Visitors, Dinos and Adele's latest trick!

My parents are visiting this week and we've been doing all kinds of fun things. Today we went to the Zoo to check out the DINOSAURS! I thought the girls might be a little freaked out by the moving and the roaring etc., but they thought it was great. I didn't bring my camera because I had enough to carry but here's a picture of Fiona sitting on the one in the playground area...

(This was a special one, the animatronic ones were definitely not for sitting on!)

And the girls posing as a dino-riding, club waving cave-person... totally historically accurate!

Than later we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for swimming and picnic dinner. The swimming was wonderful because it was a HOT, HOT day. And the dinner was great because it involved Grandma's potato salad. YUM.

Later, Adele decided she was ready to start standing up on her own! Last week when her physical therapist was over she was super happy with the progress Adele had made over the last month with walking and we made a plan to work on teaching her to stand up in the middle of the room so if she is walking and falls over she doesn't need to crawl to something to pull up on. Well I guess Adele was paying attention because today she did it!! She doesn't have her braces on (and that makes it easier because she can move her ankles more freely without them) but this is a really great achievement nonetheless! She was so excited about it that she did it a bunch of times and it's fun to watch it get easier and easier the more she tries. Here's a video!!

Look at that big smile on her face! 

I guess she waits for Granny to be here to hit the major milestones we're waiting for because she was here for the first unassisted steps last time :-)

My parents are here until Sunday so maybe by then Adele will be hopping and dancing a jig ;-) Who knows what else she could do with that kind of motivation!

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 20

I know, yesterday is also named day 20. I published it after midnight so when I checked the date it was already the next day. And my brain works more slowly after midnight so I didn't notice.

Breakfast. Toast and Latte.

Today's mug is from the to trip to Washington DC Ben and I took the summer we met.

Obviously from this picture you can't tell where we are so you will have to just trust me. This is the best photo of us from the trip, which is pretty sad, and that handsome fellow in the back is our friend Peter. He lives in Tennessee with his lovely wife and we miss them!

Lunch-ish. We went to the Como Zoo with friends and had a picnic. I had an apple and a delicious pumpkin bar made by the charming and talented Vicki.

Fiona was taking some photos later and I think managed to delete the one of the apple. But you know what an apple looks like at least.

Later at the zoo Fiona remembered I said she could have some ice cream so we had coffee (me) and ice cream (the girls) with our second wave of zoo friends.

I meant to eat some more lunch once we got home, but then I was busy cleaning and cooking while the girls both miraculously napped, so I forgot.

This evening we had friends over for dinner - I was going to make lasagne but I only had fusilli and I didn't have any onions so in the bolognese I used a lot of garlic, some kidney beans and a splash of red wine instead. I layered that with bechamel sauce and pasta, then topped it with cheese. Tanya and Boyd brought yummy salad and Emily made a delicious pan fried cauliflower with golden raisins and pine nuts.

For dessert Mandy and Aaron brought apple cake. Mmmm good. I may or may not have a slice hidden away for tomorrow.

It was a fun night hanging out with good friends while eating delicious food. I am looking forward to doing it again soon! Consider yourselves all officially invited :-)

Photo Challenge Day 4

One of the results of this challenge is that I have been taking more pictures in general, and I have my camera with me more often and am able to take fun pictures of things that would normally be forgotten. For example, we met friends for breakfast at Ikea this morning (which was super cheap and pretty tasty and I would definitely recommend) and on our way out I spotted this:

(Click to enlarge. If you can't read what's circled in the bottom right, you'll miss the joke!)

The sign must have been at least 15 feet wide. Who knew Ikea had a sense of humor? I had to stop and take a picture even though Adele was really mad and Fiona took it as an opportunity to climb on a pile of ektorps.

Fiona and Adele have both been really interested in taking care of babies recently, which is adorable. Fiona likes to wrap hers up and tote them around and put them in bed and tell people to be quiet because they are sleeping...

She was asking for a baby carrier so I made her a moby of her own and she insisted on packing two babies in there.

Adele loves to feed her baby too, and also likes to take their clothes off. She is funny.

This afternoon we went to the Zoo, partly to get out of the house and partly to look for something green to take a picture of. I got a telephoto lens for my camera (thanks Dad!) but haven't had much opportunity to use it yet and I thought that there must be a bunch of fun green things at the Zoo to take close up pictures of... crocodiles, frogs, turtles... Well I took some really fun pictures but it turns out it's a lot harder to find green creatures that I expected. The crocodiles look more grey than green and the other things had greenish parts but were not really green.

The only really green thing was this big fat caterpillar waiting to turn into a beautiful butterfly... so here he is.

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

The other zoo.

Warning: Today's post is from the zoo and contains scenes of a graphic and arachnoid nature.

We go to the Minnesota Zoo all the time (got to make that membership worthwhile!) but today we ventured North and East to Como Zoo with my lovely friend Emily. Fiona refers to her as "big Emily" which is not very polite but does differentiate her from cousin Emily, who is smaller (but only because she's a child!!).

We didn't take pictures of many of the animals because Adele was in the carrier and gets really angry when I won't let her grab the camera, but we did take pictures of the highlights, such as

Really Adorable Sloth:

Giant tarantula eating something incredibly disgusting:

And of course, Zebra with "appendage"...

As soon as Fiona walked into this enclosure she shouted "willy!". Girl knows her anatomy... And then when we saw the other Zebras she informed us "no willy". Right again Fiona. Ah, proud moments...

The last time we were here I was pregnant with Adele, and we tried to take a picture with both girls to compare how much younger I looked back then, but it was difficult to get both girls to look in the right direction!

Then. Wow, I look young!

Now. Wow, I look tired!!

And here's one of Ben with Fiona so he doesn't feel left out. And so I can take another one of HIM in the same location in two years to make him feel bad about looking so old and haggared. Awww, just kidding. He'll always look like a hot young thing. That's what getting more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep will do for you ;-)

Lookin' good! :-)

And that concludes the highlights from today so far. We're heading out to Grandma and Grandpa's house now to have a family dinner. My brothers in law John and Mike are visiting and arrived this afternoon, so it will be good to see them. And there will be cake. Fiona is excited.