A new adventure

Brennan has been munching away at his crib rails lately and it's starting to get bad. Carter is doing it too, but he doesn't seem as chomp happy. I started looking into crib teething guards to protect the wood, but our cribs are really thick and most products out there don't work well. I turned to etsy, thinking maybe I'd try to purchase something handmade. Each set was $75 dollars! I then thought to myself "well, they don't look that hard to make..." and decided to research the cost of sewing machines. I found one on Wal-Mart's website that was only available online, but was only $80, plus shipping, which was a whopping 97 cents! It also had rave reviews from amateurs and professionals, so I decided to take a leap of faith and make the purchase.

The machine came in today, so naturally I was pretty excited to get all of my supplies purchased. I packed up the boys and found a fabric and craft store in the next town over. We pulled in, I got the boys out of the car, into their stroller, and then into the store only to realize that they were moving. There was pretty much nothing in the store; 75% of the shelves were completely empty. I looked up and saw a sign that said, "come visit our new location!" and had the address listed. I then take the boys back out to the car and punch the address into the GPS.

We make our way to the store, boys packed into the stroller and walk in, only to realize they haven't even opened this store yet. I was really disappointed. This whole trip had already taken 50 minutes and I had nothing to show for it.

From there I decided to drive to Wal-Mart. I remembered seeing supplies there, but couldn't remember if they had fabric or not. I loaded up on all of the essentials, but they didn't carry any material so I was SOL on that front. I'm happy they at least had most of the basics that I needed to get started though, and I probably ended up spending less money on them there than at some specialty store.

A few of the girls from the message board suggested I try looking for some other stores and gave me a few names. Turns out the next town over has two of the bigger fabric and craft chains in addition to the one I had no success with. I guess we know where my field trip for tomorrow is going to be. :)

I'm back, baby!

I actually made it to the gym today! Jordan ended up charging me for just one of the three sessions I missed last week due to the plague that was in our house. We started things off with a set of 10 squats, then moved on to cleans with a 20 lb ball. After that I did some new, weird stretch against the wall. I immediately saw the benefits of it though, so that gets a thumbs up.

The exercise of the day was the clean and jerk. I started out with just the bar, 45 lbs. and progressed up to 75 lbs! Jordan was extremely excited for me and was really happy with my results - he usually doesn't get the opportunity to teach this to most clients.

The workout of the day was 9 minutes total; 3 minutes of sumo dead lifts with just the bar, as many as I could do in 3 minutes. Then I went immediately into 3 minutes of kettle bell swings, and then 3 minutes of push ups. I only ended up with around 120 reps for the entire 9 minutes, so it was a pretty crappy "score", but my hands kept cramping up into something I like to call "the claw". Three hours after I was done working out I was still having problems with them.

I'm going back tomorrow at 11:00 for another session, then again on Friday. I must be a glutton for punishment.


Today after taking the boys outside to swing, I brought them in for diaper changes. I finished with Brennan and sat him on the floor in our bedroom. I had Carter up on the bed and was halfway through his diaper change when out of the corner of my eye I see Brennan smack his face into the the corner of our bed frame. Of course he cried, so I picked him up (Carter was still half naked on the bed) and I immediately noticed blood in his mouth - a ton of it. I kept my wits about me and didn't panic. I'm actually really good in situations like this. I put him down for just a second so I could put Carter down on the floor (still no diaper on) so that he wouldn't fall off of the bed.

I picked Brennan up and took him to our bathroom and started to clean his mouth out with water to see where the injury was. After much inspection, I finally found the source - he had torn his top frenulum; that little flap of skin in between your lips and gums. I took him to the kitchen to grab a cold, wet paper towel and let him chew on it, by this time the bleeding had almost stopped. I brought him back into the bedroom, looked down, and noticed a dark, moist line coming from right in front of where Carter was sitting and stretched out about a foot in front of him. He had peed on our newly cleaned carpets. Awesome!

