April photos

Because the top of your head is a good place to store a piece of bread until you're ready to eat it.

It looks like Ann Marie's eyes are going to stay blue! 

more March photos

Don't worry, we've cut Kevin's hair since taking those pictures. It took about an hour because his hair is so thick.

I made matching bows for Heidi and Ann Marie. I don't know why I bothered since neither of them will leave a headband on their head for more than three minutes, but they were still very cute.

NC Zoo

Kevin had spring break at the end of March and I had this crazy idea that I would take all the kids to the North Carolina Zoo for a day. Ryan was not able to go because his spring break was a different week, so I did it by myself, but it went really well and we had a fun time.

The first thing we did when we got there was to eat some lunch at the picnic tables outside the zoo. Then I made sure to take pictures of Kevin and Heidi before we had even gone in so if somebody got lost I would have a picture. They also had name tags taped on their shirts.

I knew that we wouldn't be able to see the entire zoo. We only had about four hours and I knew the kids would be tired by that point anyway. So we took the tram to the Africa section because I knew they wanted to see the elephants, zebras, giraffes, etc. the most.

When we got off the tram Kevin started crying and saying he wanted to go home. There were dozens of carpenter bees flying around the tram station and the shops nearby, and he was nearly paralyzed with fear (he got stung by a couple of wasps last year and still remembers how much it hurt). I insisted that it would be better once we went to see the animals, but I had to hold his hand while pushing the double stroller to get him to come. I showed him the map with all the animals we were going to see, and he said he wanted to see the flamingos and the birds, so we went to the aviary first.

Heidi looking at some frogs.

Kevin enjoyed seeing all the birds in the aviary.

This turtle was hanging out in the aviary too.

After we came out of the aviary I realized that the kids needed a restroom break, and the nearest restroom was, unfortunately, back by the tram station with all the bees. So I had to take them back there, and then after everyone had used the restroom I had to convince Kevin that we were not going to go home after seeing only the birds, flamingos, and frogs, which meant I had to hold his hand and get him walking down the path again. Fortunately, as we got farther into the zoo there weren't any bees, so we didn't have to deal with that until we went back to the tram.

Kevin didn't linger at any of the exhibits. Once he'd seen the animals he was perfectly satisfied and was ready to go see the next thing. I had to be really fast with the camera to get pictures of the animals. I was a little disappointed because the chimpanzee had a new baby and Heidi and I didn't get a good look at it before we had to catch up with Kevin. There were only a couple of times when I felt like Kevin was getting too far away from us. For the most part he did a really good job of staying with me, which is huge. A year ago a trip like this would have been a nightmare of trying not to lose him.

Kevin seeing the ostriches (who were running).

The nice thing about this zoo is that it's arranged in a very intuitive way. Once you get on the trail you can basically just follow it around the loop and see everything.

Kevin didn't want to leave this helicopter exhibit. He and Heidi played in it for a good fifteen minutes before I insisted we needed to move on. No surprise that the machine was the thing that held his attention the best.

Near the entrance to the zoo was this maze/play area made of sticks. Kevin and Heidi had a really fun time hiding and chasing each other inside.

After this the kids were ready to be done. I think Kevin was starting to get blisters on his feet because he ripped his shoes and socks off and insisted on riding in the stroller. So I ended up pushing Kevin and Heidi in the double stroller and carrying Ann Marie in the Ergo back to the car.

We ended up hanging out in the car for a while so I could feed Ann Marie and the rest of us could have some snacks and finish our lunch before going home. Kevin got the camera and took a couple of pictures:

It was a really great day.