Arbor Hills Trip With Friends

We decided a hike at Arbor Hills was a great fit for our warm Monday morning. (Observed high today was 76!) We may not be using all our indoor ideas this winter after all...but I probably shouldn't speak too soon. :)

The Armstrong bunch joined us this time and the kids loved showing Peyton and Maci a few favorite spots and how fun it is going through the "forest" on the off-beaten path. We got in MANY miles as we were there for just over four hours. Another highlight was getting turns walking their new dog, Jojo. You can imagine how big of a hit this was! :) Their other favorite part was probably playing along the stream in the rocks and mud. We made it to the tower again this trip as well. The pic of all of them sitting and drawing was supposed to show how tired they were towards the end of the walk...but it looks pretty normal! :) We definitely had some weary kiddos the last leg, but they were all troopers and mustered up a bit more energy for the playground for the last 20 minutes or so.

Jump Time

We have had some wonderful, WONDERFUL days and I feel like there is no way this is January. I love when our days are filled with bike rides, bubbles, sandbox time, backyard golf, trips to the park...and that is what we have had lately.

The Hughes family got a trampoline for Christmas and we were invited over after school on Thursday.
SO. MUCH. JUMPING!!! Makin wanted nothing to do with it, but he had plenty of balls etc to keep him entertained while the girls jumped. After picking Lorelei up from school we even stopped at a park to play before going to their place (they don't get home from getting Aubrey until 3:30) so our kids slept sound that night for sure! :)

M&M :)

Penguin Days At The Dallas Zoo

January and February are Penguin Days at the Dallas Zoo, which means $5 admission (and Makin is still free!) so when we saw the weather forecast, we decided we needed a fun family outing. (We hope to make this a yearly tradition when we have a warm-weather day in the winter. Last year we missed it since we were recovering for Makin's surgery etc. but we did go two years ago.)

I just love the excitement at these ages. They were so pumped to be going to the zoo. The weather was supposed to reach 74 degrees so it was PERFECT. AMAZING. GORGEOUS.

I glanced at the website the day before and noticed they had a few zookeeper talks throughout the day and thought that might be fun to try and catch if we could. We love all knowledge and facts we can learn! And boy did we enjoy seeing those! The lions are trained amazingly well. As in, as good as or better than your well trained dog! I never realized this was the case with lions. At two of the talks they mentioned how good it is that the animals are trained so they can give them shots etc when needed without needing to sedate them.


One of my favorite parts of this zoo is that you can feed the giraffes. I mean really!?! :) At first Makin was not sure he wanted to dare try it, but he bravely held out his leaf of lettuce, the giraffe took it and he was completely elated and yelled excitedly, "He ate mine! He ate mine!" The nice zoo keeper even brought out an extra leaf or two so I could catch both kids in front of the giraffe. :)

The elephants talk was my favorite. We basically had a one-on-one chat with one of the zoo keepers and she answered any and all questions and we even asked her some just regular zoo keeper questions and told her to check out our favorite zoo in Omaha! :) They threw apples for the elephants to eat which was fun to see also.









One of the many kid-friendly parts of the zoo...climbable statues everywhere! :)

Loving exploring the zoo. One first for all of us (I think) was seeing a koala!

Couldn't have asked for a better trip to the zoo! :)

Foam Popsicle Sticks

Moms...go to Dollar Store and pick up yours today!!!

I was hunting for foam snowflakes (no where to be found by now apparently...now we can only buy four leaf clovers) to use in the bathtub. When I struck out I glanced at the other foam things in the store...and thought these would be a hit. And they sure are! Endless ideas...building things, patterns, making letters...so many things! Lorelei is more into it to try and make some cool things than Makin for sure, but still fun for both. :)

Smiles For Warmer Weather

We have been enjoying some AMAZING January weather. We are making sure to take in as much outside time as we can on the really nice days (its quite up and down right now with a few warm and then a few cold).We decided to take a family park trip on Saturday. All smiles from the kiddos!

January Family Picture

(eh hem...finally!)
Okay so, bit of a late start on this one, but we have had a crazy first couple weeks of January, so I'm giving myself a break.

Outtakes...per Lorelei's request of course

P.S. We had to take three "sad" pictures (again this was, "Lets take a sad one." from her) because she kept half smiling in them. Then this one she looked at it and said, "I did it!!!" :)

Embracing The White Stuff And Chilly Weather

Although I'm not a huge fan of snow, I do appreciate a good snowman and snowflake...especially the ones that don't interfere with our driving. ;) So, being the theme person I am, I have a few January winter activities lined up. This week we enjoyed a few...but actually got the real thing on Tuesday morning too!!! Hoping we get at least one more snow this winter, but we shall see. :)

Fluffy Stuff

Tuesday morning we were surprised to see that we had the REAL fluffy stuff falling outside. :) Lorelei was wanting to go out and play as soon as she got up, while it was still dark. We scrambled to get her ready for school as quickly as possible so she had a few minutes to play out in the snow before we left for school. Some friends of ours decided to play hooky and stay home and enjoy the snow, which we probably would have done if I wasn't out of milk and bread! :)

It was a very good thing she went out before school as it was almost all melted when she got home!

Our snow play dough. She made her snowman wink, can you tell? ;)















When you have to get milk and bread...you may as well get Oreos and white chocolate. :) Saw this on Pinterest so we had to make our little snowmen faces. The kids were just thrilled that they got cookies! Again, Lorelei is into fun faces, so this snowman is making the "o" face. :) And yep, they were super yummy. They even got hot chocolate to boot!

It warmed up a bit Wednesday so we played a game called "Jack Frost's Not Lost" outside while drinking hot chocolate. (My kids will like winter, if nothing for the amount of hot chocolate I let them consume. ;) )

They both LOVED this game. It is so simple that they can both totally get it, but fun for all...plus you get to eat marshmallows  :) Going to have to get a less sugary version if they want to play it more often! :)

Lots of smiles from this activity.

And Brad has been foregoing all that hot chocolate and sticking to hot lemon and honey as well as apple cider, as he has been diagnosed with whooping cough! Yes, you can get it as in adult as your immunizations you got as a child have worn off! He is on the road to recovery though!

Friday we stayed home and had friends visit! We ended up booking both a morning and afternoon play date  This is enjoying some lunch with Kaitlyn, Hailey and Ki. :) Hadn't seen them in quite a while and they all had a great time destroying the place! :) Later we had a quick visit with the Hughes kiddos and it had warmed up enough to enjoy the sandbox.