Little Zoo Animals!

Yesterday, Katie and I took the girls to the Gentry Drive Thru Safari! Katie got to the house and we loaded up the car then stopped by Wal-Mart to get food for a picnic lunch. We got stuff for sandwiches, chips and dip, cookies, and fruit cups for the girls. We arrived to the zoo and got out to let the girls get in the front seat with us. ** You only drive like 5 mph thru the countryside to it is ok for them to sit up front. We had to do a couple of picture poses first!

They love each other!

We drove thru the safari and go to see deer, buffalo, lions, tigers, bears, an alligator, hippo, and rhino! Meanwhile, several emu birds came pecking at the window. I don't if it was the time of year or something else, but there weren't as many animals out as usual. In the past, we have seen tons of emus, llamas, and camels walking about. Last time, we even had a Texas Longhorn lick our car window! However, the girls still enjoyed it!

After the driver thru, we parked our car and headed to the pavilion for the picnic lunch. There were 2 chickens and a rooster walking around and the girls could no nothing but watch them. When the chickens would get close they would start screaming at them. Once we were done with lunch the girls each got $1 to buy animal feed. Then we headed to the goat pen! Gracyn took a minute or two to warm up to the goats but then came to love them!

She loved this little, black goat.

This little piggy wanted in on some of the action!

Counting the kangaroos! 

Look under the picnic table and you will see a Mama Hen and her little chicks!

Observing the lemurs. These little guys were so much fun! A baby lemur had gotten out of his mama's cage and was putting on a show for everyone! The mama lemur kept trying to grab him and pull him back in. We all had a blast watching the little guy!

The last thing to do was ride the camel and ponies! This is Jewel the camel. The entire way around the track you could hear Caroline asking why the camel had a towel on!

We had a couple of falls by both girls, Gracyn got her finger pinched in the fence, and we had a couple of fits, but overall we had a great time! I can't even imagine what our beach vacation is going to be like in August, but I am excited to find out!

Discover the Dinosaurs!

Last weekend we headed down to Fort Smith for the Dinosaur Expo! Awile back ago, Gracyn watched an episode of Dora that was about a baby dinosaur. Ever since then she has just been obsessed with them! Once my mom told me about the expo I just knew we had to go!

The first part of the expo consisted of aminated dinosaurs. We could read about that specific dinosaur then push buttons to make it move and roar. Kaeleigh and Gracyn loved this!

Loving on the dinosaurs!

Posing with my favorite dino! Ole Steggie!!!

Kaeleigh got to sift for gems!

My Little Paleontologist!

Caroline showed up!

Waiting in line to ride T-Rex!

How brave is she?!

Hoppy Easter!!!

I'm a little delayed on posting about Easter. I've been meaning to every night since Easter, but have just been too busy.  Easter was good. The day before we went to the NCAA Regional Gymnastics Meet. The Gymbacks took 2nd place overall which qualified them for Nationals!!! This meet went a lot longer than we thought it would. We didn't get home til 7:30. So Clint made dinner and Gracyn and I started on the Easter Treats! We made Easter cookies, bunny pops, Peeps rice crispy treats, and chocolate covered peeps! Yes I know...I made way too many treats for just 3 people! I made Clint take it all to work the next day!  After dinner, we dyed Easter eggs! Gracyn had a blast! As soon as she put the egg in the cup, she wanted to use the wand to get it back out. It was difficult to make her understand that it needed to sit in the cup for a little bit.

The next morning she got up and walked into the living room and was suprised to find the Easter Bunny had set out all the treats we had made, hid the eggs we dyed, AND left her an Easter basket full of goodies!!! We had a great breakfast of Bunny pancakes and bacon!

Look at that balance!!!

Mmmm...M&M's!!! She also got sidewalk chalk, a necklace and bracelet set, stickers for her potty chart, a new book about Splat the Cat, Bunny Pajamas, and a Minni Mouse Bow-tique Cupcake Set! Oh and a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CD....we listen to it all the time!