Sick

So we quickly figured out that the babies' problems this weekend with the lack of sleeping was due to a virus. They had diarrhea while we were down there, but I honestly thought it was from my parents feeding them nothing but fruit all day long. Hellooooo fiber! But it turns out that was not the case.

Evan ended up catching it as well. Yesterday morning he woke up and said his butt hurt. I thought he was just constipated, but a minute later figured out I was wrong. This horrible smell quickly filled the room and I checked his pull up (thankfully he wasn't in underwear since it was right after he woke up!) It was like poo soup had flooded his pants. I took him into the bathroom, and once again, thankfully there was no dripping or leaking because we had just had the carpets cleaned the day before! As soon as I opened up the side of his pull up it was like the levee broke. It was everywhere! Even on my pajama pants. Sorry for the grossness if you're still reading!

I got him cleaned up and a new pull up on, there was NO WAY we were going to chance it with underwear. Daddy left and called school on the way out to tell them Ev wouldn't be there. Ten minutes later, as he was laying with me in bed and watching Dora, he puked all over my mattress and blankets.

The rest of the day went okay, but just as I was thinking he'd get to go to school tomorrow (they have a 24 hour rule), he had another bout of diarrhea. He's here with me again today and seems to be doing just fine.

I however am not doing so well on the workouts this week because of this stupid virus. I missed my session on Monday and Jordan was kind enough to reschedule me for Wednesday...and then Evan got sick. So now it will have been a whole week since my last workout when I go back tomorrow. It's going to suck so bad!

Sleepless in Dittmer

Yesterday Kevin and I had a large list of things we needed to get done around the house before the boys' birthday party on July 3rd. We sent the babies off to my mom and dad's house. Actually, I woke up, packed their bags, and drove all three down there by myself with the intention of Kevin getting an early start on his outdoor chores. The heat index was supposed to be somewhere around 105, so it get's hot early. It's an hour drive down there, I spent half an hour visiting, and then another hour on the road going back home to start the chores. I fully expected Kevin would have had a few things crossed off of the list by the time I got back.

Boy was I wrong. He went right back to bed after I left, got up for what I presume was a window of about fifteen minutes to shovel down some cereal, and then went back to bed. I was fuming when I came inside to find him snoring and snuggled into the covers.

Anyway, the plan was to hammer out our housework, and drive back down to my parents' place to spend the night. We had to go back down because they had tickets to an event with some of Dad's coworkers. Little did we know we were about to walk into the fiery pits of hell. It turns out the babies had only napped about half an hour the entire day. They were completely over tired and over stimulated. We managed to get them off to bed for the night pretty easily. Around 10 o'clock we all headed to bed. The babies were each in their own pack 'n play, and Evan was in between Kevin and I...but we were all in the same bedroom. Can you see where this is going?

Their house has ridiculously high vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors throughout. Noise travels quickly and loudly no matter what room you're in. Mom and Dad got home around 11:30 and the babies stirred a little bit when they came in, but nodded back off to dreamland pretty quickly. About an hour later, Uncle Nate came strolling through the door and the babies woke up again, except for this time they refused to go back to sleep.

Kevin and I continued to fight them for the next half hour to forty five minutes when Kevin finally got pissed off and sleep deprived enough to strap them into their car seats and go for a drive. I didn't argue with him, but knew what the end result would ultimately end up being, there was no stopping him at this point anyway. He ended up driving half an hour in both directions and got back home a little after two in the morning.

I was still in bed with Evan while he was on his night drive, but didn't really sleep well. I couldn't shake a very worried feeling I had that since it was so late and that they could all end up in a bad accident or something. They were fine and my prediction was right; the second he got them into the house and laid in their beds they started wailing again. We tried for another fifteen minutes to settle them when I realized they were both wide awake. I took them into the living room, turned the light and tv on and let them play with their toys on the floor while I fought to stay awake.

