Guppy Gala

Yesterday we spent the evening at the zoo for the annual Guppy Gala. The weather was grey, but mild and luckily the rain held off. It was quite similar to Boo at the Zoo without costumes, but in our opinion, even better because of more activities and smaller crowd.


The zoo provided its guests with Subway for dinner. And then we hit the array of candy, ice cream, and snack stations.

And Simone's favorite part was the inflatable playground. We spent quite a while on these.

With a little help from staff, she even scaled the climbing wall to come down the slide.

Here she is a little uncertain of the guys on stilts.

Around the lion exhibit, they had games and activities which held Simone's attention more than the actual lions. After she played the ring toss, pin the spots on the cheetah, and the fishing pond, she picked blue and orange dots for her hair at that silly station. I was thrilled... not.

Mom and Dad, on the other hand, enjoyed the lion pride more. It was getting dark by this time, so the video quality isn't very good, sorry.

Overall a really nice time that we all enjoyed. We'll be back next year for sure.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail...

Happy Easter! We squeezed in a terrific Easter weekend before mommy left on her work trip on Sunday. It's hard for us to pick a favorite part, but the flashlight Egg Hunt no doubt got Simone's vote. Here's a peek at our basket of Easter food that we brought to be blessed on Saturday morning.

Tony and Simone decorated all of the real eggs.

And then packed up the plastic eggs to bring to the flashlight egg hunt.

Simone was thrilled to hold the flashlight and run around collecting the eggs, which she found all by herself.

Posing at church before Easter Mass.

And then off to the restaurant for brunch.

Picking the dandelions has become one of Simone's favorite pastimes.

Two of the things that make Patowmack Farm so special for Easter is the airy outside feel with wonderful view, and the creative courses for every occasion. This was a baby carrot "planted" in a cocoa granola dirt. How cute! And in the background is the view from our table.

A practically perfect Easter weekend! Until next year...

Week of the Child

Simone has had a very exciting week. Her preschool celebrated the Week of the Child by doing something special each day. Monday was Pajama day and Tuesday was Color day -- Simone's class dressed in yellow. We didn't remember to take pictures, however, until Wednesday which was ...Picture day. So here she is all dressed up for school pictures. Thursday was Character Day. Simone was, of course, Pinkalicious--her favorite character of all. She was a little upset that we couldn't find pink fairy wings, but we explained that Pinkalicious doesn't always wear her wings. I thought she turned out a pretty close approximation considering we accomplished it in one evening!

And we ended the week with Freaky Friday (which Simone affectionately called Freaky Fracky Day). She picked out lots of stripes and mismatched shoes. But the craziest part was her hair, which we brushed out to about twice the size of her head. She thought it was hillarious and kept touching it, calling it "airy". LOL!

All Tuckered Out

It's incredible, Simone has been mastering more things than we can keep track of these days. Just tonight I noticed that she has learned how to twist her ice cream cone as she eats it rather than eating one side at a time. Over the past couple of weeks, she has also learned how to use a mouse and play computer games; how to ride her scooter and bicycle; and color inside the lines (for the most part); and the list goes on. She's also turned into a little negotiator. Every offer is met with a counter offer and her favorite word is "but". "Ok, daddy, I'll take my bath, BUT can I come back downstairs and watch TV?" She's something else. But all this growing up takes it's toll and here Simone is for only the second time in her whole life -- having fallen asleep on her own, watching TV. What can we say? It takes alot of energy to be Simone!!

A Mommy Day

Well, today was mommy's birthday, and we spent it as a family doing lots of fun things together. We started the day at a cooking class at Cookology. The theme was a mommy-daughter tea party. Of course, Daddy came along as the photographer.The menu was strawberry scones with honey butter and white bean humus and rice cake sandwiches. Yummy!

Afterward we headed to Fair Oaks to see the Easter Bunny. We caught him just as he was headed on break. Simone was a little shy and worked her way up to shaking his hand but not long enough for me to get a good shot. On the bright side, we avoided waiting in a long line only for her to dart away.

And we ended the day at one of Simone's favorite spots.... Wegmann's kids area, where she had pizza, and we had birthday cake and coffee.

Who could ask for more? Truly a PERFECT birthday!

Shadows and Scooters

Simone finally got her very first scooter. It's a pink Radio Flyer that I applaud for being cute, stable, and easy for toddlers to handle. She adores it. The first night she rode it around the house and now asks to go outside every day to practice on it. She's getting much faster, but steering is still a little challenging for her. With the learning curve we've observed, however, she'll be flying around everywhere in a couple of weeks.

Here's just one of her many laps in the cul de sac.

And finally, here's the craziest bit... After she finished on her scooter, Simone thought it was HILLARIOUS to dance with her shadow in the street.

So Much for the Super Bowl

So Simone and I put on our black, gold, and white (Tony of course refused), and we had a few friends over to watch the Super Bowl. We served up all the requisite football foods and even sought out some seasonal cupcakes for the occasion.

We took a quick picture before the game started, while our hopes and spirits were still high. And then...

... they started to lose. And they didn't stop. And that was the end of the pictures. A disappointment, I know. But really the only fitting way to document the night. But well, hey, there's always next season. GO STEELERS!!