That Easter Bunny sure is a good egg hider, but Gracyn is one of heck of an egg hunter!!! I think the Easter Bunny will start hiding the eggs outside next year.

She insisted on putting on her new Bunny PJ's! Can you also tell she had been eating M&M's?!

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Bunny Pops!!! Gracyn devoured these! They were super easy and I loved how they turned out!

Bunny pancakes....this just might have to be a blog post in itself. Let's just say that Clint shot one in the face and I will NEVER ask him to make cute animal creature pancakes again!

Wizard of Oz Ballet

This past weekend Kaeleigh was in the Western Arkansas Ballet production of Wizard of Oz. She tried out a couple of months ago and got the part of one of the flying monkeys! She has had rehearsals every Saturday and has worked so hard at it. I was really impressed with the whole production! After the ballet, we all went to Goody's Frozen Yogurt. Yummy!

We weren't allowed to take pictures while the ballet was going on, but I was lucky enough to pull some from Google Images! These are pictures from the actual ballet Saturday night!

Waiting for the show to start!

The little dancer after the show!!!

Nothing like a little froyo after the show! I just love this picture!!! Kaeleigh is such a great aunt and Gracyn just adores her!!!

Easter Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we had Gracyn's Easter picture made with Myra Wike Photography. Gracyn was so excited about the real bunnies! She was a little hesitant at first, but within a few minutes she warmed up to them. Well, I take that back. She warmed up to the brown floppy ear bunny, but not the black nd white. He was a little too active for Gracyn's liking. Here's a few of my favorites!

The Lorax

Friday night Clint went to Hot Springs with his friends for a Bachelor party weekend. Gracyn and I decided we would have a girl's night out. I picked her up at Tamara's house to find her in a pink tutu and polished nails. She twirled all around to show me her pretty skirt. She had a blast at Tamara's!

We decided to go see The Lorax. We got some popcorn and a drink and headed in. I thought this kid was going to wiggle out of her skin because she was so excited to get her hands on that popcorn! Once we got settled in she attacked the popcorn! There was a preview for an animated movie, ParaNorman, that was about a loner kid that could see ghosts. He had to save his town from this ghouly creatures. This scared Gracyn. I don't think we will be seeing ParaNorman.  However, we both really enjoyed The Lorax. I had never read the book so had no idea what it was about, but found I really enjoyed it.

This is the Lorax. Handsome little creature.

This had to be one of my favorite parts of the movie! They are eating marshmellows!

Gracyn's Favorite Books.

It makes me so happy that Gracyn wants me to read to her every night. We have the same ritual for bedtime every night and she knows that reading is part of that. After bath time, we put her pj's on then she tells me "I wanna book." She has tons of books, but she has three favorites.

Sarah brought Gracyn the If You Throw a Pig a Party book and stuffed pig to the hospital the day Gracyn was born. This will always be a special book to me for this reason alone. It's the first book that Gracyn really took to and wanted to read over and over. We would work on colors by picking out the different color balloons. She would name all the animals and tell me what sound they would make.

Ma got Gracyn Llama Llama Red Pajama for her 2nd birthday. We read this almost every night. It's about a little llama that is getting ready for bed. He stirs up all kinds of llama drama as he is waiting for his mama to bring him a drink. Gracyn loves the way I tell the story a little louder as baby llama gets more dramatic. I think she needs the other books in the series, which include, "Llama Llama Home with Mama", and "Llama Llama Mad at Mama."

Gracyn got Love, Splat as part of her Valentine's gift. It's about a clumsy cat that likes another cat at his Cat School, Kitten. He makes her a special Valentine card but is scared to give it to her. Spike, another cat at Cat School, also likes Kitten. Spike makes Kitten a giant card and Splat feels defeated so throws his card to Kitten in the trash can. Kitten finds the card and chooses Splat! What a great love story! This is also one that read every night.

I found a blog on pinterst on books every little girl should read. I look forward to crossing the books off the list as Gracyn gets older. I love to read and hope she will as well. At this point, I think she will!