Cutting the Pumpkins

Jim and I grew pumpkins this year as part of our garden.  It was a lot of fun watching them grow from little, white, baseballs into large, orange pumpkins.  So, yesterday we gathered everyone and headed outside to cut the pumpkins free from their vines.  It was a lot of fun watching Charlie and Kayden get excited about it. 

It was fun.  The kids enjoyed it and so did all the adults.  It'll be fun to carve them!  Can't wait.

The Park

A weekend or two ago Kyle and I took Kayden down to this local park to play and have fun. This particular park is really fun and has two separate play gyms, one for older kids and one for younger kids. Kayden is at that in between age where he can play on either one and be fine. We haven't been to this particular park too often, but the few times we have been there, no one else has. Fluke? I don't know, but we enjoyed having the park to ourselves.

Glow Stick-ing (As Kyle called it)

Last night Kayden wanted to turn off all the lights.  I have yet to meet another child who loves the dark as much as Kayden, he loves playing around with all the lights off!  He wonders around just giggling, thinking it is the funniest thing ever!  So, I thought it would be fun to show him how glow sticks really work.  He has played with them over the summer, but not with as much darkness as we had last night and he just LOVED it!  It was so much fun watching him have fun!  We played with the glow sticks for a good 45 minutes until it was time to put our pj's on and get ready for bed!

While playing with the glow sticks I got the idea to grab my camera and leave the shutter open for extended periods of time, I played around with it and did three seconds all the way up to thirty seconds!  I think the pictures turned out really cool!

It was a lot of fun playing with the glow sticks!  It'll be something we do again and again, I'm sure!  And I love how cheap glow sticks are now.  I remember when I was younger they seemed to be more expensive.  Now you can get 15 for $1 at Targets dollar spot!  Can't go wrong with that. 

Kayden even wanted to sleep with them last night.  I wasn't interested in arguing with him about it and figured it really couldn't hurt much, so Kyle and I agreed and we never heard a peep out of him.  When he woke up this morning he had lost one of the purple ones and asked where it was, "momma, where other purple one?"  Thankfully we found it hiding under monkey!  Kayden then gathered all five of the glow sticks that he slept with and nicely placed them in one spot in his crib.  I don't think he realizes they will have stopped working by the time he goes to bed tonight!  Thankfully we have five more to replace them! 

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

A friend of mine invited Kayden and me to go to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium with her today and her youngest son.  We have been having such nice weather lately that it seemed like the perfect day to go.  The sun was out, most kids were in school which made the zoo not very busy and because it wasn't too hot outside, most of the animals were out for us to see.

When we first walked into the zoo we headed out to see the elephants.  Kayden LOVED seeing them.  When Kyle got home from work today, Kayden told him that we saw BIG elephants! 

After we saw the elephants we headed over to see the new tiger cub, Dumai.  It was so stinkin' cute.  While visiting the tiger cut there were some zoo keepers there who told us that next Thursday they will be getting another new tiger cub.  I don't believe they are related, but are very close in age, only four days apart!  Hope we can see the new cub sometime.

The cub was sleeping when we walked by and it looked so cute.  I just wanted to snuggle up to it and fall asleep next to it! 

After seeing the cub we headed over and saw an adult tiger.  They are just so pretty!

The monkeys were very active today!  Swinging around and jumping in front of us, a lot of fun to watch.  And I think it was the most fun to Kayden because he could actually see something playing and running around instead of just laying there. 

The zoo has two camels you can pay to ride.  Once we saw them Kayden told me he wanted to ride one, but they weren't opened for business yet, so we stopped to look, but kept on walking.

We watched the zoo staff feed the otters.  That was fun!

We saw a bunch of puffins.

Besides getting excited when we saw the BIG elephants, Kayden was a bit of a crank pot today!  Just a little cranky for some reason and this really was the facial expression he wore most of the day today.

The zoo has two polar bears!

Artic Foxes, they are surprising small.  It's difficult to tell in these pictures, but they really are little.

 

Musk Ox's. Kayden was happy to see these. We watched and recorded Frozen Planet that was out earlier this year, I think spring time, and on that show they talk about Musk Ox's and Kayden likes watching them.

Red Wolves

And that really concludes our zoo trip.  After seeing the wolves we ate our lunch and let the boys run around for a bit then headed home!  It was a fun, short trip to the zoo, but that helped prevent any meltdowns! 

We hope everyone has enjoyed their Friday just as much as we have!

Kayden's 3 Year Pictures & Family Pics

Last night Kyle and I took Kayden for his yearly pictures and our family pictures.  It didn't go that well.  Kayden didn't cooperate AT ALL, but we still ended up with a few good pictures.  And here they are!