HallZOOween

On Saturday we hit the MN Zoo's HallZOOween.
Felix greatly enjoyed the recognition he got as Perry the Platypus. A few times he pulled off his hood and said "Not really, It's a costume." (Thanks Heidi)

The Elephant costume completes its life in the DeFor family.

FP is strong enough to lift an elephant.

They were thrilled by singing with the "band"
Leo sang Itsy Bitsy Spider

Felix sang ABC with her

 And everyone loves to get up on stage (I can't remember what they were singing, but it wasn't YMCA)

Anticipated memories

I was watching something on the internet about how the "instagram generation" lives in two times at once; the actual moment they are in and the future remembering of the moment. They do stuff and at the same time anticipate and shape how they want to remember what they did.

This is so me.

As I take pictures of my family doing stuff, I am mentally shaping the story. Thinking about how we will view what we did as we look back on it. Some people might see this as not being present. And there may be a little of that, but it is also a creative outlet, an art form.

Austin Hormel Nature Center

We went down to Austin this morning to meet up with PopPop for an early happy birthday visit.
We stopped at the Nature Center




He insisted the stick should be stuck in the back of his jacket.








The Vikings hat cracks me up.


Felix always dashes away when I bring out my camera

But I caught him anyway!

Touching the fox snake

Leo pet the snake and then told the guy to "put it back in the glass" Later Leo was watching the snake and noticed it stopped moving. He told FP "It's thinking" and that they should be quiet.

I think we should just get three of these and then they can watch TV.

I see FP with this beaver puppet and Kenny Loggins starts running through my head.

Felix hid all the animal footprints and asked PopPop to find them.

Felix

and the winner:

Relia

Before the bribe:

And after:


I love this one 'cause I think she looks like me

and the winner:

Leo

and the winner:

Sleep

Two nights in a row I have gotten 7-8 hours of sleep. I feel awake and energized for the first time in a while. Wonder why my students who haven't been getting enough sleep (food too?) aren't doing better in school.

Apple Orchard

I don't know why I call it this, We never go into the orchard. It's too durn expensive for a half peck of apples that I generally don't even like. But that's what most people call it, so I go with it. I did buy a pre-picked bag of honeycrisp, and let Relia pick one from a tree by our parking spot before we left. (I told her to pretend she was being sneaky.)

Today, after awesome swimming lessons (all three of them got the okay to move up a level!), we headed down to Belle Plain, MN and Emma Krumbee's Apple fun park.


The way Felix hides from the camera, you might think we only have 2 kids



Every time I see kids on top of this, I imagine a James Bond style train roof fight.






Leo was so tired, but this is him only pretending to sleep until it was tractor time


Yummy apples and caramel


We stopped at a smaller stand to get pumpkins ('cause Krumbee's ain't cheap, and I am) and unfortunately, right across the road, there was a bad accident blocking south 169. Firefighters blocking the vehicle with a tarp as they worked, kind of bad. Made me say a little prayer for whoever was in need of help over there, and of thanks that my family has been so safe for so long.

Relia lost another tooth on the way home -that's two in a week! (Reminder to FP for next year: No Honey Sticks!)
 
We got home, tired, but too close to bed time for any more naps. Waffles for dinner and while FP got the kids ready for bed, I embarked on a 2.5 hour massive meatball making marathon. I estimate I made about 100 meatballs. Why? Because spaghetti is a staple in our house, and I feel slightly more like a good parent when I can at least add homemade meatballs to a jar of ragu.
That, and they are yummy.