March fun!

March was full of a lot of "firsts" for our family. It was a good month. We visited a new zoo for the first time, we saw our first air show, we had our first campfire in the backyard, Kindly lost her first two teeth in the same day, Bravery tried out her first bottle (and loved it), Wisdom had his first big fall (read on), Passion participated in her first piano federation, and we went swimming for the first time this year. 

I'll start with our new pool! We found a pool about 8 minutes from our house that we bought a membership to for the summer. The kids have been so excited to go swimming even though the pool isn't heated so the water is freezing. Nearly everyday that it got into the 80's they were begging to go swimming. When we did go, they spent most of the time in the shallow, warmer kiddie pool or laying out in the sun to warm up. They won't be complaining in a couple of months though when the water is too warm and it's 110!

We had the pool all to ourselves, I guess no one else
was crazy enough to swim when it was only 83 out.

The Kiddie Pool

Kindly came running into our room one Saturday morning announcing that her tooth was loose. Now just to give you a little background on Kindly and her teeth . . . she has been anticipating loosing her first tooth since she was 4. She is nearly 7 so it has been a long wait. She asks the dentist every time we visit if there are any loose teeth. A month ago when she went to the dentist, she was told that none of her teeth were loose yet but to hang in there and it shouldn't be too much longer. 

So when she walked into our room that morning I didn't think she was serious. Then Travis takes a look and says that there are actually two teeth already grown in behind her two front bottom teeth and that only one of the baby teeth is loose. I was so shocked that there were adult teeth in, especially since I know they weren't there 3 weeks before when we visited the dentist. Travis helped Kindly pull out the loose tooth and then encouraged Kindly to wiggle the other one a lot and try to get it out soon too so that those big teeth could move up where they were supposed to be. She took on the challenge and had a tooth that wouldn't hardly budge that morning, loose by that evening and then pulled it out herself just before bedtime!

Here's Bravery enjoying some bonding time with daddy and having her very first bottle. She drank it right down!

Passion was so excited but also very nervous to participate in her first piano federation. It's not a competition. She just plays two pieces and is judged on them. She did awesome and I was so amazed at how calm she was under pressure. She is very talented and scored a superior (the highest possible score)!
Here she is waiting for the judge to have her play her second song. Isn't she beautiful?!

When we moved into our house there was a fire pit with wood sitting on the back patio. We always talked about using it but it never seemed like there was a cool enough night. Finally on a beautiful, cool night during Spring Break, Travis decided to dig down deep and find his inner-boy scout and build us a fire. We had so much fun sitting around the warm fire that we ended up doing it again a few nights later but the 2nd time roasting marshmallows and hotdogs!

We had a fun Spring Break this year. There was no trip to Disneyland but we did have some fun family time. We spent one day at a very expensive but super cool zoo in the area that we had never been to. Wildlife World Zoo is only about 15 minutes from our house but it has taken us a year and a half to finally make it there. It was a really neat zoo that focuses on giving you a hands-on experience. We got to feed exotic birds, giraffes, turtles, deer, alpacas, and goats. 

Below are pictures from the "petting zoo." The kids got to feed all of the animals in there.

It was so awesome that you could walk around with these huge tortoises!

What I thought was the coolest thing though was getting to feed these birds. We put apple slices in our hands and held our hands out in front of us and birds would just fly down, land on your hand and start eating! It was actually kind of intimidating because they would just swoop down and kind of scare you but after a few attempts the kids couldn't get enough of it!

We found a nice quiet, secluded, shady spot for me to feed Bravery. Travis took the kids to look at a few other animals while Bravery ate. When they got back, I was just finishing up so the kids played around, waiting. Well Wisdom climbed to the top of these bleachers (below) and fell off! I didn't get to see it because I was busy feeding Bravery but Travis caught the end of it and thinks that he actually landed on his feet before hitting his back and bottom. What we do know is that it was a little miracle that he wasn't hurt worse than we was. He had a pretty decent scratch across his lower back and a really sore tail bone but was otherwise fine. 

Travis had Wisdom stand where he landed to show how far he fell. I was just so grateful he was okay. He was quite the trooper and walked the second half of the zoo after this!

This was also a really cool part of the zoo . . . feeding the giraffes. The only problem was that it was hard for the kids to reach the giraffes to actually feed them. Passion didn't have a problem but Kindly and Wisdom had to kind of throw the food onto the giraffe's tongue.

Wisdom feeding a baby giraffe

Just after this Passion says, "Mom! I touched it's tongue!"

Kindly pouring the food on the giraffe's tongue while Travis
touches it's nose.

This camel wouldn't move. It almost looked like it was posing for pictures!

We happened to visit the zoo the day before the nearby air force base was planning to put on an airshow so we got to watch them practice. It was really pretty cool and almost made us want to pay for the real air show the next day. It was seriously amazing how fast and close those jets fly in formation.

A leprechaun visited our house again this year! The kids had fun checking out what he left for them and cleaning up his green M&M mess that he left. They were a little disappointed that after 5 years of trying, we still couldn't catch a leprechaun! The girls also had fun dressing up for school!