Adventure Aquarium!

Last week, we had a fabulous outing to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ.  It was maybe not my best idea to go on Good Friday... since everyone else apparently had the same idea.  But, Grams and I persevered and the girls had a great time.

Here were the girls' top picks:


Kyra: Our KiKi JoJo went crazy for just about everything at the aquarium ("fish! pengin!  big!"), but her top picks seemed to be the penguins ("simming!"), the starfish ("I touch!") and the jellyfish ("fish!")... unlike Chloe, she did not really care for the fossil/skeleton displays that were scattered throughout ("tuttle scary!").  More on those in a minute...

Amber: Although Amber loved the animals, she told me her favorite part was playing in the kids' area.  There was a boat to drive, drums to play, and more.  She was giggling the whole time and really loved it.

 

Chloe: Chloe is our adventurous girl.  She said that her favorite part was the faux shark cage, where everyone steps into a cage and footage of a shark is played as if the shark is hitting your cage and swimming around and trying to bite you.  She also is crazy for the shark tunnel and likes to pet the stingrays.  This great photo was taken just as a stingray swam up and splashed Kyra and Amber.  Chloe loved it!

 Chloe was also wild for the Dinosaurs of the Deep exhibit which featured life size replicas of "prehistoric monsters."  We were a little confused at first that these replicas were sprinkled throughout the aquarium, rather than having everything in one exhibit area.  I actually thought that worked out really well.  As I mentioned, Kyra wasn't a fan of the fossil replicas, although she really liked the live-looking ones.  (We passed under one that was HUGE and she said, "ohhh." I responded, "It's so big, I can't believe it!"  She said, "So big... believe it!")  The fact that it was all spaced out made it easy to re-direct her if she saw something she didn't like.

Overall, it was a really terrific day - Mommy and Grams were suitably exhausted at the end.  :-)

Amber: On School Lessons

Mommy: Amber, what did you do at school today?

Amber: I just did my work and stuff.

Mommy: What did you do?

Amber: Worked on words.

Mommy: Any good words, like caterpillar?

Amber (looking from side to side nervously and whispering): Mommy, let's not talk about the words because they are inappropriate.

Mommy: What words could you have been writing that were inappropriate?

Amber (seriously): Poopie, butt...  Peepee.

Mommy (hysterically laughing and trying to breathe): Miss Kerri did NOT have you write poopie and butt and peepee.

Amber (vigorously nodding).

Kyra: On Getting Dressed

 

 

 

  

 

Kyra: Puppy. Ow-fit. Puppy. Wear it. Puppy. Woof-woof.

(A note from Mommy: Hey, man.  I said that the posts would be authentically their voices.  I didn't promise Shakespeare.)

A New Direction for a Philly Family

A note from Mommy:


As you can tell, it's been some time since I have updated this blog, which I once updated quite a bit.  Two things have happened which have kept me away:


1) I finally embraced the current decade and got a smart phone.  Now, I can upload the photos I take to Facebook as soon as I take them and I have found that EVERYONE is on the Facebook.


2) Another issue is related to these kids of mine.  I once took a great deal of fun (and hopefully, you then had a great deal of fun) developing voices for Chloe, Amber, and Kyra.  I imagined Chloe as the gal on the go with Amber as the sassy foil and Kyra the monkey in the works of everything either tried. 


But, they are getting older now.  And while Kyra IS often the monkey in the works of whatever they are trying to do, all three of them are developing their own voices... and it feels wrong to invent fake voices for them.  So I'm going to stop doing that. 


However, I don't want to walk away from this blog entirely (as I have for several months).  I have some new ideas... some ideas to bring those unique voices to the forefront of this blog.

Stay tuned. 

Happy Halloween!

Silliness Continues...

 

"And Sally and I did not know what to do, so we had to shake hands with Thing 1 and Thing 2."

The Fish in the Pot

 

"She said, 'Do I like it? Oh no, I do not.  PUT ME DOWN, PUT ME DOWN,' said the fish in the pot."

First Up...

                                                                                                                                                                                             Thing 1: We like to be here, we like to have fun.

Thing 2: Happy Halloween to you, from Thing 2 and Thing 1.

 

(More to come...)

Chloe's First Day at Kindergarten!

 

Chloe: Mommy said this jumper is going to kill her.  I have no idea what she means, but man, am I excited!  Today, I enter a bold, new world: Kindergarten. 

 

As Dr. Seuss wrote, "I have brains in my head and feet in my shoes."  I'm ready!  AND yesterday, Mommy took me shopping for my awesome new Ninja Turtle backpack and then we went for manicures - at the PLACE!  Mommy didn't do it for me.  We went to a PLACE.

 

I'm so excited that I just can't stand it!  Mommy and Daddy are so proud of me and Mommy just kept going on and on...

 

Amber: Hi, remember us?  We live here, too.

 

Kyra: Seriously.  What is with all the excitement?  Plus, Mommy bopped me because I was trying to rip off Chloe's name tag.  I'm the baby!  That's, you know, WHAT I DO?

 

Amber: Girl, it is going to be a long year.

 

Kyra (nodding): Let me tell you what.

Rocking Some Independence

 

Chloe: "Will someone shut that man up? NEVAAHH!"  Oh, I love me some independence.  Every 4th of July, Mommy and I watch "1776" and sing songs about the colonies breaking off from their parent country - first time ever, baby - and this year, I asked Mommy if we could please go to where they fought it out in Congress.  She said that we could just go downtown and see it whenever it wasn't 4th of July weekend.  So, while we were on vacation, we did just that.  It was awesome!  Independence Hall was bigger in the movie, but other than that, awesome. 

 

Chloe: I asked the Park Ranger about how they preserve the Liberty Bell and Amber asked him how Ben Franklin got dead.  We paid our respects at his grave and also saw the Signer statue, the architecture of the 2nd bank and walked around Independence Mall.  It was a great day!  Then, we went home and watched the movie.

Finally - the Beach!

 

Chloe: Finally!  We made it to the beach!  I love every single thing about being at the beach - Aunt Diane, digging, boogie boarding, eating tomatoes, everything!

 

Amber: Yup - it was awesome!  I turned as brown as a coconut in three days and Mommy keeps saying, "not fair."

 

Kyra: I had fun, too.  I ate sand when Daddy wasn't looking and I got to take very relaxing naps.

 

Kyra: Ahhh.

No Fair!

 

Kyra: "It's not fair!  I'm the baby!  I shouldn't have to be in the corner!  I didn't like that dinner and that's why I threw it on the floor!"

Adventuring at the Aquarium

 

Chloe: Yesterday was AWESOME!

 

Amber: BEST DAY EVER!

 

Kyra: DID YOU GUYS SEE THOSE FISH???  THERE ARE FISH THERE!

 

Chloe: We had a terrific time at the aquarium with Mommy's friend, Miss Brenda, and her kids Logan and Sophia.  Logan and I are big kids and we had a lot to talk about - we both love animals!

 

Amber: It was so cool - no ducks, but otherwise, completely awesome.

 

Kyra: Seriously: FISH EVERYWHERE.