Girly Love

Some men are lucky to marry a special woman. Some men are lucky to have a little girl. And then there are some men like Matt who have 5 - FIVE - girls pawning for his love!!! Yes, all 5 of us love this guy so much and I think he has his hands full meeting all of our love and attention needs! But, some how he manages to do it! My brother said it right when he said, "One girl for each of his fingers to be wrapped around!" Yes, we all love our Matt. He is pretty terrific!

No more training wheels

My little girls decided they wanted to be big girls! A couple of Sundays ago, the girls and I were outside while they were riding the gator. A group of older girls stopped and were riding scooters. They hung out with us for a while and after they left, Carly looked at me and said, "Mom, I'm ready to ride my bike without training wheels!" I told her ok and we went to the garage and removed them. I took her out to the side yard and she jumped on and took off. She was so proud of herself!! I knew it was time to take them off, I just wanted to do it on flat ground. But when I realized the ditch was pretty flat for riding, it worked out great! So it took her all of a few minutes to figure it out. Then Matt came home from Harper's soccer game and she got to show off her skills. I then had Matt take them to the nearby elementary school to let Chloe try it out. She was just as fast learning as Carly. Once I rounded up all the napping babies, I headed to the school and watched them do some laps in the parking lot. Now they love their bikes and that they are big girls! I love how they get their mind fixed on something and they will do it no matter what. It is just a matter of getting them convinced that they can do it!! Great job girls!

Zoo Trip

We took our zoo to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. It was Channing's first trip to the zoo and the first trip that Finley could enjoy. I was really excited to take Fifi because she loves animals. She absolutely loved the penguins. That is, after she figured out she wasn't going to go through the glass. I had to sit far away from the wall with her in my lap and inch close to the glass. Then I had to force her little hand onto the glass so she would realize that the penguins weren't coming out and she wasn't going in. Then she LOVED it!! She ran back and forth and banged on the glass yelling at the penguins. She talked about them the whole time!

The kangaroos were new and they just hopped around while you were in there. Tiredness was starting to set in along with hunger, so next time I will feed them prior to going in (my kids that is) and maybe there will be a little more excitement :) You can see Chloe with her clip board. This trip was a field trip for the girls. They were graphing and sorting the animals that we saw. It was a fun little activity for them!

And feeding the giraffes were a big highlight. Chloe was brave (Chloe is by far the most skiddish child we have) and she was having fun feeding the baby ones until a big giraffe stuck its head over the top of the rail and his snout was right in her face. It was absolutely hilarious to see the look on the girl's face as she dropped her lettuce. She tried to play it off, but she quickly came over to us and teared up a bit. She is so sensitive :)

And Finley took on the job as the gopher. She feed the giraffe a couple of times, but she wasn't liking it too much. So she decided to make friends with the man handing out the lettuce and she would just ever so cutely waltz over to him and get herself a big handful of lettuce. She was proud of her part in the fun!

I don't know why this picture is sideways, but I don't feel like dealing with it right now. I just had to post my favorite shot after any trip. The heads tilted and zonked out. They had so much fun and we had so much fun having some much needed family time.