Thanksgiving Post Visitors - game night

MeMa, Aunt Joy, Aunt Juicenana, and Alex all left this afternoon.  At least Poppi has not yet left us.  Art will leave for his conference in Boston on Sunday morning, and Poppi leaves on Monday afternoon.

Tonight, bored with most people gone from the house, the boys wanted to play games with DaU.

All boys playing Memory

Zach and Wyatt breaking out the LOUD Hungry Hungry Hippos game.

Thanksgiving Visitors: Christmas Ornaments

The next craft on the docket for Joy to help the boys with:  decorating Christmas ornaments.  Joy helped Zach glue together felt penguins that ended up not sticking together and got trashed.  MeMa helped Wyatt to color and use glitter glue on wooden ornaments.  Fun time by all.

MeMa assisting Wyatt with markers and glitter glue

Zachary and Aunt Joy wrestling with felt penguins

Busy busy busy with crafts!

After the ornaments dried, they were hung up on the cabinets to prepare for our tree.

Thankgsiving Visitors: Gingerbread Train

Aunt Joy is in charge of the yearly holiday crafts because Mommy is no good at crafty things.  This year, with much of the family (Poppi, MeMa, Joy, Joanna, and Alex) here, Joy had 2 crafts planned.  The first - a Gingerbread Train.

Joy working patiently with Wyatt & Zachary

Boys eating candy that SHOULD go on the train

Zachary carefully placing candy on train while Wy eats

All the train engineers

MeMa & Joy, the main helpers

Hard at work

A lovely finished product that was yummy for days afterward

Couch Potatoes

One of my favorite pictures from Thanksgiving...all of them watching Charlie Brown Christmas with Zachary.

Joy, Zachary, Joanna, Alex

New side to the Zoo!

Today Zach did not have school.  I love no-school days for Zach, or when he decides he'd like to stay home from school!  I feel I get so little time with him when his entire morning is at preschool and his afternoon is lunch then nap.  With today's day-off treat, we decided to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo.  We've been there tons of times, but never over to the Farm section.  Today was Farm day for us!  It's a pretty small area, which was perfect for a short outing.

When we got there, we saw that the cows would get milked at 10:30, so with 30 minutes to kill, we went to see the pigs, and miniature ponies.  We got to see the baby pig, but no idea where the mother was.  The pig gets milk still, but not from a bottle.  We had a snack by the ponies, and enjoyed watching them eat their snacks too.  By then it was time to watch the cows.  The farm had 3 cows that needed milking.  They get milked 3x per day, giving about 5 gallons each.  One gallon gets set aside for the baby pig, and the rest go off for pasteurizing.  One cow had an infection and was on antibiotics, so her milk just got trashed.  The boys enjoyed the milking, but soon became more intrigued by a llama  that was in the same room.  It started pooping, and the little pellets went EVERYWHERE, including out of the pen onto the floor.  This was huge news for our boys!

After the cows, we checked out the ginormous rabbit, the organic garden, and a pen of chickens before heading into the barn for the interactive exhibits.

Baby chicks

Wyatt & Zach playing seed sorting game

ZW playing an animal sounds game & playing in eggs

Digging in tire garden for veggies

We had to wait in line for about 10 minutes for the boys to have a chance to get on the tractor.

ZW inside tractor

pretty big tractor!

Zachary & Wyatt not happy w/ posing by the large tire

One more quick look at the chickens and the overlarge rabbit and it was time to go home.  They boys were also intrigued by an outrigger canoe outside a history museum on our way back to the car.

Fun outing!  When asked by DaU later what the best parts were they both said "Llama poop!", then "cows milking".  Zach remembered watching Kate (Jess U's niece) help milk cows on her family's farm.

Announcing a Third Musketeer!

It's true, we're expecting our 3rd Musketeer to arrive around May 5th.  Secretly, I'm hoping for an end-of-April arrival so we will have a neat little package of birthdays: March (me), April (Baby3), May (Zach), June (Wyatt), and July (Art).

We waited and waited to tell the kids, wanting to make it to the 12 week mark, just in case something went awry.  Art felt it would be better to wait than to tell early and then possibly have to explain a miscarriage.  So now the kids know, and they are excited!  Well, Zach is excited, and Wyatt is along for the ride.  Wyatt is excited to be a big brother, while Zachary will be a big BIG brother.  Zach and Mommy are hoping for a girl; Wyatt is hoping for a boy; DaU is fine either way, but has a slight leaning for girl.

Now we all have to get our heads around being a family of 5 and all that goes with it, including - new car??

Zachary's swim class

Zachary has progressed so much in his swimming that we are still shocked by it.  In a few months time, he went from refusing to put his face in the water or even be splashed in the face, to jumping in and going underwater, and even swimming underwater!  Also, a short time ago, he would panic if you tried to get him to float on his back, and now he can swim the backstroke (of sorts) with no fear!  We are just amazed at the persistence and success his swim teachers have had.  He would not have done anything like that for us.  We love Zach's preschool program!  He gets to go swimming twice a week with his class.  Here are some poor quality pics and videos.  Last year, there were three swim groups in his class, and Zachary was in the lowest class.  This year, there are again 3 groups, and he has somehow made it to the highest swim class.  Just amazing!

Zach waiting for his turn to jump in

Zachary doing a "pencil drop" jump into the water, going underwater!

Zachary waiting in line with part of his class to jump in with the kick board.  They were supposed to hold onto the kick boards as they jumped into the water, but Zach threw his in the air, then jumped in, and had to swim a good distance away to get it, before using it to swim to the end of the pool.

Zachary practicing swimming under water

Zachary swimming under the water to his teacher, then swimming back; I am still shocked when I see this!