Zoo day with the Poret's

Memorial Day weekend we went to the zoo with Glenn and Yolonda. The girls had a blast with them and it's always a treat for Michael and I because the girls adore them and it gives us a little break! Checking out the birds:

 Riding the carousel:

 They were brave and took the girls inside the small animal area. I HATE the small animal area because it is an enclosed building with all the stinky animal smell, it is hot, and most of the stuff the girls can't see in their glass cages. However, my girls love it so occasionally, I cave and go in, but this time, Grandma Yo and Grandpa Glenn took them and Michael and I stayed outside! It was awesome!

 We took our traditional picture with the gorilla:

 And anyone who knows my husband, this is not a shock to you:

Right now at the zoo, they have alot of things closed because of construction. Luckily to distract from that, they brought in a dinosaur exhibit. They are so realistic its crazy! They make noise, move and one set of them spits water at you. This video is terrible, but hopefully you get the idea...

Random Oklahoma Pictures

These pics aren't really relevant to any major events, just cute (and sometimes fuzzy) pics I snapped of the girls while we were there.

 Playing in their swimsuits in KK's empty room after she moved her bed to Tulsa!

 Rachel playing in the car with her glasses and her paci!

 Playing in a box, what could be more fun!

 Uncle Clay, Katie (his girlfriend), Hannah and Rachel chilling playing with their phones:

In PaPa's t-shirt looking out his bedroom window at the dogs in the backyard:

Soapy Water Play

I'm sure that you have seen my many posts of Hannah playing in her bowl of soapy water with her toys for some good clean play. Hannah would sit for 30min to an hour and just play quietly and in toddler world that feels like hours! So, this time, I decided to let Rachel try and see how she did. She loved it, and was pretty entertained, however, she got SOAKED! Still good clean fun and they both played for about 20-30 minutes, so I definitely think this will be added to our regular rotation of activities!

Baby Bird Update

Well, those of you who saw my previous post about our bird eggs will be happy to know that we got baby birds! They hatched while we were in Oklahoma in May and stayed in the nest for about two weeks. They were really kinda ugly when they first hatched, but they got alot cuter!

The mama bird did not like us coming and taking pictures of her babies, she would swoop and yell at us and sometimes dad would join in and they would double team us. We got a few pics, but tried to not upset them any more than necessary. However, the last time I tried to go and take their picture, they flew out of the nest at me and scared me to death! That's when I knew they could at least sort of fly and weren't nest bound anymore. The next day I went down to the basement and I heard one of the babies. I looked and found that one of them had fallen into the window well. There is only a small space between the metal and window and it couldn't get out. I took the cover off and waited to see if it could get out on its own.

I watched its mom circle over and over calling out to it and it would call back and she just couldn't see it. It was so frustrating and heartbreaking to watch her try to find her baby and hearing her and not being able to find it. She even had a worm in her mouth ready to feed it!

 Michael came home about an hour later and I told him, so he crawled down in there and got it out and set it on the grass for mom to find. She did and brought it some worms, but it still wasn't flying off, so Michael put it in the empty nest so that he could mow. The mom went to it and fed it and two days later it was gone too.

The girls loved having the birds and still when they see a bird ask if it is one of our babies. If it is a robin, I say yes, because maybe it is. They were lots of fun to have. Now our next temporary pet project has begun, caterpillars that become butterflies...

