Zoo & Huber's all in one weekend.

We took the kids to the Louisville Zoo for the halloween party this weekend.  This will be the last year that we waste our time on this crappy event.  You wait in aweful traffic with rude people who think it's ok to drive to the front and expect to get in, then you pay $5.00 to park (it's free any other time) and if you are not a zoo member it costs $8.00 to get in.  It used to be that if you are a zoo member you get in free, now, you have to go on the "zoo member" weekends which are the first two in October.  All of this for....wait for it...... 7 pieces of candy.  I'm not kidding, I'm not being dramatic, LITERALLY 7 PIECES OF CANDY.  Are you kidding me???  This used to be such a cool thing to do with the kids and now it's just a huge waste of time and years of my life shaved off due to the high blood pressure enducing madness. 

OK.  I'm done with the gripe.  On to the positive.  Eden is beautiful, even when you use eyeshadow to paint her blue.  My good friend Andrea who is an amazing artist and is currently in cosmotology school agreed to do her makeup for me and WOW am I impressed.  She did a great job and we had all kinds of people talking about how amazing her makeup was.  Google Avatar makeup and you'll see just how awesome Andrea is.  It's not an exact match but still looks great!

Tyler wanted to be Darth Vader.  Him and Jacob were both so cute!  They both called him Dark Vader.

Eden took a friend with her.  Nya, vampire queen.  Makeup done by Andrea.

Jacob as Indiana Jones.  Five o'clock shadow provided by the lovely Andrea and brown eyeshadow.  He thought this was the coolest thing ever.  Sat right in the chair and let her "paint" him with a makeup brush.

 After the nightmare that was the zoo on Saturday night, I took the boys and Eden to Huber's with Keith, Dana, their three, Mom, Erin and Erin's friend Beth.  They loved the tractor ride to the pumpkin fields.  Personally, I wasn't such a huge fan.  It's been really, REALLY dry here and the dust from the tractor tires was pretty bad.  At least it was a gorgeous day.  Sunny, low 80's and a nice cool breeze.

Eden wasted no time picking her "perfect" pumpkin.  She grabbed this one within the first two minutes and it's the one she carted back to the barn. 

However, Jacob did not pick his right away.  He thought he liked one until he put his finger in a big hole, then he thought he liked this one here.  Then, I picked up a pumpkin that is so smooth and perfectly orange I just had to show it to them all and guess what.  That's the one he liked. 

I thought it was cute.  So does he.  If you look closely, he's decided to draw on it with a green crayon.  It kinda looks like a pancake.

Grandma helped Tyler pick his out.  I like it.  It's small and kind of pear shaped. Tyler didn't pick up the first thing he saw, but he did have to be told that you can't just drop them if you decide you don't want it.

I think he's happy with his decision.  What do you think?

Back on the tractor to head back to the barn and pay for our u-pick pumpkins.  All in all a pretty good weekend.  Even if I did think I was going to have to cut a b!tch if she let one more line jumper in while waiting in traffic to get into the zoo.

I'm not dead!

The title is a nod to Monty Python movies and I felt it appropriate for someone who used to blog every night and hasn't since last Thursday. I've been a little busy and I haven't felt all that great either.

I'm better now and ready to start blogging again.

Mom is much better now. She up and around and feeling good enough to watch my boys again, which is a really great thing. I appreciate that my mother in law is willing to help out at a moments notice, but when the kids are with her, they tend to get away with more than they do when they are with my mom. They railroad the MIL and get away with it because they use those cute little puppy dog eyes and those super cute smiles.

He was being a complete little turd in this picture and look at that smile. I know at least two of you are going, "Ahhh, he's so cute." Yes, he's cute, but it's so that I don't kill him! LOL

And then we have Tyler, who is double trouble, because he has the golden brown eyes perfect for giving puppy dog eyes and the sweet little smile. Thankfully, he is the more well behaved of the two. They have flopped on me several times since they were babies as to who was the easier of the two and who was more laid back. I have a feeling that the personalities are pretty much here to stay at this point. It's probably a good thing, because, for as sweet as Tyler can be, he has a filthy temper and can be down right hateful at times. Luckily he seems to be pretty sweet natured most of the time, because when he's being mean, he's really REALLY mean.

