The one with my kiddos

Ellie still isn't rolling over very often. She'll roll from her belly to her back, after a good 10 mins of crying, but she'll do it. I'm wondering if she's just going to skip it all together. We'll see. Here she is on her hands and knees for the first time. I had to set her up this way, but she stayed by herself for a couple mins.

 This is the face Ellie makes a lot now. :) She's spitting. I can't help but laugh every time she does this. She is most vocal when she's tired, so that is also when she does it the most.

Video of her spitting

 I had her try a cracker the other day. She really like it, except she didn't want to hold it herself for very long. She would eat it if I held it up to her mouth though. I'm having a difficult time getting her to eat food. I think a big part of that is because she doesn't like to put things in her mouth. Literally the only thing she puts in her mouth on her own is her own hand. She'll occasionally bite on my hand, but thats only if she's teething really bad. To get her to eat solids I have to hold the spoon up to her mouth and put some food on her lips, since she won't open her mouth. Then when she realizes theres food on the spoon, she'll finally open up.

 The camera was a little more interesting than the cracker, obviously. 

 My kids are just so dang cute! I may be a little biased, but what mother isn't :)

 We have been going down to the pool every day the weather is good enough. On this particular day he told me he didn't want to put his swimming trunks on because he was only going to stick his feet in and thats it. The water is still pretty cold so I thought I had good reason to believe him. Riiiiigghhht. He obviously got soaked, head to toe! He had so much fun though, it was totally worth it. He even let his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Rafael swim with him. (He's located in the bottom right of the picture below)

 "Mom, he's not a very good stander"

 Laying out to dry. Notice how he even gave Rafael his own chair :)

 And last, here's some of the kids on Taegens soccer team at practice last week. They were practicing shooting the ball into the goal one person at a time. So when it wasn't there turn this is what they all did. Apparently sitting on the ball is so much cooler than kicking it. 

The one with the Quad

For our play group this week we went to the Quadrangle, or the Quad, on base. It's a big grassy/landscaped area surrounded by a block wall that has deer, peacocks, geese, chickens, a rooster and pigeons that you can feed. Its really cool, the animals come right up to you once you bring out the food. The deer are of course a little skittish, but they still eat the food right out of your hand. It probably doesn't help that there was a whole bunch of toddlers running around. Here's so pics. Jon was pretty sad he missed out, so we'll be going back one of these days when he can join us. Plus it was free and you all know those are my favorite kinds of activities :)

The pictures are a little out of order and kind of repetitive, but its getting late and I don't want to fix it.

Ellie didn't care much for the animals. This airplane was so much cooler.

 Taegen and his friend Henry standing by a deer. 

 A male peacock

 Heres a male and female peacock. Just in case any of you don't know, the males are the colorful pretty ones, not the females. The males use their colors to impress the females. 

 Taegen had dropped some carrots right next to the stoller and the peacock came right up to us to get them. 

 Ellie could care less. She just chilled in her seat the whole time. 

 side view of peacock with it's feathers out. 

 I tried to get a picture of Taegs standing next to the peacock with it's feathers out, but he would not cooperate. He was afraid if he turned his back on it, it's peck him. He probably thought this because some of the kids had been pecked by the chickens/rooster. The peacocks however were calm and didn't hurt anyone. 

 back view of peacock feathers

 front view

Taegs and the chickens/rooster. 

 The peacocks and deer in the backround. 

 Heres the kids, Valeria, and the beautiful scenery. It really was a very beautiful place, minus all the poop on the ground.

 Look a white peacock!

 Heres where I was trying really hard to get him to let me take a picture of him and the peacock. This is as close as he would get to it.

 He didn't seem to have a problem getting close to them to feed them or touch them if their feathers weren't out. 

 Taegs and Kai

 Feeding the deer

 running after the animals.

 The deer had just taken the carrot out of his hand and he jumped back and got really excited. He is saying "whoa" 

 He actually got to pet one while it was distracted. 

The one with the SA Zoo

My workout buddy, Larina and I and our kids decided to go to the zoo. Since her husband is in the wounded warrior program, she's alone and always willing to do something. A lot like me :) So this was a perfect outing for us. Plus the kids loved it. Ellie and her daughter were a little young still, but Taegs LOVED it. 

Monkeys!

Taegs and Ellie next to the monkeys. As you can see, Ellie was not as into it all as Taegs was. 

 

Taegs cheesin it up as usual. 

 They only had 1 elephant. Well at least only 1 was out. This zoo was fairly small in the amount of each animal that they had. Plus they didn't have giraffes! What kind of zoo doesn't have giraffes?! 

 Larina showing Taegen where the Tiger was laying. 

 This tiger had a huge pen all to itself, super green and beautiful and this is where it decides to sleep. In the corner on a metal plate. Weird.

 This is a HUGE snapping turtle. They're probably all that big and I just didn't know that. But when we first saw it, it was standing right up next to the glass and I thought it was fake. It was in a really small tank. You know the ones you see that are just filled with small fish. Probably no wider and taller than 3 or 4 ft. He was completely still. Didn't move for quite a while. I was convinced it was fake, until he blinked an eye. Kinda freaked me out. Then he slowly opened his mouth super wide. Creepy but cool at the same time.

 Here we are sitting on a Komodo dragon statue. 

 If you look closely you can see the hippos in the backround. There were TONS of tiny fish in with the hippos that were feeding off/keeping them clean.

 This is an animal I had never seen before. It an Okapi, it is half zebra half giraffe. Totally crazy. It's hind legs are striped with a longer neck. Taegen really liked this one. He was waving to him and laughing. There was another kid looking at it at the same time and they got in a fight about what it was. Taegen was saying it was a zebra and the other one was saying it was a giraffe. :)

 So excited to see the Okapi.

 Here is Ellie and Ava. Ava is 1 month younger than Ellie but she's so chubby she makes Ellie look skinny, which she is most definitely not :) Gotta love chubby babies

 Taegs on the Komodo Dragon statue.

 And one more of the turtle that I was so fascinated with. haha. I was looking at the pictures on my computer once we got home and I asked Taegs what this was and his response was "a HUGE tortoise"  :)

We had a great day at the zoo. I didn't get a pic of all the animals that we saw just the ones Taegs really liked. He said his favorite was the elephant. He did also like the crocodiles, but those creep me out so I didn't get a pic of those.