Jadon's party

My little guy is getting ready to turn SIX! I wanted to have a party while Jay was in town and Jadon's best little friend was here (his family is moving to Idaho for two years and we are going to miss them terribly.)  So we planned a zoo party two weeks before his actual birthday.  It was simple and fun, my kind of party!  We have a zoo pass and so do most of our friends so it is a great place to hang out with a big group of kids.  The funny thing is is when we go with a group of friends we usually don't see very many animals.  The kids like to go from playground area to playground area.  We usually just go back as a family and then we get to see a lot of the animals.

We all packed lunches and Anastasia made Minion cupcakes to celebrate with. Here are some pictures of all the little monkeys at the zoo.  :)

I think he had a pretty good time considering he passed out before we got out of the zoo parking lot!

Zoo

We have been able to enjoy the zoo two more times the past couple of months. We were trying to get some visits in before the heat kicks in. One of the times we went, my sister and her kids were able to come with. The kids had a great time together. All 11 of them! :) (Actually 12, including the little girl that I babysit). Of course the favorite thing to do this time of year is the water play. The kids play in the water and my sister and I get to talk and catch up it's a win-win!

Cute little girls!

Feeding the Stingrays.

Posers!

This is our favorite bridge and we have to walk across it every time we go to the zoo. We call it the "grumpy old troll" bridge and we always talk about the grump old troll who lives under it. (From the book The 3 Billy Goats Gruff).

The two cutest brothers ever!

The Zoo and Zoo lights

Papa Jack and Grandma Donna once again got our family a zoo pass, good for the whole year, for Christmas. We LOVE this gift. We only have to go twice a year for it to pay for itself and we go at least 6-8 times a year. The kids love going to the zoo, it has so much to offer and is a great outing and field trip! And right now there is a new Koala exhibit that we have not seen yet.

We had not been to zoo lights yet so we were going to make a day of it. We went to the zoo in the early afternoon, we brought out lunch with and stayed till the zoo closed at 4:00. It would then re-open at 6:00 for zoo lights. So while it was closed we ran some errands and went to Del Taco for dinner. (You can't beat .39 cent tacos for this crew)

We packed our warm jackets and hats for the evening and the weather was beautiful, chilly but not too cold.

Right now till the end of January they have these great "Polar Slides" The kids loved it. There is an extra cost so they each got to try it just once, but oh so much fun!

Thank you Papa and Grandma! We are very excited to enjoy the zoo for another year!

Da...Da...Da....Dora!

What an exciting morning in the life of a 2 year old! Natasha and I went to the zoo for a special breakfast with Dora The Explorer. To say that Natasha LOVES Dora is an understatement so when I found out she was coming to the zoo we just had to go. We had to sign up and pay extra (but we got a discount with our zoo membership) and this allowed us to show up to the zoo before it opened (at 7:00am, yes I said 7:00am which means we left our house at 6:00am) We had a breakfast, pictures with Dora and then fun playing with Fisher Price Toys. They sponsored the event. The best of all was that they had a raffle for about 12 baskets of toys and we won one!!!

Here is Tasha giving Dora a high five!

There was a whole area set up with toys and this is the one that Tasha went for! A guitar, guess you can't tell her daddy is a worship pastor ;) We might have to look for one of these for Christmas.

Here is the basket I won. It had a xylophone, kid tough binoculars, a magna doodle and a huge thing of Trio blocks.

Natasha loved petting the bunny and goat.

There was even a little course set up where the kids could pick a power wheel to ride around on. She of course picked the Dora Jeep.


What a great morning we had together!