A Year With Frog and Toad

This Friday, Sarah and I had a girls' night out with Monica and Grace Talboy.  We went to Shawnee Mission West to see the production of "A Year with Frog and Toad," and it was so, so cute!  Sarah is still talking about it and singing the songs - especially "Toad looks funny in a bathing suit!"

The girls were so excited to see the adorable set and to try to guess who lived in which house.  I talked to Sarah about the theater itself and told her that I used to be in plays on that stage (20 years ago!).  She was profoundly unimpressed.

What DID impress her were the pre-show snacks!  Grace picked some sugar cookies decorated to look like a pond with a gummy frog on a lily pad.  Sarah picked green and brown chocolate frogs!

Once they ran out of snacks, they played with their stuffed animals.  I mean, you can't see a play without at least one stuffed animal with you...

Once the lights went down, though, the girls were riveted.  They sat so well, and they really enjoyed the show!  And with a performance this cute, who wouldn't enjoy it?!

Sarah can't decide if her favorite part was the Large and Terrible Frog jumping rope, the boy bird (she really liked his aviator goggles and hat), or getting a cookie from one of the cast members at the end of a song about being kooky for cookies!

My favorite part was the snail taking forever to deliver the mail, but Sarah is (as always) less than concerned about MY preferences.  

Plus, giving a cookie to an almost 4-year-old will make you a favorite every time!

38 Weeks Old

January 21 - January 27

This week, Kate had her first ear infection.  Poor kiddo was clearly uncomfortable, but she was never horrible about it!  Luckily, Tom is amazing and was able to take off work and get her into the doctor before it got really bad.  She still got extra cuddles this week, though! (I took even fewer pictures than usual this week because of those extra cuddles, so please excuse the cell phone quality photos!)

Kate also spent this week practicing walking!  That's right.  I said WALKING.  Technically, it is walking behind a toy, but still...we are in trouble because she'll be walking for good soon!

Even with an ear infection, Kate continues to be a good eater!

Snow Zoo

On Sunday, Sarah and I went to the Kansas City Zoo for Snow Zoo!  When we got there, Nikita was playing in a big pile of ice.

Look!  He found a fish in there!

Berlin was playing with a giant block of ice.  It appeared to have only carrots in it.  Poor Berlin.

Next, we visited the penguins!  The chicks are almost all grown up now and look a lot like "real" penguins.  They're still pretty cute, though!

But not even penguin chicks could compare to the real reason for our visit to Snow Zoo - Anna, Elsa, and Olaf were in town from Arendale for the day!

Sarah was very excited to meet the princesses, and she wore her special Elsa shirt for the occasion.  When Elsa said how much she liked Sarah's shirt, Sarah had to point out that she loved Anna, too, and was wearing her Anna socks!  I think she melted some hearts with that one!

Even Olaf had a look!

Sarah was SO excited to meet these guys and kept asking me if they were "the real Anna and Elsa."

After meeting royalty, Sarah climbed around on the penguins in front of the Penguin Plaza until it got too cold.  Then we headed into the Tuxedo Grill for some lunch!

After lunch, we visited the Tropics building.  Boy, was it a nice place to be on a cold and windy day!  Before leaving the zoo, we watched the sea lion show and then rode the carousel.  We were the only people on it, so Sarah and I both rode an animal!

She got the elephant.  I got the red river hog.

It was lots of fun for both of us!

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!