Catch Up

Babymoon:

Drew and I decided to take a "babymoon" before baby #2 arrives. Friday night we went to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game and sat in the all-you-can-eat seats. Yay! There's nothing like eating ballpark hotdogs, popcorn, and peanuts until you feel like you could burst. ;) It was really fun going to a ball game, although the Reds didn't win. But the weather was PERFECT - warm with a nice breeze. We were expecting it to rain, but thankfully it didn't. However, back in Troy there was a huge storm that passed through and my parents lost electricity for a couple of hours.


We used Drew's hotel points from all his business travels and were able to stay at a Homewood Suites for free! It was really nice. There was a small kitchen with a lounge area and then a bedroom and bathroom off of that. We didn't think to take pictures until Saturday morning so there aren't any pictures of the messy bedroom!


Then Saturday we just took it easy and stopped at some local stores. We bought a few Sandra Boynton books (LOVE her books!) for Jenna at Half-Price Bookstore and Drew so kindly let me shop a little at Michaels.

We originally had wanted to go to La Comedia dinner theater as part of our babymoon, but the show we wanted to see (Phantom) was only playing until the weekend before our "trip". The next show was Church Basement Ladies and neither of us were that keen on seeing it, so we went to the dinner theater a few weeks before our babymoon. We've been once before and I've been a few other times and just love it. It's such a fun date - a little pricey, but nice when you have a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.


Shed:

Recently we also decided to have a shed built in our backyard. Now that we're expanding our family we are quickly running out of garage space with all of the big toddler outdoor toys. Drew was going to build it himself, but we realized that he just doesn't have the time to do it. And we were surprised to find a local Amish company that builds them for a great price - about what we were planning to spend if Drew built it himself. Here's a before and after picture...


Drew's done some organizing in the shed and garage and it's been wonderful! Our garage is already starting to look better and not as crowded!

Jenna:

What update would be complete without some Jenna pictures. These were taken back in mid-April. We bought this water activity table at a Mom's Mart (basically an area-wide garage sale). Jenna has loved it!

1st hair cut

We finally got Jenna's hair cut this weekend. She had quite a few wispy's in her face so it was definitely time! She did really well. We had her sit on Mommy's lap while Daddy snapped some pictures. We made it through the cut without any crying or fits - woo hoo!

Columbus Zoo

Last Saturday our ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship/Sunday School) group from church went to the Columbus Zoo. This was Jenna's first trip to the zoo. We've been looking at animal books and she recognizes some animals. Most animals she ends up calling "dah" or "dada", which means dog. She also can say fish (pronounced "ish") and bird (pronounced "buh").

Here's Jenna and Bailey sitting on the front porch swing before we left our house.

Mommy and Jenna at the entrance to the zoo

Daddy and Jenna petting a goat in the petting zoo section

Yes, Jenna did try to kiss the goat. Thankfully Mommy was there to stop her!

Feeding the goat cardboard, although the goat was not interested

Jenna was way too interested in the bear to pose for a picture

Daddy and Jenna posing in front of a moose who refused to turn around for the picture.

Beautiful bald eagles!

Jenna saying hi to one of the animal "mascots" there

The rhino got pretty close to us, which Jenna enjoyed!

Daddy, Jenna, a mommy elephant, and her baby elephant (although the baby elephant is hiding).

The monkeys are always so entertaining to watch. They were running and jumping all over the place. There were 2 in particular who kept "fighting" one another. Jenna enjoyed watching them for a little bit, but soon lost interest.

In the aquarium, a sea turtle came right up near Jenna and munched on some lettuce.

Sting rays and/or manta rays (anyone know the difference between the two??)

Daddy, Mommy, and Jenna at the end of our zoo trip. It was such a fun day!

Happy Easter

This was the first Easter that we got Jenna an Easter basket. Since she was only 2 months old last year, we decided to hold off until this year.

I'm not sure if she's quite awake in this picture...

We "hid" her basket and (with a little bit of help) she found it behind the rocking chair.

After church, we went over to my parents house for lunch with family. I brought along 6 plastic eggs so we could have an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. I wasn't sure how Jenna would do, but I was surprised. She did a good job of finding the eggs (which of course were hidden in plain view). She was fascinated with opening them to find out what was inside. Since I don't really want her eating a bunch of candy and since she still isn't able to eat candy on her own, I put a coin in each egg not thinking she'd be able to open them. She surprised me!

Behind my parents house there were some beautiful daffodils. We tried to show Jenna how to sniff the flowers. She didn't quite get the concept, but she tried.