anniversary at the zoo

yesterday matt and i celebrated 8 years of marriage! we didn't really do anything special but it was still a pretty nice day. i spent the morning with madelyn and mason at the zoo while matt went to work and was a little camera happy.

madelyn, however, was not so camera 'happy' at first. she had chosen to bring minnie mouse to the zoo and was really cute holding her up and saying, "look at the...minnie!" when i tried to take the picture she tried to hide minnie and walk away quickly with her hand blocking the camera. if only she was wearing her sunglasses then she would have really looked like she was avoiding the paparazzi.

the elephant has done this the last few times we have come but this was the best picture i have gotten. the elephant is standing on the very edge of his yard and reaching his/her trunk across the 'moat.' madelyn is waving "hello" to the elephant.

madelyn's favorite thing in the monkey house is this statue of a baby gorilla. she really wanted me to take her picture with it and then started to examine it. for some reason she wanted to open its mouth on this trip.

this video is of the tiger cubs playing, but the funny part was after seeing them 'play' like this madelyn said, "hey, they aren't being nice!" another lady explained to her that is just how tigers play and it really is nice.


after the tigers we walked for a while and madelyn was carrying everything in her pockets. what can i say, the kid just loves her pockets. she stopped on a rock to rest and drink her water (her description). and after i took her picture she took a seat on every large rock in the vicinity and asked me to take her picture resting!and mason was either sleeping or smiling happily!
we were singing songs on our way out and madelyn was running happily with the wind blowing her hair that i couldn't manage to capture (mainly because i couldn't run backwards with the stroller fast enough to stay ahead of her). and since i was snapping away i just happened to catch her eating it! don't worry she wasn't injured and didn't even make any thing of it.


here she is making mason laugh when we got back home. (he wasn't injured either!)

later that night madelyn was helping keep mason happy while i was making dinner and when i saw what she was doing i had to take a picture. it is hard to see because he is wearing a patterned onesie but he is covered in little stickers! at least he was happy. and madelyn was having a pretty good time too. she has been such a great big sister and big helper lately. she is always comforting mason for me whenever he starts to fuss. tonight she told him, "don't worry big boy. mommy is right here. it's okay." matt felt a little sad that daddy being here wasn't a comfort. love.