Ace's birthday party at the Ft. Worth Zoo

Despite all the rain we have been receiving, we made it to the Ft. Worth Zoo this morning to celebrate Ace's 4th birthday. He had a fun Batman themed birthday party and the zoo keepers put on a great show with four animals. Unfortunately, we were unable to make it to the zoo afterwards as planned due to all the rain, but it didn't matter; It was still a great party. Happy Birthday Ace!

First the animals...

A real baby Alligator, how cool is that??? We learned that they can grow new teeth to replace broken teeth, over and over and over again.

Parrot. This was Oliver's favorite. Unfortunately I don't remember anything cool about it.

An opossum. Did you know they can't really hang by their tails? Their tail can curl around things and kind of acts like an extra finger, but it can't support their body weight.

Meet Jack, a South African Penguin. It makes sense now, but I had no idea that 60% of the worlds penguins are warm weather penguins.

A video of Jack making his sound

Oliver playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, unfortunately the Birthday Boy didn't want to play

Oliver counting

Ace opening his presents

Darling baby boy in the balloons

The birthday boy and his awesome Batman cake

Getting set to blow

mmmm, this cake is so yummy!

My fave picture all day...Batman...aka Oliver

Batman Ace

Ace and one of his friends Jaxon. Cute!

What is he doing with that dirt???

Can you see what Oliver has in his dirt?

Take a look. Do you see anything?

Look closer.

It's a worm. Does this gross me out? Not at all. I encouraged it. It took him a while to want to hold it, but soon enough he was playing with it like it was his pet for the next hour.

First free Sat at the Nasher Sculpture Museum

The first Saturday of every month in 2009 is free at the Nashar Sculpture Museum in Dallas. We have wanted to go for a while now, so last Saturday we made our way to it. The event was sponsored by Target and they had some fun things for little kids to keep them interested including: an art scavenger hunt, an artist sculpting, kids crafts, story time in the garden, yoga, etc. We had a nice time.

Got my Daddy. Yep, I'm happy.

The Picasso we liked most.

Seriously, where are these people going? Reminds me of the story "Hope for the Butterflies".

Kind of a morbid piece of art

It was too hot, and way too humid to be outside for long. Oliver didn't want me to leave him on this rock chair to take his picture.

Making his way through some bamboo

Oliver throwing change in the fountain at a building across the street

from above

Do Re Me...

No mistaking this child is mine. I love the Sound of Music. And even though Oliver has only seen clips of the songs on YouTube, I just know he will love it too! Here is the video evidence:

Sugar high = an inevitable sugar LOW!

A few weeks ago, I received a coupon for a free candy bar in the mail. Oliver carried it around and said it was his. So today, after gymnastics, we procured our free candy bar at the grocery store. Oliver was ravenous and against my better judgement, I let him eat almost the entire full size candy bar rounding it off with some banana and whole grain goldfish. Mind you, Oliver does not eat candy except for an occasional M&M. Sweets yes, but I sneak lots of whole grains and vegetables into those when I bake them at home. For the next hour and a half this child was driving me crazy on a sugar high. And if I thought that was bad...the inevitable sugar low rendered him nearly unrecognizable.

The video is near the end of his sugar low. After I stopped recording I fed him a nice healthy lunch while holding him and then he took a much needed nap. Poor guy! We will stick with bite size this Halloween!

Happy Birthday ACE!

Ace invited us to celebrate his birthday with him at the Magic Time Machine this year. The place was huge and was filled with themed booths (we were in a crayon box) and had character waiters (Aladdin waited on us). A good time was had by all.

The cute birthday boy. Hard to believe he is four! Happy birthday Ace! We look forward to his party on the 12th!

Ace, Aunt Tricia & Oliver

I don't know what, but I think I caught Oliver doing something...probably coveting Ace's birthday cookie! :)

Here is a darling one of my little guy!

Why is it that my absolutely not shy in person little guy, is sometimes camera shy??? He would not look at the camera. There are, however, some cute ones of Ace.

He finally looked at me and Ace was done.

Steven & Tricia purchased this picture of our group. I thought it turned out well! Thanks for a great time guys!

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The restaurant was in Addison, and we decided to check out a popular area nearby called Addison Circle. Right in the heart of a bunch of businesses, restaurants and apartments, there was this awesome little park with a fountain. Bosque Park is absolutely gorgeous and such a nice reprieve from the concrete! :)

Later that same night, I was washing Oliver up after a walk outside and he started singing the ABC's in a really strange/sad voice. I had to get it on video. This guy cracks me up!

STAYcation

"Staycation: a period of time in which a family stays at home and relaxes or takes day trips from their home to area attractions." Wikipedia

Yep, that's what we had for the week of 8/24-8/29. We had an excellent time adding Daddy to our normal routine of story time and gymnastics. We were also able to fit in lots of extra relaxing, playtime, trips to the park, a trip to the children's museum, a train ride to Dallas, and far too many new restaurants. Oliver was so happy to spend that extra time with his Daddy after having been gone the week before. Here are some of my favorite pics from the week:

We rode DART downtown and had lunch. We went to Thanksgiving Square Park in the heart of downtown and even into the underground tunnel where they had some cool art and a few restaurants. We chose to eat at a pizza at some Italian restaurant that Clayton had been to before. Yummy!

The bottom left is Oliver talking on the phone while we were finishing our yummy breakfast at Breadwinners. The others are later that day at home.

Clayton and Oliver building at the Children's Museum.

The monitor had a heat sensor. Oliver thought it was so cool to see himself on the screen.

video of Oliver serenading us with this huge xylophone

Oliver liked these crazy mirrors. He ran back and forth between them.

Oliver loves playing with water!

my little ladybug (a boy ladybug) playing in the backyard exhibit

check out the video below to see why Oliver is so happy in this picture



video of a hot air balloon lifting off. COOL!

firetrucks, sand, and big trucks

After we finished at the Children's museum, we walked over to the Nature museum which was pretty much deserted. We had a great time looking at all their stuffed animals which had been found locally and stuffed. Each of them named the location in which they were found...some were frighteningly scary to our home. The upper left is Oliver reading the sign and telling us what that animal likes to eat from the picture. So cute!

We ♥ Staycation and hope to do it again some time!