I feel like life since early December has just stayed really busy with holidays, birthdays, traveling and the normal every day stuff. Now all those fun extras are over and we are just doing the normal every day stuff! The first few days I kind of didn't know what to do with myself! But I think we are back in the routine of simplicity and we are enjoying it. I feel like in this stage of life, I've been given the gift of time with my kids. Since I'm not working outside our home and I only have the two kids, we pretty much have time to get everything done and do whatever fun things we want! It's so great. So at the end of February we went to Hogle Zoo (the last free day this winter). Clearly about 1,000 other young moms had the same idea and the zoo was crazy packed- but it was free, and the weather was beautiful, and we had a great time! Ben came with us before work and Chase loved having him there! He was so excited that Ben came because that meant that Chase got to go see the snakes!
I've always avoided the reptile house in the past, but there were seriously cool animals in there! And yes, I stayed very far away from the snake cages. Chase was super thrilled about the crocodiles (which we missed last time and he was sad about it) and the huge tortoise. We still didn't get to see a zebra, much to his dismay, because I'm fairly certain our zoo doesn't have one. Hudson loved being out of the stroller and seeing all the fun animals- he was totally entranced!
We only stayed a little less than 2 hours, but as you can see, both boys were so tired afterwards! This is what happens when you enthusiastically RUN all over the zoo for the first hour.
This little firetruck chair has been quite the exciting thing at our house! A friend of mine had originally bought it and her little girls never used it, so she decided it need a home of boys! We were happy to give it a home and my boys are so excited about it! Hudson loves to crawl up in it and then just smile proudly at anyone who sees him!
Clearly we are still working on sharing the chair... (and Dad, don't freak out about how unsafe these pictures look, I brought Hudson back down to safety as soon as I snapped the pictures).
After a good month of ignoring his once-beloved rocking bug, Hudson has rediscovered it and loves it again. He was so excited about wearing this little hat and had that wrench in his hand the whole time as he giggled away!
We made cookies on Ben's day off and both boys were so excited. It's amazing what these boys will do for a cookie! Hudson now says "please" while he signs it, only it sounds like "bees". You can bet he was pulling that trick out constantly to try to finagle more cookies out of us!
Ben and I have been on a bunch of fun dinner and movie dates lately, which have hardly cost us anything when we combined gift cards, the dollar theater, and free babysitting! Last night we went out to dinner and then to see Saving Mr. Banks (which we both loved) and left our boys with my parents for the night. It is so wonderful to be able to leave without worrying at all about the boys and they both love their grandparents so much! We came home to find our boys not only safe and sound, but also in brand new jammies thanks to Nana!
Someday I will be able to capture both boys smiling at the camera at the SAME TIME. Someday. I hope.
Oh, yay for cheap date nights and babysitting grandparents! Love that. And I love all the pictures. I keep being surprised that Hudson is a real boy instead of a baby! And also, if you're not going to mail me some cookies then you should probably stop talking about making them so much.... :)
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