They were so tired; constantly rubbing eyes and laying their heads down, only to jerk themselves around, pull their own hair, or poke at my face to stay awake. Finally at around four a.m. I decided to turn off the tv and light and hold both of them while rocking in the recliner. It was inevitable, just as one would start to nod off, the other one would start in on a yet another desperate attempt to keep their eyes open...waking up the other brother. I fought them for forty five minutes when finally they were both to the point where they were so exhausted all they could do was sit, squirm, and scream at the top of their lungs. I was getting to the point where I was running out of options.

Thankfully PawPaw finally heard them crying and came out into the living room. Gammaw followed shortly after and they took the babies from me so that I could try to get some rest. At this point it was within minutes of turning 5 o'clock. It was a little longer before I remember noticing that the cries had stopped. I guess they eventually got them both down (see how much simpler things can be when there's a 1:1 ratio?) and took them back to their bed.

They woke up around 8 in the morning and you could still tell from their faces that they had some catching up to do on sleep. However, they continued to laugh in the face of restful zzzz's and protested every time we tried putting them down for a nap. It has been a horrible battle with them this weekend.

We put them down tonight at 6:45, gave them a bottle, put on their night time diapers, laid them in their cribs and shut the door. One of them cried for 20 or more minutes, but we knew we just had to let whoever it was just go at it. Going in to check on them would have just started the whole tear filled, painful process all over again. Here's to hoping they stay asleep for the night and wake up well rested.

I did it!

Woke up this morning, hopped on the scale and saw a b-e-a-utiful number: 139.6! Squee! Of course by the time I ate and put on shoes and workout clothes I was about three pounds heavier, but I still saw the number. Jordan forgot to take measurements at the beginning of our session, so we did it at the end instead. You know, after I'd sucked down an entire bottle of water during our workout ;) and the gym scale showed 144.0 I guess that's pretty in-line with my scale at home (like I said, after shoes, food, and workout clothes...and we can't forget that whole bottle of water ;) ). Super excited; lost another inch from my waist and another half inch from my arms. My body fat went from 25% last month to 22%. Jordan said he'd love to see 20% next month and 139 on the gym scale. I think I can do it. And I'm getting so close to my goal I can almost taste it. I want it so badly.

Today I did 21 sumo dead lifts in a row, unbroken, one after the other with no resting. Ho-lee shite! The workouts we do apparently all have names. Today I did Helen (giggle): 1 lap around the building, 21 sumo dead lifts, 12 push ups - all times 3. Just for the record, Helen is a bitch! Trust me, you never want to meet her, unless you want to lose weight and build muscle...then you kick her ass!

I'm throwing around the idea of going in for a tummy tuck consultation soon, just to know what they can do for me and how much I need to be saving up. There are a few places that have free consultations, so I think I'll try one of those first. Generally, what I'm seeing is that they start around $6k. I'm sure mine would end up being more, there's a lot of hanging skin that spreads well past both of my pelvic bones towards my hips. Some places offer financing though...which I'm sure we could always go that route as long as the interest rates aren't through the roof.

I hope this day continues to be fantastic and I can keep this momentum going!

Going Solo

Today I got myself and the babies fed, changed, and into the car to head to the gym because I *thought* I had a session with my trainer, Jordan, today. I was wrong. I realized it as I was warming up on the elliptical machine - I remembered having a conversation about this week doing Monday and Thursday instead of our usual Wednesday.

No harm, no foul. I made lemons into lemonade and decided to give this working out on my own at the gym thing a try. It helped that my trainer wasn't even there. I would probably have just left if he were because I would have been super intimidated. I still was, but I mustered up enough courage to do some of the exercises we do together. I think I got a pretty good workout on my own, but there's no way I can push myself as hard when he's not around screaming at me ;)

Tomorrow when we meet up, I think I'll have him take a little bit of extra time walking me through some of the prep processes of the free weights so that I can attempt dead lifts, cleans, push presses, and all of that other crap by myself. He said he really wants me to start getting comfortable doing these things on my own anyway, so I guess it's time to really start focusing on the small details.

