Hey Baby, Come to the Zoo Often?

Last Saturday Preston and I decided to neglect our yard work (again) and take the kids to the zoo. The weather was perfect and we had a great time looking at the baby elephant, watching the giraffes and riding the carousel. All of that good zoo stuff.

However, my favorite moment of the day came courtesy of Daxton. We decided to watch the elephant trainer show and headed over to get a seat about ten minutes before the show started. We all sat down and I handed out snacks and water to help the kids pass the time. We were on the second row, and sitting in front of us were a cute young girl and her boyfriend. Daxton wasted NO time in making his move.

Some quick background: Dax is becoming quite the ladies man. He likes older women. I am not talking 3-year-olds, or even 4 or 5-year olds. I am talking older WOMEN. For example, we were at the park last week and there were a couple of high school girls sitting at one of the picnic tables. Daxton was making a lap of the playground, and as soon as he saw them he made a beeline straight for them. I was busy pushing Corbie on the swing so I couldn't hear what he was saying to the girls, but he had them laughing and he was smiling a HUGE smile. He chatted them up for about 5 minutes before his need for his sippy cup finally pulled him away. Another time we were at the park with some friends and Daxton preferred sharing a bag of chips with my cute friend Brandi to sliding down the slide or playing on the swings.

Anyway, back to the zoo. He plopped himself down on the bench next to the pretty girl, gave her a big smile and a very smooth "HI DERE!!!!." She smiled back and said hello. Daxton then offered her some of his fruit roll-up, which for some reason she refused. Unfazed, he pointed out the elephants to her and told her about the monkeys he had seen, slowly moving closer to her as their conversation went on.

Then he went for it.

By now the show had started, and Dax heard the trainer say that when the elephants aren't listening, the trainers give them a "time-out." Dax is VERY familiar with time-outs, and thought that was hilarious. He laughed and yelled "EFFANT TIME-OUT! EFFANT TIME-OUT!" while waving his arm around, and then he let his little hand come to rest RIGHT ON THIS POOR UNSUSPECTING GIRL'S THIGH.

I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe and my eyes were watering. Arden was asking me, "Mom, why are you crying?" and I couldn't even answer her. Preston decided maybe Dax was moving too fast for this girl and tried to pick him up and move him back to our bench. Daxton was NOT having it. He screamed and squirmed, and his new best friend told me that he was fine, so he sat back down right next to her. It took him about five seconds to pull the "Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" move and put his hand back on her leg. And kept it there through the whole show.

Atta boy.

This time I pulled myself together enough to get out the camera and caught him in the act:
When the show was over, Dax smiled and said "Byyyyee!" to his girlie friend. She was a great sport and said her heart was breaking that she had to leave. After she was gone, Preston looked down at Dax and said, "So, did you get her number?" To which Dax replied "One, Two, Free, Fo-wuh, Five, Six, Sewen, Eight, Naan, Ten, Weven, Telve!" I think he may have gotten it wrong, but wouldn't surprise me if she did give up the digits.

My boy got GAME.

Here are some of the pictures from the more routine looking-at-the-animals part of our day:

Watch out, ladies! Dax is on the prowl.

Photo Shoot

My sister-in-law Jessica is an awesome photographer, and we are lucky enough to be able to use her for free. However, right now she is so busy doing engagement pictures, wedding pictures, bridal pictures, and just a ton of other pictures (many of these for free for our family, I have a niece and a nephew getting married over the next month or so), that she hasn't had time to do a photo shoot for us. Not to mention that her family has been in the process of building and now moving to a new house. I felt guilty to keep asking (begging) her to squeeze us in, so I finally broke down and took the kids to the portrait studio at Target when I got a 50% off coupon.

It was my first time there, and at first I was worried because the shoot only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. However, the kids were pretty much done getting their pictures taken after that short time, and we ended up getting a few cute shots. I put some of my favorites over in the sidebar, and here are some other ones I liked:

Close-up Corbie:

Daxton suprised me by actually smiling in quite a few pictures! At home it is nearly impossible to get him to hold still and smile at the same time, but the girl at the store had the touch. Dax thought she was hilarious. I love this one:


I tried to get him to be barefoot, but he REFUSED to take off his shoes. Can we photo-shop those bad boys out? Oh well.