2011 Summer Bucket List- For the kids

I have seen Summer Bucket Lists done on lots of the blogs that I follow and thought it was a great way to be intentional in the things that we do this year. I have a tendency to choose the easy way out and just go to the same park over and over or just play in the backyard because it is easier. However, I have lived in Utah almost FIVE years and it is embarrassing how little of the area I have explored. Now that the girls are getting bigger and able to do more and enjoy it, we are changing that! So here it is:

2011 Bucket List
- Order Caterpillars- CHECK
- Chalk Paint- CHECK
- Professional Family Pics (either JC Penney or a local photographer)
- One new park per week (attempting to hit all splash parks, and others that look fun)
- Use memberships at least once a month- zoo, aquarium, and children's museum
- Make something in the kitchen with mom once a week including some of these:
      Chocolate Chip Cookies- CHECK
      Donuts- CHECK
      Glo-Snow cones (click on the picture for the link to how to make them)

      Watermelon Waffles

      Brownie Waffles- grr, now its not letting me post the pics, so here is the link

      Banana Ice Cream - its just frozen bananas REALLY blended! :)

      Any other cute stuff I find- suggestions are welcome!

- Hike at least 3 places

- Have one "down" day per week where we stay home (in our jammies when possible)

- Take the girls to the movies (dollar theater)

- Go to the rodeo

- Go to at least one parade

- Downtown Farmers Market

- Grow something (even if its just a bean to watch sprout and grow)

- Make a crazy fort in the house

- Make Sponge Balls

- Get new books from the library each week to read

- Rent the Disney movies we don't have (including all the princess ones!)

This list will be added to as we go along, but this is what I have on it so far! I also am working on my own bucket list of things that I want to do that doesn't include the kids, such as read one parenting book every two weeks, work on purchasing stuff for Rachel's big girl room so when she is ready to be done with the crib we will be ready, etc. So, do you have a bucket list? Anything that you think we should add to ours?

Park #2- Vetran's Memorial Park/West Jordan City Park

On Monday, we met up with Janene and Holly to check out the West Jordan City Park (online it is listed as Veteran's Memorial Park). It was a really cute idea for a park and with older kids, it would have been awesome. They have these wooden structures set up to mimic real Utah locations. The girls loved climbing and running all over, my only problem is that you can't see your kids. I was constantly thinking I lost my kid, when they were literally just around one corner. We eventually walked over to a metal play structure and I was able to relax and enjoy it a little more!

I found this picture online and it shows how cute this park really is!

 This is one view from the "little kid" area:

It was fun to see it and mark it off the bucket list, but it is not one we will be going back to until the girls are an age where I don't have to worry about them wandering off!

Park #1- Skye Park

One thing on the summer bucket list, is one new park per week. There are parks ALL over the place and we usually go to the same two or three. Well, that is changing! We tried Skye Park on Friday and it was a really cute park. There were four or five play structures, a couple connected to each other and some not.

There was a large grassy field and basket ball court:

 A cute little metal dune buggy:

 And all of these plastic house structures. Hannah kept telling Rachel and I which house was hers and which ones were ours. I think it would have been alot more fun for pretend play if we would have had friends with us!

 There was also a sand box. I have mixed feelings about these as I know they can be large cat litter boxes, but the girls loved playing in the sand. They even took my empty water bottle and kept filling it up and shaking it, then dumping it and starting over. If we go back, we will be sure to take sand toys!

Overall, this was a great and the girls and I got to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Summer Bucket List: Homemade Donuts

This summer I will be posting about things as we knock them off our Summer Bucket List. I haven't finished making the list yet, but maybe I will post it when I do. One of the things on it- making homemade donuts with the girls! We started with canned biscuit dough and rolled it out:

 Then we made our holes. Since I couldn't find a small circle cutter, I bought this cute flower one! It took a couple tries before she went all the way through:

 Rachel got a turn too!

 Then for the really unhealthy, dangerous part. The girls ate at the table something slightly healthier than a donut while I cooked them.

 I wasn't sure if you had to dunk them in the glaze while they were still hot, so I made a couple right away and waited on the others for the girls to help. (For the record, it didn't matter)

 Hannah got to help dunk in glaze (powdered sugar/water mixture):

 We also tried chocolate glaze in a bottle and it looks pretty and tastes good, just not the same a donut store chocolate glaze.

 And of course we had sprinkles!

 The finished product (minus the ones we ate along the way)! I actually loved the flower shaped donut holes.

They were delicious!