Jordan said ideally, he'd have me do workouts like the ones we do together on my own and ditch the cardio at home all together since our workouts usually incorporate it in there and will do more for me. So, I've already told Kevin I have a gym wish list. In a perfect world, I'd like to finish off a room in the basement for working out...with a rubber padded floor, big mirrors on the wall (no, I'm not that vain, they really do help you when trying to make sure your form is correct), a Smith machine and rack, and a set of kettle bells and free weights - along with the treadmill and other small things we already have.

I was also prepared to weigh in and take measurements today and was super bummed that I haven't broken through the 140s yet when I checked myself this morning at home. I'm seriously getting pissed. I'm literally teetering on the line, this morning on my scale I was 140.6. Point effing six...come on already, throw me a bone stupid scale! It feels like I've been stuck there for a little over a week.

Hopefully, if I drink enough water and take care of myself today, when I wake up in the morning that .6 will have magically melted away. We'll see!

Woohoo!

Great news! For our anniversary, Kevin and I decided to drop the kids off at Nonna's house. Pawpaw was tired, so Nonna had Aunt Shari come over to help. It really is a lot of work watching all three, especially in a place that has so many things that aren't meant to be touched or played with.

We headed a little ways down the road to the mall and decided to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. I still stuck to a paleo dinner; had steak and some fresh steamed broccoli...which I had to sub out for, it came with mashed potatoes. Not so paleo friendly ;) I was a good girl and didn't order any cheesecake either, but I did order a Blue Moon wheat beer, which according to my trainer IS a paleo beer. I'm not entirely sure on how true that is, though.

Before Kevin got home from work that night, I was trying to find something nice to wear. Well, it's quite evident that I hang out in pajamas and work out clothes 99% of the time, because when I was trying stuff on everything; quite literally EVERYTHING was too big.

I also wanted to mention that Kevin left work early and went to pick up some flowers for me. Evan helped pick them out, which was pretty obvious; some of them were neon orange :) Orange is Ev's most favorite color. He also picked out a balloon for me - it was a Dora ballon that said "feliz cumpleanos" LOL! And, it later became apparent that I was not the balloon's true owner, Evan was.

Anyway, back to the story. I had no clothes, but put together something that fit decent enough with a belt to keep my pants up. After dinner we went into the mall and Kevin said it was okay for me to start looking for some new jeans. I knew the Gap always has awesome jeans and knew they would be worth the splurge.

I found a few pairs I liked in the size I thought I was fitting into. I took them to the dressing room, put a pair on, came out to where Kevin was sitting in a chair and one of the cashiers, Ryan took one look at me and said in a totally fantastic, sassy tone "Oh honey, no, no, no, no, no. Those are too big on you! You're going to have to go down a size...what size are those?" I responded with, "Really? They're eights...they're too big?"

So then Ryan filled me in on how jeans should fit. I think I must have been wearing them in the wrong size my whole life ;) He went back to grab a bunch of different styles in a size 6. A SIZE SIX!! I seriously almost cried in the dressing room. I was a size 14 just 6 months ago. Ryan was so incredibly helpful, and if I could have taken him home with me for future shopping trips, I totally would've. We walked out with a couple hundred dollars in jeans, but I'm not anticipating getting too much smaller than what I am now. There's just too much stretched out skin to go down another size, I think. But can you imagine if I were to get a tummy tuck (which by the way is the plan in about 2 years)? I'd probably in all reality be a size four right now.

My trainer is super proud. The highlight of my weekend was when Kevin admitted to checking out a girl from behind that was a little distance away and then realized that it was ME! I'm finally feeling good about myself again!