The group shots were a little harder...someone was always just a little bit off. But here was a cute one:

Corbie was done smiling by this point, but Dax was still going strong:

The two girls look great in this picture, but I have no idea what Dax is doing with his face??

Silly boy.

Hopefully by fall things will have calmed down for Jessica and we can wrestle her into doing a family picture for us (hint, hint, Jess!). By the way, find Jessica on Facebook! Search for "Jessica Zaugg Photography."

Bouncy Bouncy Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun

We had our Second Annual Memorial Day/Daxton's Birthday Party for our families a couple of weeks ago. This year we decided it might be fun to rent a bouncy house for the kids to play on. I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to find a place in our odd-shaped yard that was flat enough and big enough to put one, but luckily we were able to squeeze it in between our house and the rock wall (barely):
The kids (and a few adults) had a great time bouncing and sliding and bouncing. And bouncing some more. And then sliding. And bouncing.
Luckily everyone had a great time and the bouncy house didn't slide or roll down the hill...although I heard it nearly tipped over once when some of the bigger "kids" were bouncing. In between the bouncing and sliding we managed to squeeze in some food (hamburgers and hot dogs, of course):
Some present-opening, and (most importantly) cake and ice cream:
Then it was back to jumping. Our little birthday boy liked to jump, too. He was catching some pretty good air for a barely-2-year-old:However, Dax wanted someone (me) to go down the slide with him, or at least help him get to the top. We went down quite a few times. I even took Corbie down the slide a few times and she LOVED IT. Then the kids were getting tired and decided that it was superfun to just sit down on the floor of the bouncy house and have ME jump up and down as hard as I could so that they could bounce without any effort. You can really burn a lot of calories in one of these things! Probably not as much calories as I consumed from the cake and ice cream....but oh well. I was pretty tired by the time we called it a night. Dax was so worn out that he snuck into the house and laid down to take a nap right on the carpet.
He is hugging his "replacement cat." I washed his old cat a little too vigorously a couple months back and it stopped meowing and moving, and he lost interest in it. I felt bad because he loved that thing so much, that I hunted down an exact replica and gave it to him at the party as a birthday present. He latched right on and picked up right where he left off. Isn't he cute?

Thanks everyone who could make it, we had a great time!

Arden's First Graduation

Arden officially "graduated" from her first year of preschool. She got to wear a graduation cap and everything! The kids sang a bunch of the songs they learned in preschool this year for the parents. Here are all the kids (from both the 3-year-old and the 4-year-old classes):

The caps were adorable, but it was windy and they kept blowing off. Arden's blue hat blew off and somehow she ended up with an orange one, which she wasn't too happy about. She put on a smile anyway:After the singing was over, each kid got a certificate and told everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Some kids wanted to be teachers, some wanted to be ballerina princesses, and one of Arden's good friends wanted to be Buzz Lightyear when he grew up. Arden said she wanted to be a mommy. :-) I am sure she will be a wonderful mom someday!

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Here is Arden with Miss Sue, her preschool teacher. Arden adores Miss Sue!

Too bad her "tassel" is hanging right in front of her face. Oh well.

(I have to say a BIG thanks to Preston for taking a couple of hours off to come to this with me. Daxton is going through a "runner" phase right now. He ran off a couple of times during the program and Preston had to chase him across the field. We went to the baseball game last weekend and he ran off a couple of times there too. And again today at the park. He looks at me to make sure I am watching him, smiles a big smile at me, and takes off. Little stinker! I am hoping this phase is over SOON. I used to look down on those parents who had their kids on leashes, but I must admit I am SERIOUSLY considering purchasing one. Roll your eyes at me if you must.)

Here is Arden with two of her bestest preschool buddies!

She has learned so much this year, and is already excited for preschool to start again. I am so proud of her!!!