Some tickling and some giggles

Izzy was such a doll this weekend (I kinda think she owed us from last weekend :). It's weekends like this that make me wish I never had to work...that we could just hang out all day. Of course, I'm glorifying it, but I still think it would be great.

We've been reading Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton, so I've been trying to teach her where her belly button is, and she doesn't seem to be the least bit interested.

Belly button teaching turned into tickling and giggling...

4th of July at the Benich's!!! And rain......

Arggggggggggh! It's not supposed to rain on the 4th of July!!!! But it did...A LOT!

For the past few years, we've gone to the Ryan and Anissa's house. (Joacim and Ryan met at Tetra Pak, where they both work). Every year the weather's been nice...until this year. i have to admit that I wasn't too excited about going because the rain wasn't going to let up, and I didn't know what we'd do, but we went and I'm glad we did. Joacim's sole drive was getting to let off fireworks, and come hell or high water, the men were gonna blow things up!

When we got there, this is what we saw...lots and lots of puddles

Of course, it didn't bother the kids, Izzy included :)



Izzy's finally taking a break in one of her favorite chairs

yup....still raining.......

here's Brad (another of Joacim's co-workers) playing with Willie, the cutest puppy in the universe!

While the kids were geetting ready for some parachute fireworks, Willie decided to hang out with Izzy


Here are the kids running after the parachutes. This is a tradition of the 4th of July party...the men light off these firworks, and these little parachutes come out, one by one, and the kids expend ridiculous amounts of energy chasing after them...fun to watch!

What's up with the shocked look?

Toward Izzy's bedtime, Joacim got her jammies on and I tried to get her to sleep, but it was pointless. There was WAY too much going on for her to calm down, so I put her in a sling and carried her around, hoping that the rocking motion would make her sleepy. That didn't work either :) So we sat down in the garage and waited for the rain to stop. Everyone had out their iPhone's and Pre's and Blackberries looking at the radar...wish I had taken a photo of that!


Finally, the rain stopped, the fireworks went off, and Izzy fell asleep...

Trip to the zoo

So, we decided to head off to the zoo on our day off. Guess we weren't the only ones, as it took us 40 minutes to get into the parking lot! Even with all of those people, the zoo didn't seem overly busy, which was nice for us.

First thing we did was eat. Man, I love Dog-n-Suds....I'd love it even more if they served corn dogs or charco-cheeseburgers at the zoo, but I was still pretty happy with an Indiana breaded tenderloin. We ended up sharing a table with a family, and while we were chatting, I found out that they were from the same area I grew up (Round Grove) and were related to a family that my family was friends with and went to the same church...small world!

After lunch, we headed off to see the Komodo dragons. This is a temporary exhibit at the zoo, so we wanted to make sure we got to see them before they were gone. Izzy and I got to do a quick drive-by past the dragons, but there were so many people there that it made it hard to see much, especially for Izzy, so we headed out and let Joacim take his time through the exhibit. Here's some pics of the dragons:

Here's Izzy and me outside of the exhibit....nice photo, Joacim..

Here we are while Izzy chews on a mayonnaise packet...sometimes it takes so little to entertain her :)

What was fun about this trip is that she's old enough now to be aware and curious of the animals. We though it would be fun to take her over to the petting zoo to pet some goats. She was skeptical at first, but warmed up to the idea pretty quick!


Of course, we had to wash our hands after that

Joacim LOVES animals, and I think he's going to love teaching her all about them. Can you see how much fun he's having by that smile???

Now she's petting the little pony

And more hand washing :)


A year and a day ago we went to the zoo. It was our first big outing with Izzy. She was so tiny...I dressed her in her little giraffe onesie that I had gotten in Sweden before she was born....

And now look at her....



Time is F-L-Y-I-N-G with her...I just hope I'm doing a good enough job capturing all this so I can look back and remember everything like it was yesterday.

Before we left, I decided to let her run around a little. She wasn't walking the last time we were here, so I wanted to see what she'd do. She was having SOOO much fun! And she was getting quite a bit of attention too!
Here she is running away from me :)

And here she is getting caught by her Pappa

Contemplating her next move....