February Vacation-Part 1

We enjoyed a fun February Vacation with the girls home from school for a week. Luckily, our MOMS Club calendar was full of lots of great activities.

We started out the week with a family visit to the Museum of Science. The batteries in my camera ran out right away, so this is the only picture I have from our visit.
Isabella and Sienna spent Monday morning at gymnastics camp with their friends, Lauren and Sarah.

Sienna and Lauren's first taste of gymnastics class

Isabella and Sarah made snowmen during craft time

After gymnastics, we went to a "Make Your Own Pizza" playdate at a friend's house.

Charlotte, Isabella and Sienna rolled out their own dough and chose toppings

Josh, Sara, Connor, John and Luke enjoyed their pizzas

Another day we went to a gym class where the girls got to ride on this fun swing that was attached to a track like a zip line.

Elijah is starting to enjoy these classes now, too!Sienna the monkey

Elijah had an audience of various girls throughout the class. Brienna spent the majority of the time with him.

Parachute Fun!
Go, Sienna, go! (like Diego on his zipline)

We were supposed to go to a friend's house for outdoor snow play. Since most of the snow had melted, she brought a little bit of snow inside for the kids.
Elijah tormented Miles (who is two!) by following him and pulling his hair multiple times. Poor Miles!

February Vacation-Part 2

We spent Friday morning at Regal Reptiles Adventure Center in Providence. There were many animals for the kids to feed, touch and even hold!

Sienna and Luke got to pet a hedgehog

Sienna is sitting next to me as I type this and she said, "There's the hedgehog, Mrs. Piggy-Dinkle." (She meant Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle from the Beatrix Potter book)

Sienna bravely touched the snake

There was a big tank with alligators, and we got to see a feeding demonstration. Mike alarmingly wondered why I would let Sienna get so close to a hungry alligator. I'm not that crazy and Sienna isn't that brave! We were behind the glass, of course! Sienna still flinched every time the alligator snapped at the chicken leg.

What big eyes you have!

Isabella tried to lure one of the tortoises over to eat her lettuce. There were many kids there that day trying to feed the tortoises, so I'm sure they weren't too hungry!

Isabella holding an alligator
Sienna holding an alligator
Teamwork
Isabella holding a snake (I couldn't believe that she agreed to do this!)

The girls came home that afternoon and made their own zoo.

Here they have a snake and a lizard on their shoulders

They sectioned off our living room into different animal enclosures. I had to buy a ticket to see the animals.

February Vacation-Part 3

Mike has been working on making a trail through the woods behind our house. We took a family nature walk on Saturday to check it out!

We got a special delivery! Elijah loved peeking through the holes in the side of the box.

We ended our vacation week with pizza and a Wii tournament with John and Luke.

Siblings

Are these two related, or what?!?

Cupcakes

Since my sister knows that I like to make my kids' birthday cakes, she gave me a great cupcake cookbook called Hello, Cupcake! for Christmas. It has lots of cute designs, and the techniques seemed fairly easy. In preparation for Elijah's first birthday, I wanted to try out one of the designs. The girls and I attempted to make penguin cupcakes for my friend, Lorinda's, birthday. They were really messy and we didn't even eat them because each one consisted of a cupcake, a half of a small doughnut and a doughnut hole under a ton of frosting.

Note to self: don't have the girls help me if I want the cupcakes to actually be presentable (and edible)!!

Although these penguins were awfully messy, we had fun trying to make them! Stay tuned for Elijah's birthday creation at the end of the month!

Sledding

After a beautiful day at the zoo the other day, we had a cold and snowy day today that was perfect for sledding! We got together with our friends from the MOMS Club for some sledding in a friend's backyard.

Luke, Sienna and Lauren are ready for their first run Friends on the hill

Elijah likes his baby sled!
Sienna's snow angel

Holly took a ride with Sienna, Luke and Lauren!

Who needs a sled?

Winter in New England just wouldn't be right without a few great days of sledding (or sled riding, as Mike would say)!

Splasher!

Elijah still enjoys his baths!

Winter Visit to the Zoo

Since we have a family membership to the Roger Williams Park Zoo, we try to go there a couple of times in the winter to get full use of our pass. We spent a relatively warm February afternoon at the zoo with my friend, Kim, and her girls, Anna and Sarah. Kim already blogged about it here.

Sienna liked being the big girl by watching out for Sarah

Anna, Sienna and Isabella looked for the aoudads who were all perched on rocks
This funny crane pecks at the window if you put your hand on the glass

Elijah enjoyed the warmish weather, too!

Sienna, Anna and Isabella took a ride on the baby elephant

Check out the baby giraffe, Kenya, who was just born several weeks ago!

Sarah preferred splashing in this giant puddle rather than looking at the animals. Sienna watched from a safe distance.

We had a fun visit to the zoo and we look forward to going back in the spring when all of the animals are outside again!