March 14

Today we visited the Marie Selby Botanical Garden! One of the perks of our membership to the Botanical Garden back home is reciprocal membership at over 300 other gardens around the world. How cool is that? We visited the Selby Gardens when we were in Sarasota last year, and enjoyed it so much that we wanted to come back again. The weather today was cool, gray, and windy, but we still had a great time!

(and now for a million pictures)

Yes, another babywearing picture. In real life, Eli rarely lets me wrap him anymore. I'm lucky if it happens once a week. But Vacation Eli loves to be worn, and I get to wear him multiple times a day some days! It's one last hurrah for us, and I am savoring it.

A nice Garden volunteer took this picture of our family. Note to self: back button focusing makes it harder for other people to use my camera correctly.

The same nice volunteer also gave us a little bag of fish food to feed the (very hungry) koi fish. 

I didn't get a good picture of it, but look at Daisy. She actually stuck her hand in the water and petted some of the fish. That girl is so brave and funny!

Then each kid took a turn ringing the bell. 

This stone was supposed to make your body vibrate if you hummed the right note while your head was inside. None of us could get it to work, but I love little Lily's willingness to give it a shot!

This tree had a sign declaring it "The Hugging Tree".

Eli didn't need to be told twice - he went right up and gave that tree a big hug!

In the children's garden,t here was a swing. Enough said.

There was also a two-person hammock swing.

Eli and I enjoyed it.

Yeah, they rode a jaguar. No big deal.

Eli rode an armadillo, too. He rode all of the animals!

He also insisted on walking up the steps by himself. He is suddenly very much a two year old, and not so much a baby.

Miss Sassy Pants in her pigtails, solar system t-shirt, and sparkly shoes.

These little lizards were everywhere, and the kids loved them!

See? All the animals. This might be one of my new favorite pictures of Eli.

Eli was feeling uncooperative when I tried to take this picture. At least the older three tried to comply!

This cell phone pic was the best I got of the four of them.

And Chris snapped this one of me with my duckies.

Seriously. When did they get to be such big kids? How do I have four big kids, and no babies? This is a crisis.

If they have to be big kids, at least they are big kids who love each other and hold hands while wearing braids and pigtails. I can live with that.

Eli still didn't want to be in the picture. But aren't these three cute?

(answer: Totally.)

Daddy and his girls.

At some point during the day, we remembered that it was Pi Day. (Get it? 3/14 = 3.14 = pi?) On Pi Day, we make pie because 1. Pie is delicious 2. Caleb loves a good pun 3. Homeschool life. Since we were in Florida, we decided to try to make a Key Lime pie. I sent Chris out for ingredients, and after we got home from the Garden and the little ones went down for naps, we made pie.

A slight problem arose when we realized that Maggie didn't yet have a pie plate in her new home, but we improvised. Caleb made a PI-rate pie, with whipped cream skull and crossbones and a chocolate chip eye patch.

Daisy made a smiley face with chocolate chip nose.

The verdict? 

Yum.

We ended Pi Day like this: 

Reading with Maggie is a favorite activity!