I don't have any pictures of the girls at the zoo today, but I do have a few pictures of the animals to share. There are a couple of Hadiah, the 3 year old orangutan that is having a tantrum in the piture i posted last week. She is such a funny little girl. I am also including one of her and her little sister (same dad, different moms) RanDee. Hadiah loves to spend time with RanDee, and DeeDee is nice enough to let Hadiah play with RanDee as long as she plays nice. If she gets too rough or obnoxious, DeeDee will smack Hadiah and shoo her away. And this happens at least once or twice a day, because Hadiah can only not be obnoxious for short periods of time.

I am also including a picture of one of our newest residents, Sid, the bush baby. Don't let the picture fool you, tho. He is vicious!!! He only weighs a couple of pounds, but he is not afraid to take us on. We have to lock him in his nest box just to go into the exhibit to clean up and feed him. If he were any bigger, he would REALLY be scary.

Enjoying Our Weekend

This is the first weekend in quite a while that we have not had anything planned and nowhere we had to go. We usually spend our Saturdays getting packed and driving to Orlando so the girls can spend Sunday with their Grandparents. Since Steve and I both work on Sunday's, we have to have someone to watch the girls, and his mom and her husband are kind enough to do that for us each week. And as much as I appreciate them, and I really do, I don't like having to make the road trip every weekend. And the girls complain about not ever having a weekend "off" where they have all day Saturday to play. So this weekend I took Sunday off with plans to drive to Tracy's for the weekend to visit with our cousin. But plans changed at the last minute and so I decided to just stay home and have some quality time with the girls. We have had fun so far. Hannah and I stayed up really late last night. I was showing her old videos from the 80's on the Vh1 Classic videos web site. I would find one of the bands I used to like and show it to her and tell her which of the singers I always thought was cute. Well, lets just say, she apparently has NO taste in men whatsoever!! Once I realized that she just does not appreciate the finer things in life, we went to bed. We slept late today, of course, and then got up and went to the zoo for the day. We have lots of babies in the primate department right now and the girls have not had a chance to see them yet. So we visited with the new ring-tailed lemur babies and the girls fed the lemurs gummy worms. I don't know who enjoyed this treat more, the girls or the lemurs. Then we visited all the other babies, rode a few rides, argued about what to do and not do, got mad, got glad again, and all in all had a pretty good time. They rode the camel, but I decided to sit that one out. It is a good thing we get to do these things for free, cuz otherwise we would not be able to afford a trip to the zoo!! Can't believe how much everything costs.
Tomorrow we plan on taking it even easier and not leaving the house except to go to the pool (if the weather is nice). I hope to have a bit of time to work in the yard as well. One could really get used to having the whole weekend off pretty quickly, I think. One day when I grow up I will get a real job that works Mon-Fri. But for now, I will just enjoy what I do and the time I get to spend with my girls.

For those of you that think you are the only one dealing with unruly kids, here is a little something to make you feel better. It seems that we are not the only moms that have to put up with temper tantrums and bad attitudes. This picture was taken several days ago on one of our colder mornings. The orangutan moms were trying to keep the kids close to them to keep them warmer, but as you can see, Hadiah was not too keen on the idea!! She is three years old now, and once she hit the terrible two's, she has been nothing but trouble. Poor Josie! She has more patience with her than I ever could. So the next time you are dealing with one of your little "monsters", remember, you are not alone!

Playing Catch-up

Nubbin...1/2 Bulldog, 1/2 Bat!

Ok, I have now been reprimanded by one of my best friends for not updating my blog more often. I have meant to do it a hundred times since the last update, and always decide I will do it "tomorrow". I feel like I should post new photos with each new update, but I have also been informed that is not necessary. The girls and I spent this past weekend in Melbourne at Tracy's house. Saturday (Feb. 14th) was Amelia's 6th birthday, so we had a little party there for her. We always have a big party with lots of family and friends here, but I just was not up to that this year. So we downscaled the festivities, and I think Amelia was just as happy with this party as with any of her previous parties. Her only complaint is that she wants to have a swimming party, but I have tried to explain to her that since her birthday is in the middle of February, not too many people would be very excited about that! However, that did not stop her and her sister and cousins from going swimming while we were at Tracy's. They were all little popsicles after about 5 minutes, but by golly, they were swimming. Rachel was the only one to realize it was not a really fantastic idea. Amelia's lips were a very pretty shade of purple, almost exactly matching the purple stripe on her bathing suit! Needless to say, it was a little easier to coax them out of the pool and into a warm bath that day than it ever is in the summertime.
If you read tracy's blog as well, you know that Allison now has a little, (and I do mean LITTLE), hamster. It is very cute, and Hannah fell in love with it. I am such a mean mommy because I have not let her get one! Nevermind all the pets we already have, life will not be complete until I have a hamster of my own.....I mean, until Hannah has a hamster that I can feed and change.....
Amelia is now riding her bike without the training wheels and is very proud of herself, and rightly so. She had me take a couple of photos of her on her bike today so I will attach those to this post. And if you want to see pictures of her birthday party, you can view Tracy's blog. She was too fast for me and posted them before I did!!

New Year's Eve 2008

I just celebrated my birthday last week, and was lucky enough to have Tracy and her family come over to share it with me and the girls. Seeing that my birthday is on New Year's Eve, things are bound to get wild and crazy. I let Amelia take the camera and this is her version of our birthday celebration. Just imagine these same girls 15 years from now!! Watch out world, here they come

Hannah learning to play the Wii.

Amelia emptying her stocking.

Coming downstairs to see what Santa has left for everyone.

Good Morning, Sunshine!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! The girls and I spent Christmas in Jacksonville with Jillie, Uncle Pappy, and the rest of the family. Good Times!! The girls got most of what they asked Santa for, and some extra goodies they were not expecting. Luckily for them, Jillie had written Santa a letter and let him know they would be at her house this year for Christmas so he was able to find them and leave their presents at the right house. Steve is usually the photographer on Christmas morning, but since it was my job this year there are very few pictures to share. I got too "wrapped up" in Christmas boxes and bows as the girls were tearing into their gifts to take pictures. But there are a couple I will post to share with everyone. And it seems I do not know how to arrange the pictures once I have added them to the blog, so they are in the reverse order that I intended for them to be. Ooops!! We really enjoyed spending time with family and friends, and the girls have enjoyed their vacation from school. But they are actually ready to get back!! Hannah says she misses her friends and can't wait for school to start back. We will see how long that attitude lasts once she has to get back into the routine of getting up early, and doing homework. But before you know it Spring Break will be here, and then summer is just around the corner!!