Zoo Lights 2009!!!

Last night we went to the Zoo Lights. I love going to this every year...so festive! But we must be the dumbest parents to go there without a stroller. I swear, I think Joacim and I both agree that we've had some moments of sheer "parental stupidity" since we had Izzy, like forgetting her diaper bag on an outing, but to go to the zoo without a stroller??? Stupid. We ended up carrying her around the entire time because, oddly enough, she was petrified of the animals. This from the little girl who asks anyone and everyone to read her animal books 17000 times in a row. When we got there we went straight over to the seals, and she looked at them, and then looked at Joacim, and shook her head and said "No" in her angelic little voice. Then she buried her head in Joacim's neck...her sign for being scared. It was like this whenever we were near an animal. Sooo strange....maybe it was the darkness, because she wasn't afraid when we were in ocean's exhibit with the sharks and penguins...
But we were able to get a nice family self-portrait...

Compared to the one last year...look how much she's GROWN!!!

The lights were beautiful..


Now she's finally checking out the lights...

It wasn't easy to get photos, that's for sure!



Like I mentioned early, the FINALLY was OK with the animals once we got to the penguins. And lucky for us, they were really active that evening!

After the zoo lights, we went to Bazbeauz pizza for some dinner. We'd never been there before, but always heard great things about it, and we weren't disappointed!

She got bored rather quickly, so we kept trying to find ways to occupy her. The only thing that worked at the end was getting her out of her seat and letting her roam around (which I'm sure EVERYONE else there LOVED :) Screw 'em....it's better than dealing with a tantrum!!!!!

Some outside play time

Sometimes I love daylight savings time...like in the summer when it's light until 9:30 or 10 at night. Then there are times when I hate it...like ever since the time changed this fall and it's dark by the time we all get home. No more playing outside when we get home from work...it's always too dark. We had this ritual during the summer where Izzy and I would get home, and we'd go right outside with Murphy. She'd sit on my lap and eat her yogurt and we'd play with Murphy, waiting for Joacim to get home. And it feels like we're always on the go on the weekends, so Izzy and Murphy have been in need of some outside time, and they finally got it the other day.
It almost looks as though she's trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

She's absolutely edible to me.

Pappa had put away the owl we bought this summer to scare away the birds from pooping all over the pergola. He tried to put it away (since we now put out some food for the birdies for the winter), and she was NOT HAPPY. So he had to get it back out. Unfortunately for her, it's weighted down with sand and fairly heavy.

And she's mad because she can't move it

And that pathetic face will get one of us to move it for her pretty quickly

Don't know how I was lucky enough to get this photo, but I LOVE it! How cute is he?

Izzy and Joacim are playing hide-and-seek with me. These are some of the BEST smiles...

Sleeping issues...

Izzy's been having issues sleeping, as anyone I talk to regularly will tell you. Or maybe I've already blogged about....I can't remember anymore. ANYway....she's essentially been sleeping in our bed since somewhere before Thanksgiving. She must've had a nightmare at some point, then she threw up in bed shortly after that, and she is terrified of it since.

It hasn't been worth the effort since then to try to get her back in bed. She'd start phyiscally shaking and shreiking whenever we went near it, so we decided to just get through this period and try when we were on vacation. Well, we're on vacation, and we're trying, but I can't really report "success" yet. We've had 2 of the last 3 nights where she's slept in bed until 6:30 or 7:30am (which is HUGE) but GETTING her to sleep is taking sometimes 1-2 hours. She's certainly used to falling asleep in our bed, and we've been trying to break that first by rocking her in her room. Unfortunately, our little Izzy is an incredibly light sleeper, and wakes up as soon as we get out of the rocking chair. But we aren't giving up. She's in her bed right now, snoring. Let's hope it stays that way tonight :)