national zoo

on wednesday we packed up the jolly green giant (my truck) and headed up to the national zoo with sarah and abby (we met alisha and crew at the zoo). we brown bagged our lunches and alisha brought cupcakes for lily's birthday. :)

the whole point of going to the zoo before the big kids went back to school was that i wanted to take everyone with us. but then christian couldn't find a friend that was able to go, so he lucked out because tony (sarah's husband) offered to babysit him. ;) he stayed at tony's and "helped" him do some handyman work around their house. i love that he learned some new skills, was supervised, and best of all, had fun. :) and lexi-lu had cheer tryouts at 5:00, and since we didn't get home until 5:30, i think we made a good choice for her to stay home. even though i kinda questioned why i was going this week, when neither big kid went with us. oh well.

first stop at the zoo: potty. :) 

i stayed with these 2 while the mama's and 3-year-olds went first.

i just love the looks their giving me!

 finally on our way and everyone's happy.

for a few minutes at least.

 lately addie takes frankie's hand and they just run. this was in the reptile house and they had fun running up and down the mini-slopes.

 "ssssssssss."

 frankie (begging for sarah's i-phone) and baby aina. :)

(she's due 3 weeks after us :)

 this was addie's first time out.

it was hot, they were tired from the time we got there, and her mood was easily soured.
this time it took 2 3-minute time-outs to get the sweet addie back.
the next time-out took her 3 times to come around.
such is life with 3-year-olds.

the zebra's were my favorite.

frankie loved the elephants. 

can you see them back there?

we tried to get a cute picture of the 3 of us, but someone wasn't cooperating.

(my shirt was wet from the misters the have around the zoo, swear!)

still trying for that cute picture.

this was after addie had climbed on the back of the stroller, tipped it over, (spilling my whole diaper bag all over the trail), and skinned her leg.

so her face was pretty splotchy.

and her mood was pretty bad.

frankie found the stroller window. :)

farm animals.

she loves animals, a lot.

"mooooooo."

there was a zoo worker walking around this little goat on a leash. addie and frankie ran right up and pet him. and then wanted to wash their hands 10 times.

yay for happy girls!

even if this was our very last stop before heading home. :)

a quick stop at tcby and a tangled viewing later and we were home.

i quickly got dinner together for friends with a new baby (so sweet!) and took some mommy time at target since i was close. i had 2 hours to kill until i needed to pick up the cheerleaders from tryouts, and even though i had planned to go to other stores, i spent my whole time slowly perusing the aisles of targét. it was lovely.

i picked up the cheerleaders, who were anxiously awaiting their acceptance phone calls.

it was a good, busy, fun day.