We just got back from our first family baseball game. It definitely proved to be a memorable first experience for the girls. Originally we had hoped to take them to a game last year, but realized that Evelyn was still a little too… we’ll say squirmy. Both girls were still a little young to appreciate the game much, but we had a lot of fun. We started off walking around the entire stadium to get to our seats. (insert note about never letting Jason be in charge of directions) While we were still walking the visiting team, the Marlins, got 3 runs. It took us so long to get to our seats, and we hadn’t gotten to the stadium until after the game started, that we were surprised it was still the 1st inning. Lillian was desperately bored pretty quickly; where were the princesses?! We watched until the 4th inning or so and went for a walk. The girls loved the Cartoon Network area, especially a dark room where characters pop randomly out of doors. We peeked in the gift store so daddy could try out which hat he likes best and then stocked up on a hot dog and some popcorn as we headed back to our seats. It was hard to believe it was already the bottom of the 7th by the time we returned. We made it back just in time. The Braves were losing 6 -1 but a home run and some errors by the Marlins and suddenly it was a tie game! It was the bottom of the 9th and Jason and I were both wondering if we should stick around or leave if it went into extra innings. Amazingly, the Braves knocked out another home run! or did they? The ball hit the top of the wall and bounced back onto the field! The fans couldn’t believe it. Initially the umpire declared it fair and we were all booing as McCann settled in on 2nd base. The umpires could probably tell they were about to get mobbed and decided to review the call. After several tense minutes the umpires came out and told McCann to keep running. We all jumped up and screamed as he finished running the bases. While the girls didn’t quite get all the subtleties of the game, they did learn when to yell ‘Charge!’ how to do the Tomahawk chop, that we liked the red team, and that we didn’t want the grey team to win. I gave Lillian a few more details about outs, pitchers, batting and bases, but I don’t think we have a future all star on our hands anytime soon.

Evelyn kept chanting ‘Braves win!’ How did she know?!

Hurry, this ball is about to crush me!

Cinderella getting her game on

Yay… red team?

Doin’ the popcorn dance

Looks like we have a closet Marlins fan

It’s getting harder to say I feel like I just graduated college when not only has it been over 10 years since I graduated, but now I can say I have a Kindergartner. Today was Lillian’s first day of School, capital S. Sure she’s been to Sunday school, preschool and even pre-K, but today marks her first day of climbing up on the big yellow bus and being whisked away by a virtual stranger to fend for herself in the unknown. Lillian has been waiting for this day for at least a year. She’ll be at school for the same amount of time as she was last year, but knowing she got to ride the bus had a special appeal. She’s also determined that she learns to read.

This morning we woke the girls up when it was still pitch black outside. We’ll probably be able to get them up a little later than today but we wanted to make sure we weren’t rushed and daddy wanted to help out. Lillian was excited but calm, although she was too excited to eat her breakfast. We headed out for the bus early, only 2 houses away, and waited. We have the 2nd stop so there are no worries about the bus being too crowded and she’s the second stop on the way home too, so she gets home only 5 minutes after school’s out! Lillian seemed calm, but she quickly got annoyed with my picture taking and was impatient for the bus to come. So was daddy since he stayed late this morning to say good-bye! Finally, we saw the bus turn down the street and before we knew it, Lillian was climbing aboard and getting settled in the front seat, just like she wanted. Evelyn burst into tears, knowing that she didn’t get to ride the bus too. She calmed down quickly and even though we went for a run along the same path as the bus was taking, we never caught a glimpse of our big girl again. Evelyn is already asking when Lillian is coming back, although she seems happy that Grandma is coming over and she also gets to pick what to watch on t.v. She has also asked to make sure that she will get to ride the school bus when she’s bigger too. Luckily for me, that’s still 3 years away.

Hurry! We only have 10 minutes to walk 2 houses away!

“Waiting for the Bus” Dance

Hurry up already!

Once a year the Atlanta Zoo has a free weekend for residents of Fulton County. We weren’t sure if we should take advantage of it or not since it sounded like a recipe for a massive crowd. Finally, we decided that if it wasn’t raining, we’d give it a shot on Sunday morning. (Lillian said it was an acceptable alternative to Sunday School.) We got to the zoo almost half an hour before it opened because we didn’t know how the parking would be. We were surprised to park right in front of the zoo. Next, we only waited in line for a few minutes before they started letting people in and we were suddenly in an almost empty zoo! The animals were all still eating morning snacks and hanging out. We even got to see the lion who is almost always hidden on a rock. Our only mistake was asking Lillian what she wanted to see and were surprised with her answer, “alligators!” They happened to be on the other side of the park, so as we tried to stop to look at things along the way we were getting constant reminders that we should be heading to the ALLIGATORS! Naturally, once we did get to their enclosure, all you could see was a slight nose and eye poking out of the water. Even with a very light crowd we spent the whole morning being freaked out by agressive gorillas, staring at lazy tigers and feeding Parakeets. The girls both declared that their favorite animal was the giraffe, although we gave some turtles and naked mole rats a lot of loving too.

Lillian had refused to stand by an earlier gorilla statue because she thought they were real

Follow me!

Our littlest cub

So he just scratches his butt all day?

Evelyn LOVED feeding the parakeet

I usually call them my little monkeys, but they make good meerkats too

Tonight I was tired of my ponytail and decided to pull my hair up off my neck. Lillian saw me and instantly declared me “beautiful!” She was so impressed, we had to do her hair and Evelyn’s too. Combine this with our recent toenail painting session and daddy is really starting to feel left out around here!

Lillian thinks Toys R Us is called…

Toys: or else!

While we were surprised by how chilly it was on our trip to California, we weren’t sad to be missing the heat in Georgia. It has been swinging between 90 and 100 pretty much every day with a constant threat of flash thunderstorms. That hasn’t stopped us from having some fun though. We destroyed the death star, climbed a mountain and had an un-birthday party at the park. Take that, 100% humidity!

I made this pinata for a Star Wars party at the library, but it wouldn’t dry in time so I had a playgroup to smash it up good!

I’m going to carry this cannon up the mountain!

Evelyn’s version of hiking

Did you really climb a mountain?

We had a “gathering” so Lillian could see all her friends. It happened to be on grandma’s birthday and she kept asking why everyone was telling her Happy Birthday instead of Grandma.

Didn’t seem to mind taking their gifts though.