Carissa finally got her hair cut!

I've been telling myself over and over that I needed to get Carissa's hair trimmed because it was just getting shaggy. I liked the length, especially since it didn't really grow much the first year, and it was fun to curl. But every day that went by, it just was screaming for a trim. So I finally did it. It came out shorter than intended, but she still looks cute :-)

Before:

After:

(and that chocolate you see is the Oreo she was nursing while watching Brother Bear. You do what works, right?)

Double Baby Shower

So two friends from my ward were given a baby shower last weekend, but since they were both having the 3rd of the same gender, it was either give them diapers or something for them. And I felt like doing something different, so I remembered an idea of my good friend, Lisa, back in Colorado. She made something like this for her girls while pregnant with her 3rd daughter:

It took some trial and error before deciding on the iron-on shirt labels... I'm sooo glad I still had them from 3 years ago! This was NOT a freezer paper project and I couldn't locate iron-on letters...and it would've gotten expensive if you pay attention to how many of each letter there are!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

So, have you ever been somewhere new and heard people tell you how awesome a place is? One that makes you want to go because, obviously if it is awesome enough for people to tell you so, it has to be. That would be the Honolulu Zoo... only, I didn't find it to be awesome. In fact, I think we (the girls and I) were quite bored. Granted, we went with lots of friends from church, so the company was good. I just wasn't all that impressed. I think it was just because it was a hot day and the animals were just plain beat. It also could be that we had just come from Colorado Springs, where the zoo there is well worth the time you spend there. So I decided we had to go while visiting home.

We start with the giraffes and their giant tongues:

 and the elephants,

 Lexi with an emu

 You see this face? This little girl was pretty grumpy during our zoo day. I think she finally realized that she was 2 and so needed to start acting it? (It's still continuing to this day) But in her defense, she had just had a frightening experience of a crazy chipmunk trying to steal her pretzel. Those chipmunks are brave suckers. He dance around her for a while, hoping she'd drop some. When that didn't work, he jumped right up onto her lap. She screamed so loud, you'd think a tiger had gotten her! It was cute, but so sad!

Then I was like "Oh, look at these cute tiger cutouts. Let's get the girls' pictures".

Would you know that Carissa could manage to get her little noggin STUCK in there, causing yet another round of tears! *sigh*

 A beautiful peacock - they were all over the zoo. 

 Watching the otters

Mountain lions

 Holding a moose antler (horn?)

 Mr. Porcupine, I think you need to brush your teeth!

 Mr. Moose

 "Are you peacocking?"

 Do lions ever look happy? Or even cats, for that matter?

 Hello Hippos!

The adventures of a poor naked mole rat

I think this orangutan was sick of all the people

We had fun. It took until almost our last free day to get to go due to the freezing weather. We had to tell Lexi to STOP praying for snow so we could go to the zoo!

Denver Children's Museum

While we were in Colorado, we spent a day at the Denver Children's Museum. I remember it being different but that was about 25 years ago so.... I'm sure things change in that time :-) Either way, the girls had a blast just going from one location to the other. There was a big foam play area for the younger kids:

In the treehouse

 Fishing

In the miniature cottage

In the upstairs portion, there were fun stations. This is the wooden train station... The girls loved it!

 But not as much as the bubble works station! It was the coolest thing for us "grown up children", so you could imagine it from a little kid's perspective.

Then the habitat playhouse... they put on the costumes but as soon as the pictures were taken, they were off. I don't think the girls liked them very much :-P

 In a nest like mice may live in

 Then a natural winner: Painting. By the end of this one, half of Carissa's face was blue... maybe because she started painting her hands and had an itch on her face? Just a guess. :-) 

 Another hit: The dancing studio. What little girl wouldn't like music with tap shoes and tutus? I mean, seriously.

 Then the part I was looking forward to: The grocery store. But it wasn't the big awesome realistic one that they had when I was little... it was now just a dinky little market with pantries of food... rather disappointing (for me). But the girls had fun, so Ce la Vive!

 As we were winding down, we went to one of the small storytime/learning activities they had. This one was all about the rainforests and the animals that live there. Lexi got to be a parrot (I think)

 And Carissa was a piranha :-) Totally fitting... ask her big sister, who is bit on almost a daily basis.

Alas, soon we had to leave and there were many tears. But all good things must come to an end. It was a fun day and now Lexi keeps asking to go back. I promised her when she finishes her reading lessons this summer, I will take her to the one here, though I don't know all that's there, but it looks promising :-)

Easter at Grandma and Grandpa's

Because we were in Colorado, we didn't make up our normal Easter baskets for Saturday, but we still wanted to do a egg hunt. But like I said, we were in Colorado and Easter = Snow. Always. So we had to do it inside. The girls had fun finding the abundance of eggs, and when Lexi had filled her basket, she helped Carissa to fill hers.

Then on Sunday, we got on pretty Easter dresses and went to church, then ate a yummy dinner. While Carissa was napping, we watched "The Lamb of God" with Lexi so she could remember why we celebrate Easter. It was cute seeing her watch and ask questions, like "why are those people being so mean to Jesus?" She was so happy when he was not dead in the tomb anymore! 

 Warming up by the fire while it snowed :-)