March Madness!

Wow, I can't believe that March is already almost over! We have been pretty busy lately. With the decent weather we've been having it has been nearly impossible to get the kids to come indoors! I've been too busy chasing them and trying to brush the winter coats off of the horses to take many pictures, but I'll try to do better! You will have to forgive my extra long post, but as a slacker blogger, I gotta get everything up when I can!

On the blog note, my friend Samantha has started a blog for her family. Her youngest son has a possible diagnosis of OI, and she has two other cuties, too! Her blog is http://thebaddleys.blogspot.com.

We went down to the National Zoo last Saturday and met up with some of our LP friends. It was great to meet Amanda, Cory, and Parker "for real", and to see Jenn, Jason, and Simon again! Plus we met some new friends too! The weather wasn't ultra cooperative, it was pretty chilly, but that didn't stop us from exploring the zoo for the afternoon. Taylor's favorite animal is the tiger, and Trace's favorite seems to change fairly frequently...his favorite exhibit at the zoo this time was the construction site for the new elephant trail. Go figure...drive the kid ~250 miles to a zoo and he wants to stand on a bridge and watch the tractors. He was pretty funny at the lion exhibit, he asked us to put him in there, so he could
"beat up that lion". He was gonna "bite his ear off". I promise we haven't been letting him watch Mike Tyson fights!

We don't take Trace anywhere without a backpack full of tractors. Trace graciously shared with all his buddies during the lunch meet-up!



I don't think that Simon stops smiling! You point a camera at him, and the smile is turned on! (This won't last much longer, Jenn, be prepared!)



Parker has decided that the camera is not his favorite friend, but he's still such a cutie that it doesn't matter! (See Jenn, evidence of previous warning)!



I thought the otters cuddling together were extra cute!



Here we are at the panda exhibit! Trace wasn't tired from all the walking at all, wonder why? John totally had to haul me back up to my feet after this photo!



We let the kids run around the Prairie Dog Playground for a little while before strapping them into the car for the trip home!







Trace got a ton of GeoTrax stuff for Christmas, so much that I had to move it into its own room at the house. Trace plays with them pretty much everyday, and Taylor plays with them, too! My only problem with the GeoTrax is that the pieces seem kind of hard to find, WalMart and Target aren't carrying them, so I am Ebay shopping for the upcoming birthday. GeoTrax toys are much cheaper than the Thomas trains (and not nearly as creepy and obnoxious).



In other news, we are working on potty training with Trace. Trace does pretty good at school, but not so great at home. I took his "stand up potty" to school, but let him pick out a new potty for home. He got a construction truck potty, that makes truck noises when it is "used". I have resorted to bribery with assorted Hersey's chocolates for each said "use". You can see that while sitting on the truck potty, Trace still manages to play with his toy trucks. Geez! You can tell that Trace is just thrilled to be sitting on the potty, but the promise of candy is hard to resist!



Miss Taylor loves to write and draw, and is beginning to read! She writes me little notes reminding me that she loves me all the time, and I cannot get enough! I love you too, Tay-bug!