We took the kiddos to the zoo on Saturday. We were going to go with Louise when she was in town, but didn't get to make it because of the nasty weather that was forecast. I'm glad that they went on Thursday and were able to enjoy the nice weather, our outing to the Huber Orchard and a planned visit to the waterfront park was cut short by a nasty storm on Friday. So of course, because we didn't go to the zoo, my kids don't see it as, "we did something fun, we shouldn't beg to go somewhere else too" they have been asking to go ever since and we finally made it over there. Admission to the zoo is astronomical! $11.95 per adult and $8.95 for kids 3 and over. It was going to be $50 to take them in. Instead of paying $50, we paid $75 and go a membership to the zoo. $25. more to go back as many times as we want for the next 365 days starting on Saturday! It was a no brainer!

For the first time since they opened the exhibit, we were able to take the boys into the Lorikeet landing and let them feed the birds some nectar. We took the train down, and right back up after the lorikeets, the big hills in the zoo. I was able to completely avoid them! Yeah me!!!

Here I am feeding the lorikeets. The boys wouldn't hold the nectar cups because they were a little afraid of the birds actually landing on them. They did however, want to pet the pretty little birdies and of course, the trainer had to keep telling them, "Don't touch them, I don't want them to bite you, they don't know that you are nice and don't want to hurt them. They don't like to be petted."
OK, whether you call these guys Zaboo from Zaboombafu or King Julian from Madagascar, these little guys are pretty cute. They had all been taking a nap and the two in the back were just finishing up a big yawn. The one in front was sitting there like that and I just kept waiting for him to do something obscene that I would have to cover eyes up over. Thankfully, it didn't happen and they decided it was time to get up and play.

The newest zoo baby. I don't know if you can zoom in on this picture or not, but if you can, you can see the lioness' in the background sunning on the rock.

For the first time that I can remember, the male lion was out and about in their "pride" and this was taken on the tail end of a big yawn. I guess all the animals were just waking up from nap time when we got there. Here are a few more picture of him that I just love. They are such beautiful and majestic creatures.

I LOVE this shot. I think this is why they call a lion's territory a "Pride"! It's a shame he's a predator, because I really just wanted to climb in there and pet him.

Well, that's all for now. I have more pictures from the trip that I want to post but they will have to wait. Michael is waiting for me so that we can watch American Idol. I want to see if Kris can out sing Adam for the third week in a row! ;o)

I know it's late

I know it's late, and I'm tired but I wanted to let everyone know that mom is doing good. She's home and she's still sore and not feeling great but she's doing OK.

I just got home from work. I went back in around 9 so that I could do some catching up. I was way behind and being in that position is a little scary for me. I don't like not knowing if there is something coming up that I'm about to miss and I try really hard to keep up so that things don't fall through the cracks and cause the dreaded call from the Courthouse. I'm so excited to finally have some company in the office and I'm really looking forward to having a receptionist to handle the calls, calendaring appointments and answering the door when clients come in. I think this is going to be so helpful. I will be able to concentrate on work and if I'm to busy I'll be able to have them sent to my voice mail so that I can return calls when I'm not right in the middle of a project. So happy about that new addition too! :o) Thanks Mickey!

Soon, I'll get completely caught up and I won't be in a mad rush to get things done and I'll be able to get back to posting pictures in my blog and enjoying the fact that spring has officially sprung and it's been beautiful weather, even if we do have to pay two days of rain for every time we get a pretty one. I'm so over the "occasional storms"!

By the time I publish this blog it will be Thursday, so happy Thursday to everyone and weekend, here we come, thank goodness!