The Penguins! The Penguins!

Saturday morning, Claire & I got up bright and early (seriously, out of the house before 7:45am) to go to the zoo and see the Penguins. I wanted to go to Friends of the Zoo special morning event in hopes of it not being too busy and because there were free donuts! and coffee! and juice! Although we got there and found out it was free Pancakes (Chris Cakes Pancakes) and sausage and juice! I was sad about the lack of free coffee though. Justin & Anaya had no interest in going with us, so it was just Claire and I. Actually, Anaya thought she might go, to see the penguins...until she realized that we were going so early and walking around the entire zoo.


When we went to Boo at the Zoo two weeks ago, we didn't see very many animals. We definitely made up for it this time. And since we were there so early the animals were just coming out and getting fed, so we got to some animals a lot better than normal. Of course, it was also pretty chilly, so quite a few animals were inside. Since this was also the first Saturday after Halloween, they also had their pumpkin smashes going on. We only saw the Chimpanzee pumpkin smash, but that was probably one of the better ones to see. I tried to convince Claire to go see the Elephant one, but she really wanted to go to "Asia" to see the red panda.


We got to see the crocodiles, which Claire always calls alligators. We saw the hippos out of the water for once, usually we only see their eyeballs peeking above the water. We walked all over most of the entire zoo - except for Australia - but we saw most of the Australia animals from the train. We even walked through the Tropics building, which we don't normally do, because Claire wanted to see a Toucan and I figured that was the best place to find one (and we did). Although there were a ton of people in that itty bitty building because they were about to let some of the Tropics' monkeys smash pumpkins.


We had a lot of fun at the zoo. We were there for almost 5 hours, which was about 2 hours longer than I had planned to be there.

October Activities (Part 2)

I posted about some of our early October activities already, and it seems like I just found more and more stuff to go do in the second half of the month! And now that October is over, I'll tell you all about what we did!


On my last October Activities post, I lamented about wanting to go apple picking but not being sure that we would get the chance. Well, we did. I looked at a couple online, and discovered that Cider Hill Family Orchard still had picking, so Claire & I got in the car on Sunday afternoon and went to pick apples! The only issue we had was the Claire was convinced that green apples were BAD and we should only pick red apples...but the only variety that was available were called Gold Rush and they were green. It took me a while to convince her that they were okay.


We went to Enchanted Forest in Lenexa at (the newly renovated) Sar-Ko-Par Trails Park this year. I don't think we went last year, but we did two years ago. Maybe we've gone twice, because it kind of seems like I took Anaya with us there once too. It was sooooo much better this year. The last time there was a HUGE line to get back into the "creepy" area and it just wasn't worth the wait. The park has been renovated and now there is a very nice pond that they set it up around and $3 got your under 12 yr old child unlimited bouncing in the bounce houses, a pumpkin to paint and rides on the hay ride (adults could ride the hay ride for free and I didn't actually see them check for kids wrist bands there at all). They also had puppet shows and magicians and other performers set up around the pond and SureWest provided a free face painter. She could've worn her costume, but I opted to not put her in it since it seemed like a good way to get it dirty and it's going to be really hard to clean anyways.


We've been to Mahaffie Farmstead quite a few times. In fact, since I grew up here, I even remember going there in high school to do a community service project for one of my classes. However, I had never gone to their Trick-or-Treat Off the Street event. It is pretty cheap per person ($3 each) and once you're in, everything is free! Claire wore her costume (which everyone LOVED). Claire was possibly more interested in seeing the farm animals than she was in trick or treating. And they had a hay ride, so of course we had to do that!


Claire was quite insistent that we had to carve pumpkins. She saw an Agent Oso episode about a girl wanting to carve a pumpkin, so then she wanted to carve a pumpkin...or two...or three. So the week before Halloween, we bought two pumpkins (a compromise!) and I told her we would carve them on Sunday. Which meant we had to talk about when Sunday was EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of the week. Claire was so excited to carve the pumpkins, until we actually started carving. She picked to face patterns out of a pumpkin carving pattern book we had from a previous year, I cut the tops off the pumpkin - which was the first step according to Oso. Then I tried to convince her to help scoop the insides out and she didn't care much for that and told me so was going to go "Watch Football with Daddy". After I got all the insides scooped out, I had her come back up and we decided which face would go on each pumpkin - but according to Oso only adults can actually carve pumpkins, so she went back to watching football and I carved the pumpkins.

