Recently...

Recently, we have been taking full advantage of the warm winter we've had here in Kansas City!  On January 18, we went to the zoo to see the animals we'd been ignoring since Thanksgiving.  Despite her 2-year-long infatuation with the polar bear, all Sarah wanted to do was to ride the train and (for some bizarre reason) see the snakes...

Kate enjoyed sitting in the stroller like a big girl through the entire zoo trip!

I enjoyed the fact that this ice in the aviary was just about the only sign of winter we saw that day!

The warm weather has also allowed us to visit to a couple of new parks recently.

On January 19, we used our 3-day weekend to visit Black Bob Park in Olathe with the Talboys.  We had a little picnic lunch, and then Sarah and Grace had fun playing on the castle playground together!

MJ got in on the fun, too!

Even Kate tried the slides!

(With a little help from Monica, of course!)

We played on the swings for a while, too, before heading home for nap time.  It was a fun park, but it's a long enough drive that I think we'll save it for special occasions!

We're very lucky to have lots of fun parks closer to home, though.  It's not new to us, but Na-Nex-Se Park is definitely a favorite place to play. We met up with the Talboys again on January 16 and played until the sun went down! Sarah loves this rock wall - which may be going away soon as there were signs all over the park that a new play area is coming soon...

Kate enjoyed hanging in the Baby Bjorn and swinging!

On January 24, the girls and I walked to Little Mill Creek Park - a brand new park just down the road (and up the hill, and then down the hill, and then up a really big hill) from us!  We've been watching them build it over the last several months, so we were really excited to see the orange safety fencing come down in time for us to play over the weekend!

I'm hoping that the mulch will be replaced with turf this spring so Kate can easily play (and not eat mulch!), but this park was so much fun that we'll be there a lot either way!

Other things that have happened recently include Sarah writing her name in chalk for the first time... 

...the start of tap and tumbling class...

...and the start of swim lessons!

And just in case you think we're being TOO healthy and active, we've also been eating chocolate...

...and frozen yogurt...

...and laying around on top of the dog!

Sarah also had her first-ever ice cream cone this month!  We've always had ice cream in a bowl, but I thought she was ready to try a cone.  I think she enjoyed herself!