10 Years!

Celebrating 10 years with this guy today. Much has changed over the last 10 years but we still make a great team. I sure do love you Kevin!

Zoo trip

We had a Saturday that wasn't crazy cold so we decided to make a trip out to the zoo. It has been nearly a year since we've been to the KC zoo and it was time. We renewed our Friends of the Zoo membership that we had lapsed on last year so there will definitely be more trips coming up. They were bringing out ice for Berlin, the polar bear, to play in and the girls were excited about it. 

Waiting while they brought the ice out

 Anna had learned all about polar bears and penguins during one of her Young Explorers classes. She started going to these last December. They are in 3 week sessions: 1 day a week for 2 hours and each session has a different theme. The first one was North Pole, South Pole, then W is for Winter, and she just started one called Mad Scientist. She loves going and seeing Miss Kelsey who does a great job leading the class. They read books, do arts and crafts, and experiments. All things Anna loves! Anyway, it was fun to get and see both a polar bear and a penguin after her class. She even remembered that polar bears "live on top" and penguins "live on bottom" referring to the North and South pole!

Anxiously waiting for Berlin.

Finally!

Pretty happy.

The polar bear exhibit was right by some picnic tables so we set up there and we were able to eat and watch the polar bears after the crowd scattered.

Then we went inside to warm up a bit before checking out the penguins and small aquarium. They had an old piano in there for the kids to play on.

We also got to check out the Orangutan exhibit which opened last summer. 

We're excited to go again soon. The Africa loop is 1 mile long so we haven't been in quite some time. There is so much to see at that zoo!

Activity School!

The biggest thing to probably happen in January was that Jane started going to Activity School with Anna! I'd been looking forward to the prospect of 2 1/2 hours to myself every Thursday for a couple months but I didn't want to get my hopes up. We did a walk-in the first day before enrolling but it went AWESOME so she is officially enrolled!

On the first day she was eager to take off her shoes and finally get to go into the gym. She's been watching Anna get dropped off for months now and sometimes stands at the door saying things like "ball" or "balloon" depending on what they had out that day. There were some tears for about 5 minutes once she realized that Mommy wouldn't be joining. The staff there is great about getting the kids walking and distracted and Anna was also a HUGE help. She was thrilled that Jane would be coming and stayed with her until she stopped crying. She's only cried a couple of other times since then. The third week of drop off and once when she saw me in the window right before class was over one day. I stayed the entire first class but now I have some kid free time!

Anna walking with Jane at the start of class.

I had intended to post about this earlier but I was waiting until Jane's shirt came in. They look so cute! 

 Anna really thinks she is hot stuff now that her little sister is in class with her since she knows the ropes. She will report back to me if Jane cried, didn't eat her snack, had to go with the little kids for a bit, etc. 

These two silly things make me smile so much and I'm so glad they have this class they can do together.