Claire's Class Party

Claire's preschool class had a party. All the kiddos were ADORABLE. I'm not posting a picture because...I don't feel like blurry-ing out all the other kids' faces for their privacy. But Claire had fun and was even okay with me leaving her at school when the party was over. They only had about 15-20 minutes left of their day, but I wanted to run to Target without a 4 yr old...and she is used to riding the bus home.

Our October Activities

I love fall and I love getting out to do some fun family activities in the fall. We've been a little less active than normal since I'm pregnant and I'm the leader of almost all of our outings, but we're still having fun. Or at least I'm having fun and Claire is having fun.

Our first October activity was a school field trip to the KC Pumpkin Patch. Claire had so much fun running around with her classmates. We didn't stay for very long because the bus had to get back to the school to drop the kids off and go pick up other kids to take home, but it was long enough to wear us out.



The following weekend, I took Claire to Deanna Rose Farmstead to their Pumpkin Hollow attraction. Claire and I got to the farm pretty soon after it opened, spent about an hour roaming around visiting the animals. Then when Pumpkin Hollow opened, we rode the hay ride out to the it. She loves hay rides. We spent over an hour at Pumpkin Hollow - there was a slide and pumpkin bowling and a barrel train and more that she really loved doing.



The next weekend, I made my entire family go to Boo at the Zoo. I don't normally drag Anaya and Justin along to things that I know they have no interest in, but we were going to visit Justin's parents and the zoo is kind of on the way from our house to their house. So it just made sense for us all to go to the zoo for about 2 hours and then head on to their house! We only saw a small portion of the zoo - the polar bear (obviously), the Asia section and some of the main area with activities for kids. Claire really wanted to ride the train, so she and I took a train ride while they waited at the station. Claire and I will end up going again next month after the Penguins are there to specifically see them and then we'll probably go see some of the animals that we missed this time around. And Claire got to wear her costume (a giraffe) which EVERYONE thought was adorable and she did a little trick-or-treating.



I really wanted to get out to an orchard and pick apples, but I think we're nearing the end of the season and still haven't gotten around to it. We also wanted to take Anaya out to the KC Fear Farm for their Zombie Paintball, but that didn't end up working out either. We may have one more activity next weekend, but it would just be Claire & me.

Vacation Day 3

Today we made the almost hour long drive to Powell Gardens on the other side of Kansas City from where we live. Then we went to a movie - Madagascar 3 - back on this side of Kansas City.

Powell Gardens

7 years ago this November, Justin and I got married in the chapel at Powell Gardens. It is a gorgeous chapel. I went there a couple of times when we were preparing for the wedding but I haven't actually been there since getting married. Today was the first day of their Butterfly Festival and they have Fairy Houses and Forts built around the gardens. This activity had potential to be a lot of fun, but then Claire decided her favorite word today was NO and that if something wasn't going her way (which was everything) she was going to scream about it. In general, that is not fun, it's even less fun when you're struggling with her out in the 85-ish degree humid heat. Also, Claire has a bit of love/hate feelings about butterflies, she LOVES to look at pictures of them, but show her the real thing and she flips out. This is actually kind of new because at the beginning of the summer there were a couple of butterflies that she would chase around the side of the house. Anyways, it was kind of fun, but it was hot and I had a screaming toddler with me (sorry everyone else). Within 5 minutes of getting in the car to drive back home she was sound asleep. I ended up sending Anaya into a Subway to buy us lunch because I wasn't about to wake Claire up.

Madagascar 3

I let Anaya choose which movie to see between Madagascar 3 and Ice Age: Continental Drift. We ended up at Madagascar 3 which was good. I think as a whole that series is easier for a toddler to understand than Ice Age. Claire kept wanting to talk during the movie and not in a whisper. But she was in a better mood for the most part. And she ate most of a movie theater bag of M&M's because she missed lunch since she slept from just after noon until 1:15pm while we were driving.

At Home

We spent the rest of the day at home. We watched one of the other Ice Age movies and played with Barbies. We ate dinner (pancakes, cantaloupe, fake sausage). Then I collapsed on the couch and Anaya played on the computer and Claire played on the iPad. I eventually dragged the kids outside again by giving them ice cream. Then we sat on the driveway and attempted to get Claire to play with the Cicada shells. And after Claire went to bed and I finally cleaned up the kitchen, Anaya and I made Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt. It won't be ready to eat until tomorrow but it looks delicious.

I think this is the end of our Kansas City Vacation 2012. I don't have anything planned for tomorrow and I'm not really planning to plan anything.

Vacation Day 1

We're having a Kansas City Vacation. Except it's even better because we get to sleep in our own beds at night and when we all get on each others' nerves we can go to our separate spaces.

Day 1 was Crown Center & Union Station. We had fun. But it was exhausting.

