Happy Groundhog's Day!

We took advantage of the free day at the Peoria Zoo, and had an awesome time! The animals were quite active. The llamas, goats, ponies and zebu all followed us around begging for treats. The monkeys were eating their lunch out of paper bags - sometimes they would climb inside the bags to retrieve the morsels from the bottom. Julian ate his lunch while watching the monkeys eat theirs...ur, monkey see, monkey do! (Luckily he didn't try to climb into the diaper bag!)

The lioness seemed ready to have Julian for her lunch:

Mom, can we go look for the giraffes NOW?!!!!

After all the walking around, Julian enjoyed a little snow for dessert as we were leaving!

And, this was a very exhausted Julian on the car ride home - yes, that is a cracker hanging out his mouth:

In other Julian news, he is as busy as ever working with his tools. Here he is in action:

(The battery on the camera ran out just before cute, silly Julian put on his safety glasses upside down!)

And, finally, here's Julian examining the craft project of the day:

(Mommy got a little mixed up with her furry friends' names...hedgehog??...what???
Oh, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?)

Hmmm...what to get into next

This look (especially with the tongue out) says it all. What can I do to stir up some trouble? How can I get that camera away from Dad so I can be the photographer for awhile? You may think I'm cute, but wait until you see me in action! I'm a big boy now, so beware! (Mom can't wait for warm weather again to let the little man loose outside!)

Now wait a minute!

Here we are at Lowe's Build and Grow kids' program. Julian looks a little worried in this picture. Hey, whose kid project is that anyway? As it turned out, Mommy had to go ask for another hammer so that each of the boys could have their own tools to work with. The Tic-Tac-Toe game box turned out great - on the first try! Julian was busy this evening stacking the game pieces into a tower and knocking them over; it's a very versatile game, you know!

As a family we ventured out to the Family Fun Fest at the Peoria Civic Center. Thank goodness they had a Toddler Town set-up this year with its own bouncy castle, because the lines at all the other "big kid" inflatable games were really long. We didn't even bother trying to take a pony ride or have our faces painted. The local gymnastics studio created an obstacle course for the lil' tikes; Julian loved their jungle theme so much that he nearly walked off with their stuffed cheetah. (He did help the cheetah to ride on the rocking horse, go down the slide and crawl through the tunnel before trying to make a get away with him!)


In other news, we can finally see the grass (and lots and lots of mud) in our yard again! It's been under a naturally white cover for nearly a month.

Hey buckaroo

Julian rediscovered a few of his pre-Christmas toys. He lugged around his baby doll -- feeding him cheese balls, reading him books, even setting him IN the potty. Then, later on when he was riding around on his horse while wearing the cowboy hat (of course!), he picked up the baby doll and took him for a ride too.

Bookworm

A bed of......books! Julian had carried these five oversized books into the kitchen by himself. He sat down on the bottom rung of the metal plant stand to "read" them when a couple fell to the floor. Instead of getting upset, he just went with the flow, and decided to lay down on top of the books for awhile! Go figure.

Testing the soil quality

In lieu of taking a nap this afternoon, Julian and Mommy planted some tulip bulbs. The instructions say to keep the bulbs in a dark, cool location that is between 40-50 degrees F. That might actually have been a problem before this week, even indoors in our unheated basement as the temperature has been well below freezing since New Year's Eve. (By the way, that white shirt didn't stay white along the sleeves for very long.)Earlier this week, while Mommy was folding the laundry, Julian thought he'd help her by putting additional clothes on. He ended up wearing one shirt, one sweater vest, two jackets, one diaper, one pair of slacks and a pair of "big boy" underpants on the outside! He was definitely warm!

Here, let me lend a hand!

Julian and Daddy hard at work. Julian's little pretend drill quickly ran out of batteries, so Daddy kindly "shared his toys". This is one of Mommy's favorite toddler activities of all time -- watching the boys work together so nicely. The 2010 calendar is already marked for Home Depot's kid projects each first Saturday of the month.Bongo wasn't interested in coming inside this afternoon. He seemed to want to bathe in the sun. Well, it is 20 degrees after all, and that would be 20 degrees warmer than it has been all week!