Five Years

Five years ago today I married my best friend. We've definitely had our moments of frustration, anger, sadness, and joy - as with any marriage. Time has really flown by. Looking back on our wedding day, that version of me would never in a million years have guessed what our future would hold. I definitely would not have thought we would be blessed with three of the world's most wonderful boys...or that we'd have all three with less than two years between them. There are many curve balls in our lives, but that one was the biggest we've survived together so far.

There are many sources out there that say the divorce rate among parents of multiples is sky high. After making it through nearly a year with our boys - I can say from experience that I understand why. Having two small beings that depend on you for their very survival; to feed them when they're hungry, change them when they're soiled, kiss the boo boos when they fall, and hold them tight when they simply just need you...for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and for a lifetime, is extremely challenging, difficult, and tiresome. It leaves you in a state of panic, exhaustion, and frustration...which can all be detrimental to a relationship. That's not even taking into consideration the financial and emotional situations that come along with multiples, or the (social) life that you are supposed to carry on outside of your family.

This year has definitely been the height of stress in my life, but it has also been the height of happiness - even those times of Kevin and I wanting to strangle each other are far outnumbered by the good times this year has brought with it. Let's face it, there aren't a lot of mothers and fathers out there who were blessed enough to be given the opportunity to raise two or more kids of the same age together. It takes something special that not everyone has. Obviously, Kevin and I were deemed worthy enough by the powers that be, and we couldn't be more thankful. And I cannot imagine riding this crazy roller coaster that is our life with anyone else.

Happy Anniversary, Kevin!

Coming Out of the Closet

We are slowly trying to get everything ready for the boys' first birthday party - we're having it at our house. At first I figured a lot of people wouldn't show up; we are an almost two hour drive for a lot of my family and it's on a holiday weekend. I guess I figured wrong - almost everyone, to my knowledge so far, plans on coming. So now I have to figure out where to put 30-40 people in my house.

Need your house de-cluttered, deep cleaned, and detailed? Schedule some major event to take place at your place and invite a shit load of people. You'll be panicking weeks in advance and tearing your house apart so that you can put it back together in an eye appealing manner. Problem solved. ;)

Our house is in that state of massive filthiness right now. You know, the kind where you are cleaning out one room and shit ends up piled in another? Oddly enough though, that stage is the madness before the place really starts to shape up. Once all of that crap has found it's rightful new home (whether it be the trashcan, basement, etc.) you instantaneously have a clean and organized home.

Today I decided to tackle our bedroom walk in closet. A lot of my family have never been here before, and that means everyone will want to see what lies behind every.single.door. Our closet is juuust big enough to contain our clothes and then a massive amount of junk that didn't seem to have a proper place. Making it a not-so-walk-in walk in closet. First I pulled out all of the blankets, (our linen closet is insanely small and they don't all fit) and decided they probably need to be washed again since I hadn't really inspected the inner depths of the closet's remaining contents. So, into the laundry pile they went.

After removing that bulkiness, I found: a few old diapers (newborn size!), old magazines, shoes I haven't worn in 5+ years, wires and cords to unknown electronic gadgets, safety pins, a screw, a small desk fan, a lamp, a breast pump and all of it's accessories, a large box of miscellaneous stuff, parts from the boys' pack 'n plays, nursing pillows, a pregnancy pillow, a grilling cook book, all amongst other obscure items.

It's all in one of two places: the trash, or a pile at the stairs waiting to be taken to the basement. The closet looks great now though! Next is tackling the rest of our bedroom and bathroom, which shouldn't take long at all. From there it's all in the details...dusting, vacuuming, cleaning baseboards, power washing the deck, scrubbing toilets, etc. And a little over 3 weeks to go. Not so easy when you have 3 kiddos nipping at your heals the entire time, but I have faith we (okay...I) will get it done in time.

