Splash Park

It was promising to be pretty hot today, so I decided to go to the splash park.  I was so excited to try out Erin's new swimsuit.

Patrick's uv resistant shirt that I bought last year still fit, so no new suit for him.

Patrick LOVED the water

Erin just ran around in circles

And a picture from this morning before Erin woke up.

The Public Humiliation Diet

So, yesterday Matt found this article and as he does with a lot of things, read it out loud to me.  And it had an impact on me.  I've been very frustrated lately with my lack of success in my weight loss effort.  So I made this blog: http://brittslosingit.blogspot.com/

I don't actually care whether you read it or not.  But it would help if you at least make me believe you're checking up on me! =p

I wasn't going to turn on the oven.

I really didn't want to turn it on because it would make our apartment hot.  We finally turned on the AC (thanks to the huge southfacing glass door that turns our front room into an oven), and I didn't want it to fight the heat of the stove.

And then Erin came up to me on the couch and smiled sweetly and said "Mommy, I make cookies witchoo?"  How can you say no to that?  Especially when you have a baggie of previously-frozen pumpkin in the fridge that really needs to be used asap?

So we made pumpkin cookies, using this recipe (minus the chocolate chips, which I didn't have).

Afterward I let her have a spoonful of dough, which she pronounced "nummy."

And then she turned to me and said, "Mommy, you uh-MAY-sing!"  Granted, she's been calling everything amazing today (thanks to the movie Monsters vs. Aliens), but it still made me feel pretty good.

A trip to the zoo

Yesterday we went to the zoo, just the babies and I.  It was interesting to be able to just spend time with them doing something fun and unusual, without the distraction of someone else and their kids.  I do love having a friend to go to the zoo with, but this was a lot of fun too.  Unfortunately, I didn't clear off the memory card before we went like I had been thinking the night before, so we didn't get many pictures.
She liked the lions

A crested crane takes interest

Patrick liked the zebras

This peacock was VERY noisy.  He kept yelling at everyone.

Erin wanted to pet the geese.  I had to keep telling her they were mean.

To console her I let her take a picture.

And then we looked at the giraffes

Then we went up to look at the aquarium area that I'd never been to before, but it wasn't going to open for another hour, so we looked at the koi

And Erin made some friends

To get her to come back I had to let her take another picture

The bat-eared fox that I never realized was here

And she wanted to take another picture

And this was the only creature Erin could see in the red panda exhibit.  I could see him, but he was back in a dark corner curled up asleep, so I couldn't get a good picture.

Erin had to climb up on this rock, but she did something to her knee.  She didn't scrape it or anything, I can't see a bruise or anything, but she's still complaining her knee hurts.

So then Erin had to take another picture, and that's when the camera said there was no more room on the card.  *sigh*  There was supposed to be a baby okapi somewhere but we couldn't see him.

I really wish I'd cleared off the card, because we then went back to the aquarium/reptile area, and they had some really cool things, including a south american river fish that was about as big as me (seriously, the species is the biggest freshwater fish and can get up to 15ft long and up to 400lbs.  These weren't nearly that big, but they WERE about as big as me!)

Anyway, I'll have to make sure that we go see the fish again next time we go!

I let Erin have the camera today

A trip to Petco

So we went to Petsmart first, but they didn't have what we wanted, so we went to Petco.  They have a few novelties that Petsmart doesn't have.  Like child-sized carts.

and small mammal cages that are easier to see the animals in.  Erin like the guinea pigs.  She calls them "rhinos."  Why?  Because on the movie Bolt there's a hamster named Rhino.  Only, he's a hamster the size of a guinea pig.

Than we went over to the fish and got 5 ghost shrimp and a bamboo shrimp.  I decided that shrimp would be better bottom feeders than catfish because they won't be aggressive to the babies.  (Still not sure what I'm planning on doing with the babies.  Matt's suggesting that I wait until they're a little bigger then feed them to cichlids...you know, breed our own cichlid food...)

So here's the aquarium now

and the bamboo shrimp

and one of the ghost shrimp.  Needless to say, they're hard to take pictures of.

And for pure random cuteness, Erin reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

Chinese food and bubbles

We went out to a chinese buffet place yesterday, and Erin and Patrick got to try some new food which was fun.
Erin had to try the chopsticks

And Matt was playing with the crab claw and she wanted to do that too.

And Patrick stole my wonton, and loved it.

Then today I broke out Erin's bubbles on the porch.  Yes, they're both naked.  I took their Sunday clothes off before dinner and just never got around to putting clothes back on them.  They've got another 40 minutes or so before I put them to bed, so I'll put pjs on them then.

Erin had to try to blow her own bubbles.