Horsies

My wonderful friend Meagon recently got two ‘horsies’ (as my kiddos called them), and she was lovely enough to have us out to help care for and ride them. What sweeties the horses were, and three out of four of my kiddos loved them!

I was surprised, Ellery was the first one to fall in love with them. She is usually cautious with animals, especially those bigger than her, but she was enthralled with both horses. Almost too enthralled, I was so afraid she was going to try and walk under one of them!

Gianna wasn’t so enthusiastic about either horse. In fact, this is how she looked for most of our visit! Poor girl :(

And then there is Easton, my animal lover! He loved the horses, but also loved their ‘barn’ cat! I’m thinking the feelings weren’t mutual – ha!

Each of the kids were able to ride the horses! A big thank you to Darrin and Meagon who walked in circles, merely for my kids entertainment! Quin has asked at least every few days when we can go back!

Easton and Ellery were also perfect riders!

I think this is the cutest picture! Darrin, Quin and Easton stood together and watched as Jalen rode too!

We were finally able to get Gianna up on the horse! She wouldn’t go near the horse unless I held her, so… I got to ride too! So much fun! I don’t think it was her favorite, but I was proud of her for riding!

Poor Ainsley was sick, so Jalen did double duty! He has my girls wrapped around his pinky – watch out!

Thanks again Meagon and Darrin for a great day!!!

Back to the Zoo, Again!

The past two summers we have taken Quin to John Ball Zoo. It is a wonderful zoo that is within 25 minutes of our home. We thought we would venture a little farther from home this year for our annual zoo trip – and take all four kids. We drove to Binder Park Zoo. What a spectacular zoo and well worth the extra drive time! My pictures don’t pay it justice! We should have left the strollers in the car – they were only good for carrying my bag. The kids walked the entire time, and we were there for five hours! The zoo is that wonderful (I know I was happy to sit down when we finally left!) By the time they were buckled in they were screaming mad – both from wanting to stay longer and exhaustion. It ended up being a quite and peaceful ride home though!

The highlight of our trip was the giraffe exhibit! I don’t think it is often that all six of us experience something at the same time, that is new to all of us. Feeding giraffes was one of those times! It was so neat to see the giraffes up close, and their tongues – so fascinating!

The kids were unsure of this ginormous animal, but warmed up after awhile.

I love how it looks like this giraffe is yelling at them for more crackers :)

Here is the giraffe deck. I thought is was neat to take a look back at it, from the next deck. We were on the side where the baby giraffes stood. What neat animals!

They have two separate areas, separated by a long walk or a tram ride. We opted for the tram ride, and the kids had a ball, although waiting in line to catch the trams was close to unbearable. I got a glimpse into what our lives will be like in the future at a Disneyland type of park. Good thing we have a few years before they will be asking to go!

What a great family day to celebrate the summer!

Lobster Handprints

So here is my throw back to summer :) {Oh summer, how I miss you already!}

We made these lobsters mid July, and I just took them down. They were adorable! Quin happened to be sitting with me when I opened an email with this post in it – and she exclaimed ‘We have to make those!’… Okay, twist my arm ;)

Quin was adamant that we change the locations of the eyes because of the puzzle piece below. I am always amazed when she recalls little details that I never even notice! I do love her addition!

Our Own Night Light

I took a short photo class this summer (thanks Mom and Pop!). We had homework to take pictures with different settings, and I thought this would be a great experiment to try and photograph. Both the dark room with the glow-jar, and the fast movement of jar made it trickier than I thought to photograph, but you can get the gist from the photos!

I saw this idea all over the web this summer, so I’m not sure where it originated. There were a couple different versions that I read. To make our jars glow I used left over glowsticks. I carefully cut off the end of a large glowstick, making sure that it was in the jar as I made the final cuts. The liquid oozed out into the jar. It glowed from the get go, but became more vivid as the kids shook the jar, and it glowed for quite some time! My kiddos LOVED them! Quin even took one to bed as a night light. She still asks if we can make them again! I’m thinking they might be cool to try again at Halloween – you could even make the jar into a jack-o-lantern face and use an orange glowstick. So many possibilities!!!