Three things

So, there are three things, okay..three exercises that I HATE. Just three, the rest I simply tolerate; there is no love going on there. Burpees, running, and wall balls. Today's workout involved TWO of them. That must be what hell is like, only there I'm sure the devil would have thrown in all three with a few others that I don't like as much. I'm starting to think my trainer is a sadist - he's pure evil. ;) We started out with ten body weight squats, ten push ups, ten body weight squats, and ten more push ups. We also threw in a set of ten weight assisted pull ups in there. Then we worked on my dead lift some more. I got up to 120 lbs this time! Then the exercise portion with: 21 sumo dead lift high pulls (pull the bar up to your collar bones), 21 wall balls, and 21 burpees. Then the same exercises, but in sets of 15 and then in sets of 9. Afterward, we finished up with a few planks. I was beat; totally exhausted and drenched in sweat. Thank God someone took and/or broke his stop watch a few days ago, otherwise I would have been hearing "x minutes and x seconds! Come on, you gotta hit this hard. Let's see some intensity!" Barf!

Two of our big televisions aren't working, but honestly I find it kind of nice. It's making me get more stuff done around the house and I feel like less of a lazy bum - even though I usually just have it on to make it feel like someone else is home with me. Which is why I guess they both gave out on us - endless hours of being on all of the time.

I'm catching up on laundry (didn't ever think that was going to happen). Yesterday, I think I did a total of 9 loads. And that's with two babies up my ass every waking second of the day. They are having some MAJOR separation anxiety problems. I leave the room to go put something away and it sounds like one (or both) of them got their arm ripped off and then smacked with it.

Brennan's also figured out how to break through our barrier to keep them out of the kitchen. This has totally left me scratching my head and thinking "what next?" *sigh* I guess we'll finally have to put some locks on the cabinets - which we didn't even have to do when Evan was little.

Despite getting so much done these past two days, the house looks totally destroyed again. It's mostly dirty dishes and clean laundry (Kevin's - he can put his own shit away!) The mess combined with no tv and 24-hour tears and screams makes me want to leave the house for the day, but I don't want to mess with their schedules. Plus, like stated above, I'm exhausted. I'm a prisoner to my own home today.

What a day!

So as if my day wasn't wonderful enough (see last post)...it actually gets a little better, with a small wrench thrown in there. Bad news first: we are in the middle of a hair pulling crisis. Carter has a problem; he loves to pull Brennan's hair...and bounce while he's pulling it. Brennan cries every.single.time, poor little guy. So a lot of my day is spent pulling two babies apart and as soon as I separate them they are right there back together again and going at it.

I'm really at a loss with what to do. You can't discipline him at this age, they aren't even a year old yet. There's no way he knows that what he's doing is wrong. I redirect and redirect but no matter what the behavior still continues. I firmly tell him no and shake my head. So what does he do? He gets a huge smile on his face and shakes his head back at me. The thing is, that when you redirect him and pull his hands away, they literally go right back up to Brennan's head as soon as you let go of his hands. Over and over and over. I'm so tired of it all.

And now the good news: Evan has been doing pretty well at potty training on those rare occurrences that we try with him. He stayed home with me one day last week, so I decided to put him in some big boy underwear. He only had two accidents the whole day. One was a poop, which he has never done successfully on the potty, so no surprise there. And the second time was Dad's fault - he wasn't paying attention and I was in the kitchen fixing dinner.

Tonight after Evan got home from school I put him in some big boy underwear again. Even though he was protesting against them and practically begging for a diaper. So onward with the underwear we went and soon after he was telling us he needed to use the potty. I took him into the bathroom and sat him down. He peed on the potty, so we did a round of high-fives and hugs, washed up, and went into the kitchen to get his "special treat".

