and (as he'll remind you every time) someone else put the glitter on.

More of his fall collection:

He's brought several fish home from preschool, they must have been learning something about fish or something, not that he'd ever tell me anything about what he's learning!

This painting is from the beginning of the year.  You'll notice he's using "boy colors", his favorite color currently is "boy colors", which is pretty much anything but pink & purple.

This one is from last year.  Ignore the big white tumor in the middle of his head, we spilled something on it over the summer.

This counting pumpkin managed to loose most of his pumpkin seeds on the trip home, the #'s were accurate when I saw it the first time.

This little guy is from last year as well, Easter, one would assume, again, not that he's told me anything.  Every day I pick Parker up from school and we have this conversation:

Me: How was school Parker?

Parker: Good

Me: What did you do?

Parker: Play

Me: What was your favorite part?

Parker: Snack

...great, sounds like money well spent.  (Although, we all know that we really send him to Preschool so Mama can have a few hours to herself)