Spring is here!

Today was a beeeeeeautiful day in Wichita.  It was almost 70 degrees with a really nice breeze, pretty windy actually.  John worked a short day, so we had a little picnic in the park.

I bought this shirt for $1.50 at a resale store for Ruby, and added some spring-inspired embroidery to liven it up a bit.

Jack had lots of fun rolling around in the sand.  He's been wearing his Easter pants a lot, and you can kind of see his new hat-- I embroidered a bird on the front.  Ruby has a pink hat with a matching pink bird.

Jack had to get in on the sling-action.  He's actually easier to carry in it than Ruby is!

I'm Flickr'd

I've joined Flickr and I am starting to upload a few photos.  It's a really neat site to see/post/share pictures.  Check out the button on the right of the page.  But I have to warn you, don't start searching around the site without a lot of time to spare!

Imagination

So, Jack is still calling me "Alicia" (with a little smirk each time) and I'm calling him Diego.  In fact, the first thing he said when he woke up this morning was, "Good morning, baby Jaguar".  And I was wrong, Alicia is not Diego's cousin, she's his sister.  This would explain why Jack is actually calling me "sister Alicia" most of the time.  

And in case you were wondering, I promise that Jack isn't wearing the same outfit everyday.  We brought a few pairs of tan pants, and his tan hoodie is serving as his spring jacket right now.

I also have to thank Meagan for giving me the Moby Wrap before Ruby was born.  It's my favorite carrier so far.  Yesterday, we walked around the zoo for 4 hours, with Ruby in the Moby the whole time-- without a sore back!  She was able to face out and look at the animals, then I faced her toward me so that she could take a (very snuggly) nap.

Easter Stuff

I know that it's a little late, but here are a few things that I made the kids for Easter. 

 I made Jack a pillowcase, a take-along-bag, and a crayon roll.  I used spaceship/rocket and alien flannel fabric that he really likes.  The outside of the bag is linen.

The bag is from a pattern in this book, and the crayon roll is from a tutorial here.  

Ruby got a beanbag frog, from this free pattern (super easy!).  I used the same fabrics that her Easter outfit is made from.  I also embroidered the letter "R" on the frog's bottom.  I've really been embroidering the heck out of things lately.

I made the bag and crayon roll for Olivia (in more girlie fabrics) and a frog for Alex, but I didn't take any pictures, oops!

4 more hours at the zoo!

Today we went back to the zoo, and I think that we managed to see everything.  I have to say that this is the best zoo that I've ever been to.  Now, that's partially because there weren't many people there, so the animals (today the chimp) were really friendly and interested in us.  It has pretty much any animal that we'd want to see, and everything is laid out really well.  Today we went into the "rainforest" area, which we were able to walk through.  There were bats above us (eek!) and parrots all around us.  During the rainforest walk, Jack decided that he was Diego and I was cousin Alecia, and imaginary Baby Jaguar accompanied us for the rest of the trip.  We also got to see a baby calf that was just born this morning.  If you look closely in the picture, you can see his umbilical cord hanging down.  (John thinks that's too much information, I think it's cool.)

Museum of World Treasures

Today we visited the Museum of World Treasures.

They had a lot of things from all over the world.  Everything from dinosaur skeletons (Jack's favorite) and rare rocks and minerals (my favorite) to mummies and old war uniforms.  Jack only liked the museum stuff for about 15 minutes.  Then, luckily, we discovered a children's play area, with a little bouncer and lots of toys.  Since it was raining outside, we stayed there for about an hour and a half playing.

Entertaining Ruby

Zoo!

Today was a beautiful day, so we went to a park for awhile, then we went to the Sedgwick County Zoo.  It's a great zoo, with pretty much any animal that a three year old would want to see.  I liked the rhinos and hippos, and Jack's favorite were definitely the grizzly bears.  They were swimming right next to the glass, so Jack got to interact with them.  This was lots of fun until the bear decided to show Jack who's boss and jumped up and growled at him-- I caught a great picture of it.  We stayed and watched the two bears play for about 20 minutes, all by ourselves.  We'll be visiting the zoo again on the next nice day.  We saw less than half the animals, so we definitely need to go back!

Space Center

Today we went to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.  It was so cool!  They had a great Hall of Space Museum that I loved, and Jack thought the "rocketships & spacesuits" were cool.  They actually had the Apollo 13 command module and Jim Lovell's moon suit (which he never got to wear).  Jack's favorite part was the IMAX theatre, where we saw Sea Monsters.  Jack was a little afraid during a few shark moments, but overall he absolutely loved it.  Then we saw a planetarium show.  It was in a planetarium not much bigger than mine, with an old Spitz star machine like mine.  We were the only ones in the planetarium, so I got to take a look at the control boards, and they were just as old as ours! They use MS/DOS for programming shows, too.  Jack fell asleep during the show, so we left soon after that.  

Exploration Place

Yesterday we went to the Exploration Place.  It's a Science and Discovery Center.  We spent about 3 hours there, mostly in the toddler area which was filled with a play kitchen area, dress-up clothes, a water area, and a lot more.  We'll definitely be going back.  We didn't spend much time in the exhibits, so there's still a lot for us to see.  Definitely a must-visit for kids in Wichita.