Playtime, parks, and the zoo

So, life has been busy the past few weeks.  We are in the market for a new car which has taken up a lot of time both researching online and going to look at different cars.  I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for and I'm hoping that we will have it in our garage in another couple of weeks.  I found a dealer that I felt good about and told him what I wanted (2012 Oddessy, clean title, less than 50K miles and our price) and he said he would find it for me.  He did, and it should be delivered in about a week to his dealership.

So anyways--the rest of our time has been filled with all sorts of things.  Baby chicks (I'll post about them later), Easter egg hunts at home, at Grandma's, and with my old roommates, Lucy finding lions both outside the zoo and inside, play dates, park trips, playing in our own yard every day (hooray!), sewing, making a new fort, ice skating, and other things. The weather has been great lately which really helps.

Maddie loves playing pretend. She loves playing family, where she and Lucy are the parents and they take care of their children, playing restaurant, playing dinner (it's really cute to see Lucy pretend to pick up a piece of food out of the air and pretend to eat it herself or feed her dolls), and many other variations.  The other morning they were playing "haircut."  This is how it looks: M goes into the hair ties drawer and takes out all the clips, combs, and hair ties and then makes Lucy sit down on a chair while she plays with her hair, combs it, and puts lots of clips or head bands in.

Here was a chunk of her stash the other morning...

Maddie was explaining all of her rules to Lucy and asking her if she would "be patient for just one minute" while she went back to get more hair things.

Lucky for Maddie, Lucy is usually very willing to be her customer.

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We went to the zoo earlier this week with Danny, Alisa, and kids.  Everyone had a great time.  Lucy found the lions and wouldn't leave.  She stayed to watch them for about 20 minutes.  Maddie was really excited to ride the little train, but she also loved the animals.  The sea lions were my favorite.  All the kids stayed to watch them for a long time too.  Maddie wanted to help her littlest cousin see the sea lions.  He's nick-named Chubby.  In her most loving voice she kept calling him, "Chubby!  Come here Chubby!  There's one!  Did you see it swim by, Chubby?" All while bending to lean down close to him.  She can be so thoughtful, gentle, and maternal.  It's great to watch.

Train ride: 

Train ride: There was a baby giraffe to look at before the ride started.  Don't mind my messy hair.  It was a last minute decision to come along with family to the zoo and we had to hurry to get out the door.

Side story: At Mark and Melory's house Lucy spotted the neighbor's two golden retrievers.  She pointed to them and shouted, "lions!"  (This was before going to the zoo.)  Mark took her over with little P. to pet them.  It was really cute and again, she did not want to leave.  Lucy loves animals.  Pretty much all of them.

Maddie held on to her map for a while and kept looking back at it with Matt.  Again, really cute pretending: Maddie kept pretending to read the map with dad.

Matt took more pictures so I will have to get some more from him....

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We've been going to the parks around our house a lot lately.  We went for a picnic dinner Saturday night of general conference weekend while Matt went to dinner with our Bishop and friends and then to church.  Maddie really wanted to go with Matt... But once I loaded up the picnic basket and we were getting into the bike trailer she was very happy.

We went to the elementary school and Lucy found the steepest slide.  I was a little nervous.  Afterall, it is made for 5-10 year olds.  But she loved it.  It surprised her the first time down.  She declared, "really fast" and then ran back over to the steps to climb up and do it again.

We also have had some fun play dates with friends.  I wish I had taken more pictures.  There are several of Maddie's friends that are five and already in kindergarden.  We went to play in the morning before their afternoon kindergarten started though and Maddie had a ball following them around.  The big girls were also really good at helping Lucy and taking her on the slide with them, and pushing her in the swing.  We need to do these park play dates more often.  

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Back in January Melory organized a ice skating day with all the cousins.  She hired one of the teachers at the rink to do a couple private lessons for everybody.  We were going to do group lessons a couple of weeks later but we were going to miss the first two lessons while we were in Florida, so we signed up for the second session.  It started a few weeks ago.  Maddie wanted me to stay with her during her first lesson but she got into the games and I came off the ice for the last half of her lesson.  Last week she said "I'm really good at ice skating!" and she went on the ice by herself..  She did great during her class.  I went on the ice to skate with her during free skate (after her class ended) and had a great time chasing the cousins around.  They are all getting really good, and fast!  But I could still catch them all. :)

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Other thoughts: Matt started reading the first of the Little House on the Prairie books with Madeleine: Little House in the Big Woods.  She loves it and between Matt and I taking turns reading to her, she finished it in about 5 days.  

Lucy is talking so much lately.  She's talking in a lot of sentences now.  I need to take a video of her and upload it for you to see.  I love that she's an early talker just like Maddie was.  I love listening to her thoughts.