Fun Outings in February

Although February was a pretty quiet, low-key month (as it's bound to be when you're eight months pregnant), we still managed to do a few fun things. The first big outing we did was going to the Dallas Zoo with some friends who have an annual pass and could get us in for free. Best decision ever! The zoo is like 45 minutes away and it just sounds like a lot of work to go by myself with the two boys, so I had never been. But it was really fun to go with a friend for me and for Dane, and to have another adult there. We all had a great morning!

First things first: a ride on the zoo merry-go-round. 

So many animals were right close up next to the windows for our kids to see. Amanda kept saying they had never seen all these animals so close--it was the best zoo day ever.

Hello Mr. Giraffe!

This gorilla lunged at the glass and acted like he was trying to grab the boys right before this! Pretty crazy!

Looking at the cougars. 

Graham is SO gentle at petting zoos. (Not.)

We did something REALLY fun and crazy in mid-February and went to the Great Wolf Lodge for an overnight stay. It's basically a family resort with a huge indoor water park and play area for kids. We wanted to do one big fun thing with the boys before the baby gets here, and this ended up being really fun. The kind of sad thing is that we are spoiled with the water park at the Fun Club near our house, because we get to swim at this sort of place all summer long, so I think Dane totally took it for granted, haha. But we had a good time, except that I was really exhausted and fighting a lot of contractions after chasing the boys around the pool area all Friday night and Saturday. It took me a few days to recover and feel better.

Graham LOVED the wave pool. He was so cute and happy to be there.

Big grin all the time.

He loved the slides in the baby section and wanted so badly to go down by himself. I finally let him slide down right behind me so I could catch him at the bottom when I got down and he LOVED it. 

Everyone was pretty tired out after so much fun there. We came home on Saturday and took some LONG naps.

I also took the boys to a working farm museum in Plano. They have these cute storytimes/preschool events once every few weeks, and I thought the boys would like to see the animals if nothing else. We went one year ago and I thought Graham would be a lot more excited about it at this age. He was, but he also was VERY distracted by the tractor just sitting in the middle of the yard to pull us on a ride at the end. He was super upset that we had to wait so long and basically whined the whole time during all the organized activities. Sometimes I wonder if the people who plan these sorts of events have ever been around children. I mean, most kids don't want to do a pretend craft gluing a person onto a paper when they're at a farm. Just let them run around and see the animals and have them toss some bean bags around or something. Graham just wandered around while Dane did the activities and it worked out fine.

Finally getting to sit on the tractor... imagining what it would be like to drive it.

He doesn't look like it, but once the tractor ride started going he was totally enthralled. 

And with the end of February we are now 100% in baby mode. Since I'm writing this halfway into March, we are now only a few days away from meeting our baby. I am past the point of being nervous and just ready to get it over with. I want to stop wondering when and how the birth is going to happen and starting each morning wondering if I'm going to go into labor or if I should be keeping track of my contractions. So far I haven't been as far along in labor as I was with the boys at this point, but I've also done a better job of taking it slow the last few weeks to try and keep everything at bay until Jackie gets here (tomorrow!). I am so excited to have her here while we go into the hospital so that we don't have to shuffle the boys off to someone's house randomly or make urgent phone calls in the middle of the night. And of course, we are just excited to meet our baby and to figure out once and for all what her name is going to be. It is all so surreal to know that it's going to happen this week. Let's do this!!