Science City at Union Station

Claire may be a little young for Science City. Definitely something I will have to remember for when she's a little older. I think some 3 yr olds would be fine with it, but not mine. Anaya liked pretty much everything, I think if we didn't have Claire with us, we probably would've stayed longer, but she was done and Anaya had seen everything even if we hadn't spent quite as long as she would've liked at some of the stations. I think Claire's favorite thing was this spinning table in the Astronaut zone. I really thought she would like the water table, but we could barely get her to look at it. It took us about 2 hours to see everything and if I hadn't already decided we were going to do a lot more, we probably could've been done downtown after that.

Crown Center

Since Megan at The Nerd Nest always talks about d'Bronx pizza and we don't have one near our house, I decided to take the opportunity of being at Crown Center to give it a try and it was MUCH cheaper than Crayola Cafe which is where Anaya wanted to go. (She ended up being happy with my decision and has declared d'Bronx her favorite pizza place.) Since we're being vegetarians for the week, I ordered a tomato, onion and green pepper slice (half of which I removed so Claire would eat it) and Anaya ordered green pepper and jalapeno. Then we went down the hall to their free Dinosaur exhibit. It was nicer than some of the other free children's exhibits they have had down there.

Kaleidoscope

Anaya specifically requested that we go to Kaleidoscope this summer. I have to tell you though...I kind of hate that place. And Claire seems to agree with me. But Anaya LOVES it so I managed Claire while Anaya ran around and made a ton of crafts from leftovers from Hallmark. I actually like the IDEA of Kaleidoscope, but in reality it's just too loud and busy and Claire was just not interested to the point that I was picking her up off the floor from a screaming and kicking tantrum TWICE. I could understand her frustration but she wasn't understanding the concept of just deal for 20 minutes and then we'll do something you'll enjoy. Anaya left with a bag full of crafts and Claire had a bag with a fish she colored, a piece of paper with Chipette stickers on it and a 2 black light drawings that I mostly did.

SeaLife Aquarium

What Claire was wanting to do when we were in Kaleidoscope was go to the Aquarium. We got season passes back in April and this is the fourth time that Claire has been there. She saw it earlier when we were eating and all she wanted to do was go see the fishies already. She was making fish faces at me and saying "please" and she just wanted to see the fish. Anaya did not want to see the fish, but Claire dealt with Kaleidoscope so it was Anaya's turn to deal with Claire's favorite activity. We flew through there in less than 45 minutes. (And I took only 19 pictures. I mean, it is our FOURTH time there, how many pictures of fish does one really NEED and we'd already been doing STUFF for 5 hours at that point - I was done.) Claire knew what she wanted to see and where everything was and would stop when she wanted to look but otherwise just kept right on going. Then we had to get cookies at Panera because that's what you DO after going to the Aquarium according to Claire.

So, I just realized as I was looking through my pictures for this post that I had left my camera on the P setting most of the day which lets it pick the Aperture and Shutter Speed and I really should've had it on Shutter Speed Priority because I have lots of pictures where Claire is doing things and her hands are blurs.

Baseball Game

I was planning to work on my Project Life layout last night, then at 4pm, our company receptionist/office manager sent out an email about Royals tickets for that night. I called Justin to make sure he didn't mind and sent in a email to try and "win" the tickets. They do a drawing I think of all the people that say they want the tickets, I'm not sure if not very many people wanted them or if I was just lucky, but I won the tickets. So after a quick dinner, we headed out to Kaufman Stadium for our once a year baseball experience.

I've been spoiled by the company tickets, they are in the Diamond club. There are seriously FOUR actual rows in front of us and then a few rows of dugout seats and then the field. And in the Diamond Club, they have people that come down and take your order for food and drink. There's no way I would spend the amount of money required to buy these tickets - we enjoy going, but not THAT much. This picture - from my seat, no zooming.


I wasn't originally planning to take Claire, but she would've been so sad to stay home while Anaya, H and I went. And I had four tickets. So she got to come too! And she did MUCH better than I thought she would do. I did take the iPad so that she could play with it when she started getting antsy. She and I also went on a walk around the entire stadium.


We ended up staying until the beginning of the 9th inning. At that point, the Royals were ahead 8 to 2 and Claire was crying because everyone was screaming and yelling because someone hit a home-run that got 3 runs in. Then Claire looked at me and said "All Done" and did the sign she does when she's all done at dinner time (hands out facing up and kind of shrugs). So we packed up our stuff and went home, it was about 10pm at that point.


By the time we got home and put Claire in bed and took H home, it was too late to work on PL. Maybe tonight?