Happy Anniversary and Birthday Monica!

What a celebratory week!  To kick things off, we had Monica and my anniversary on Monday!  We were lucky enough to be able to get tickets to the zoo, so I took the day off work and we headed there!  Currently you can only go one way around the zoo, and they only let in a certain number of people every 15 minutes, so things were very calm and there were not many people around us.  It was pretty nice to not have a crowd, and we had a lot of fun finally getting to go back.

There was also a big Lego exhibit going on with lots of animals made out of Legos throughout the zoo.  Here was a life size rinho!  And in the previous picture the polar bear and cubs were all Legos too.

We of course saw the flamingos.  The girls were very excited to see them again.

Here we all are looking at a rather larger than life humming bird!

The tiger was up close when we came by too!  I think he had recently been fed, because he was licking the ground in the same spot a whole lot!  All in all it was a very good trip.  We were able to see lots of animals, and they were out and easy to see.  We all had a great time.

That afternoon, Brooke had her first day of her new dance class!  She is even in this one with some of her friends from the ward!  She was very excited, and after dance said she likes ballet and tap and tumbling (it's a combo class) more than hip hop!  So I expect she'll have a great time this year.

Monica took Brooke to dance, and while they were out Winry and I played in the back yard.  We were out in the pool swimming and going down the slide.  Winry kept getting "stuck" on the slide if it wasn't wet enough, so I had to make sure I kept it wet for her.

After swimming I swung Winry for a while, and then we did some somersaults and cartwheels.  Winry is not quite a cartwheeler yet, but she was having a lot of fun and was being really cute!

On Tuesday, the girls started preschool again!  In the end we decided to do preschool at home and Monica got a curriculum online to follow.  The girls were very excited to get started.  Here's Brooke, who still very much wants to be a vet.  When we were at the zoo on Monday we passed the new animal hospital and she is very excited for when it is completed.  She hopes to work there one day.

Winry was all raring to go on her first day.  Also, she got really into sunglasses during our day at the zoo.  When asked, Winry said she wanted to be a mommy when she grew up.  When I asked her about it later that day she said she was already big, and ready to have a baby.....

We got a little table for preschool, and the girls have snacks at it, as well as doing other activities.

Wednesday morning was Winry's first dance class!  First one ever!  She was very excited.  We thought we'd end up just dropping her off, but they arranged things so that parents could stay in a waiting room and see the class on a TV.  When I saw the videos I asked Monica "Didn't Winry want to join in?" when I saw the two kids running in circles around her.  Monica then pointed out that Winry was the only kid in her class paying attention and following the teacher and wasn't actually supposed to be running around.  Great job Winry!

Jelly joined me at work while I was in a meeting Thursday morning.  She decided sleeping on top of her bed was too exposed, and wiggled her way in the middle of it.

The girls got to do finger painting at preschool, and loved it!  Monica taped out their names on paper and then they painted all over it.  They had a lot of fun, and Brooke was excited to get to wear a very large shirt.

On Friday afternoon Monica had a doctors appointment so the girls and I headed to the back yard.  There was swinging and swimming, much like earlier in the week.  However, we also got a stadium seat thing earlier in the week to allow the floor to have a back rest, and it's been a pretty hot item with the girls since.  Winry was tipping back and forth in it while Brooke was in the swing.

Brooke wanted to swing and be twisty, and so she was.  After swinging Brooke took the little seat into the pool because one of the reasons we got it was because Monica thought it would be nice to have a seat we could put in the pool, so Brooke tried it out!

On Friday, our new king size bed came!  Monica asked for it as an Aniv-irth-mas present.  So we made a bed swap on Friday.  The bed was heavy enough that it was ripping the box apart to try to pick it up/move it around, so I had to push the box up the stairs to our room.  Once we got there it was time to let the mattress inflate!  Also, after being careful to get the mattress in the right orientation before opening the package we put it on turned 90 degrees, and the original way we laid it down was correct... sigh.

However, you are supposed to give the mattress 24-72 hours before it is ready, which means it was back to the queen bed... in the living room...  I slept great!  Monica less so.

Brooke and Winry were playing queens on Saturday and wrapping their blankets around themselves as capes!

And I was able to make some more progress on Brooke's bed.  It's done to the point of being able to hold a mattress, however I still need to make a railing around it so she can't fall out in the middle of the night.

After months of struggling, Brooke has been doing a great job of going to bed recently, and as a reward I took her on a daddy daughter date to get ice cream!  We went to Butterfields to pick it up, and then ate in the car before heading home.

This morning Brooke was very excited to help make Monica a very special breakfast for her birthday.  She came down and put on her apron to help out.

Brooke really wanted to do an omelette bar for Monica's birthday, which has been pre-approved by Monica!  We put together a menu really quick and took it up to Monica so she could pick her breakfast.

 

We're currently half way through the birthday, so there will be more to write about next week!  Monica is currently being crazy and doing the dishes because her afternoon nap wasn't long enough for me to write this post and then go take care of them, so I gotta go! Have a wonderful week, and Happy Birthday Monica!!!!