A few minutes later he had that look on his face, so Daddy rushed him into the bathroom again. After a little coaxing, he actually pooped on the potty for the first time. We are so proud of him, our little boy is growing up! :)

Haus

As my husband would say, I'm "a Haus"...remember the big dude from the tv show Bananza? Yeah, probably not. Anyway, I've always been good at moving furniture around and the likes. Today at the gym we started with the typical reps of body weight squats, then reps of cleans with a 20 lb ball, etc. Then we headed over into the world of weights. We worked on my dead lift and got the motions pretty perfected. I slowly worked my way up to dead lifting 115 lbs! Holy crap! I'm a Haus! ;) He never tells me how much weight I've got on the bar, I always have to ask. And I usually do so AFTER finishing the set so that I don't psych myself out and get all worked up into a panic of "you can't do this!" From there we went into the workout portion and I did 10 inverted rows (chest HAD to touch the bar every time and my legs HAD to be straight or he wouldn't count it) and then 20 body weight squats, which also had to be perfect to count; in a series of 5 cycles. We finished off the session with 100 25 lb kettle bell swings and a good arm stretch since they were killing me by the end.

I also weighed myself this morning. I'm 7 lbs from goal! Just SEVEN pounds! This is huge, because just a week ago I was really struggling to stay on my game and eat right. I had even gained 1.5 lbs back. And now within a week of tweaking and getting back on the ball I've lost that 1.5 plus another 2.

This morning was wonderful - the babies slept in until 8 o'clock! This let me get my morning together before they woke up. I was able to shave, get into my workout clothes, and eat a good breakfast all while being uninterrupted! It was fan-freaking-tastic! Hooray for a good day!

Zoo-rific

PawPaw Gammaw are using vacation days for the rest of this week. Yesterday they went with me and all three boys to the zoo. Somehow all 6 of us and the monstrous stroller squeezed into the van. We left the house about 10:30 and I figured we'd better stop to get Evan something to eat, since he didn't have much for breakfast. I got him a chicken nugget Happy Meal with apples and a milk and decided I'd get myself a cheeseburger Happy Meal. I ate a few fries, and they actually messed up and gave us two...but we used them to keep babies quiet and occupied during the drive. Evan ate his entire meal, and then almost my whole cheeseburger. It was all for the best, since I really shouldn't have even ordered it.

We got the brood unpacked and all the crap on board the stroller and headed into the zoo. First we stopped to see the bears and Evan wasn't super impressed. As we were walking to the penguin exhibit the train went by and he got really excited - he wanted to ride Thomas. He seemed to enjoy watching the penguins swim underwater through the glass and liked that one was showing off for him and trying to splash him with water. Carter liked them as well. Brennan...well, he was a really good boy the whole time, but wasn't into anything besides people watching.

After exiting the penguin exhibit the train went by again and that sealed the deal. Evan had to ride NOW! So we waited in line with our tickets and we just missed fitting on the first train to pull in. Then the second train came and didn't even let anyone on, but just then they brought out another train from the garage - and it was blue. Perfect! Evan really did think it was Thomas! You'd think that as excited as he was that he'd enjoy the ride, right? Not really, he kept his eyes closed or his hands over his eyes the majority of the time.

We made our way around to see the apes, and the snakes and lizards, and then the monkeys. Then we headed over to Big Cat Country. Mom and I were worried about my dad and his diabetes, so we decided to stop and get him and Evan some ice cream. Evan wanted a popsicle and it was H U G E! And of course he got angry when it started melting and we had to take it away.

After that we checked out all the antelope type animals and the giraffes and eventually made our way over to the Children's Zoo. He played around a little inside and was a little hesitant to pet the guinea pigs and bunnies, but he managed to do so for a few seconds. We headed back out to the water fountain play area and tried to get him to play in the water, but he refused. Carter definitely seemed into it though, so we took his clothes off and let him splash around in his diaper. He had a blast.

It was getting late and we were all tired, so we decided to call it a day. All three kiddos were snoozing in their car seats before we even left the parking lot it seemed. It was a great trip and the babies' first time at the zoo. I was so impressed with all of the kids and how well they handled being out in the hot sun for so long.