day at the zoo

i took hendrix to the zoo yesterday and we had a blast!

he loved climbing on everything, and checking out all the animals.

we bumped into some friends, and ended up wandering around the zoo with them, but hendrix was never really ready to move from one animal on to the next.  he had to have said "more" over a hundred times while we were there!  he was especially fascinated with the big cats - tigers, leopards and lions.

oh and he really tried to climb into the pool with the sea lions.  

there were lots of different birds along with the big cats, but most of the other animals weren't out yet for the season.  we are most definitely going to have to plan a return trip soon!

this kid loves animals!

books, books, books!

snuggling up with daddy to read a few favorite stories before he heads off to work is a great way to start a monday morning ;)

reading is pretty much a favorite pastime for hendrix and i think that is primarily responsible for his exploding vocabulary (he says clearly some 100+ words).  

he wants to read his favorite stories over and over again.  but it is also not uncommon for us to sit down and shuffle through all 30 some books in his little book basket, reading each one, before he is ready to move on to another activity.  you might remember that i had hoped for this kind of passion for literacy, but is it okay for me to admit that i am kind of bored with these stories?

i think that he is finally capable of taking good care of his reading materials, so we can safely start checking out books from the library.  but on our last trip he still only picked out books with farm animals in them.  not really a ton of variety there kiddo.  

my super messy toddler sounds an awful lot like some sort of weird cross-bred animal as he wanders around the house making all sorts of silly sounds.  it sure makes me wonder if this is a phase or is he is going to be the world's largest animal lover. ;)

my first turkey

our thanksgiving was such a wonderful mix of food, family, and sunshine!

i made my first turkey, and thanks to my careful planning, i was able to have the meal all on the table at the same time. ;)  my mother-in-law and sister-in-law joined us for the day, and hendrix very much enjoyed playing with them both. 

hendrix learned the words 'turkey' and 'gobble-gobble' as we were trying to keep him in the loop about thanksgiving.....but he wouldn't try any of the food i made.  

apparently his taste buds are more accustomed to chicken nuggets and applesauce.  

he doesn't even know what he missed out on!

aunt kate has a birthday really close to this holiday, so it was fun to share a birthday treat with her.  hendrix really enjoyed helping her open the card and present......i am quite certain that christmas is going to be a blast with this kiddo!

the weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed a nice little walk to the park...

followed by yummy dessert! 

  

grandma had probably the biggest hit of the day though with her iPad.  hendrix really enjoyed the animal sounds app that she downloaded for him, and loved showing us all the sounds that he knows. ;)  it was so cute!

now we can start focusing on the next holiday....christmas here we come!

animal lover

hendrix really loves animals.  

his first real animal obsession was about 'dogs' and while he is still interested in pointing out every dog he sees, he has become less delighted by them than he used to be.  

shortly thereafter it was all about "kitties".  he wanted to pull their tails pet them and would chase the one at my mom's or my mother-in-law's until the cat would just run and hide under a bed until we left.  about this time he started to use more words and would also say "meow".

then he dropped both of those animals to become completely engrossed with "horsies" (pronounced hord-EE)  this was mostly initiated by the rocking horse he got for his birthday, but then was reinforced when he started seeing the horses out in the field right behind the house of his baby-sitter on a regular basis.  we had to start going out of our way to see horses (which is a little tricky when you live in town) because they delighted him so much!  

now he has picked up a new favorite animal.  cows.  the funny part is that he doesn't say 'cow' but instead when he sees one he says "mooooooo".  There is one hiding in this yellow peekaboo book (see above photo), and he gets the book out saying 'moo', turns to the page of the cow, finds it and then he is all done with the book.  if we try to read him the other pages, he just shuts it, saying 'no', unless we open it back up to the cow page.  it is funny.

To help reinforce his interest in animals and to encourage him to learn the correct sounds they make, we bought him this really fun farm animal toy for the fridge.  It has been a big hit, and it keeps him busy while mommy is trying to get things done in the kitchen. 

he does know other animals including, ducks, bears, frogs, tigers, snakes, monkeys, birds, chickens, and pigs; but he just doesn't get as excited about these animals.  

i am curious to see what his next favorite will be ;)

do we have a future veterinary on our hands?!?

Iowa State Fair 2011

Last weekend we took Hendrix to his first Iowa State Fair.  It was about 75 degrees and sunny, so just about as perfect as weather possibly can get.  He had some of Daddy's fresh squeezed lemonade right after we got there, and he definitely approved!

Next we checked out the barn with all the baby animals.  He was fascinated.  As we would walk away from one animal to go see another one, he would holler back at the one that we were leaving....

He tried a State Fair corn dog (man that was huge!).  I imagine he would have liked most of the other food options as well, but since everything is fried and on a stick, mommy packed some fruit and other "boring" foods for him to snack on throughout the day.  

Oh, but I had a red-velvet-funnel-cake which was delish!

We had to take a little break to run around on the playground, and of course, let Hendrix crawl through the tunnel a couple of times.  

We went with my brother and sister-in-law, and also another brother and his girlfriend.  We had lots of fun hanging out with them, and found that it was super nice to have some extra hands to help with Hendrix. 

There was a water feature, and of course we couldn't walk by it without Hendrix taking a little sprint through it. ;)  He was on the verge of getting the whole walking thing figured out, but he didn't do much of it at the fair, unless we were holding onto one of his hands. 

Then a little ice cream sandwich, yum! 

My family! ;)

This was the face that he kept making when we were looking at the animals.  He didn't really laugh and giggle with happiness, instead he just stared with super-wide eyes.  

He liked to get up real close to see the animals, and even got the nerve to touch some of them. 

He didn't ride in the stroller except for when he napped for a couple hours in the middle of the day, but it was nice to have to push around all our stuff.  Instead he took turns being held or riding around on top of our shoulders.  

He handled the crowds really well, and seemed to enjoy taking everything in.  

We love the State Fair!  

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