November 3

I woke up this morning to find that the kids are still adjusting to the end of Daylight Savings Time, and had been up for quite a while. Luckily, I got to snap a few pictures of what Chris usually calls the best part of his day: sharing his breakfast with the girls. 

(Side note 1: lately, Caleb has been sleeping until after Chris leaves for work, which is why he doesn't have a part in this ritual.) 

(Side note 2: Chris is either a saint or just a way better person than I am, because I would never call being forced to share my food with the children the best part of my day. Perhaps that's why Chris is so thin, and I'm not...)

Chris likes to feed the kids frozen blueberries, then share his over-easy eggs with the girls.

(You can see our Thankful Tree is up on the chalkboard wall - Daisy is really excited about it this year, and has been reminding us to fill out a leaf every morning.)

Lily loves sharing eggs with Daddy. It's really sweet.

Crazy blueberry face!

Caleb was in such a good mood this morning! It may have had something to do with the fact that he found that brown hoodie - a gift from Grandpa - in his closet this morning. He hasn't worn it since February or March, so it was like discovering something new.

Everyone was in great spirits and really cooperative this morning, which is a rarity. Perhaps it had something to do with the sun shining so early? Daisy has been asking to go to the zoo for a few weeks now, so when I saw the weather forecast today (sunny with a high of 73), I knew I had to take her. Usually I feel bad about taking the girls somewhere fun while Caleb is in school, but since he and I had such an awesome adventure yesterday, I figured it was safe. After we got Caleb on the bus, we loaded up the car and headed to the zoo.

We got there early enough for the free hour, but the darn carousel was closed. Boo!

No big deal, though; we headed to the Children's Zoo.

Honestly, I've been putting off  taking the girls to the zoo because I know that Lily is now big enough to actually enjoy it. Weird, I know, but let me explain. See, whenever we've gone before, she's been mostly oblivious, which makes it easy for me to wrap her on my back or strap her into the BOB and then focus all of my energy on Daisy. But now Lily is big enough to play, but not big enough to play on her own, so I was dreading taking the girls there by myself. 

Luckily, it all worked out. Daisy was remarkably patient and independent as I helped Lily experience everything for the first time. For example, goats.

Can you tell from this picture how shocked and delighted she is by the whole situation?

"Wait, why aren't these animals running away from me? You mean I can touch them? And they'll just stand there? NO WAY."

Of course, little ones have the habit of only wanting to touch the tails of the goats. You know, right by their bottoms? Gross. So I had to continually redirect Lily to other, less disgusting parts of the goats.

For some reason, Daisy (dressed in her hoodie that matches Caleb's - she was so excited to wear it!) was only moderately interested in the goats today. When we'd had enough, we headed to a different part of the Children's Zoo. You know, the part with guinea pigs?

I know you can't tell it by Lily's facial expression, but the whole guinea pig thing rocked her world.

There it is. I know she looks like a fierce killer baby, but she is actually squealing with delight because she just got to touch a furry thing and it didn't run away. Do you see the victory in her eyes? She is PUMPED.

Then the giant aquarium blew her mind. She sat on a rocking horse/fish thing, and just stared, mouth agape.

Then we moved on to an outdoor play house with play food. Daisy served up a meal, and Lily did her best to climb up onto a (actually very large) child-sized chair and eat the meal her sister made.

After the Children's Zoo, Daisy really wanted to see the monkeys. She was so excited that the chimpanzees were out, and that they were playing on the ropes and swings in their habitat. Then, on to Big Cat Country, where we got to see the tiger and lions and cheetah and puma... both girls really enjoyed that. Big Cat Country was where I realized that Lily was getting really annoyed at being in the stroller, so I put her in the ring sling. I must have looked pretty funny - a pregnant lady with a baby in a sling, pushing an empty stroller as she chased after her bigger kid. 

I tried to take a picture of Daisy at the zebras, but she was remarkably uncooperative. 

What a stinker. I can't say I'm surprised, though.

Lily and I tried for a selfie, but it didn't really work. She loved the giraffes, though, and we were all delighted when we stumbled upon the sea lion feeding session. We got to watch the trainers feed fish to the sea lions as the sea lions did tricks. It was awesome.

We ended up spending just under three hours at the zoo before it was time to head home. At the end of our 20-minute drive, I found this: 

Sound asleep, both of them. Miraculously, I was able to transfer Lily to her crib, where she slept for three more hours. Daisy, however, was another story. She ended up not napping any more for the rest of the day, even though she was in her room "napping" for two hours. Oh well.

But the very best part was that when Caleb got home from school and heard that we went to the zoo, he wasn't even upset. Beautiful.