Thank Heavens for Little Boys

A one year old is truly an excellent distraction for the anxieties and worries about this little baby. Collin keeps us busy chasing him around and laughing at his little-boy antics. Who knew a one-year old could find so much to destroy and demolish??? We can not find out new camera (truly praying it will show itself again soon) so I do not have photo-proof of the next story. I was home Thursday, laying on the couch trying to fight off "afternoon sickness" when I noticed the house was VERY quiet. So I naturally jump off the couch and go running into the other room. Have I mentioned lately that Collin is growing too quickly and is able to reach places previously he was not able to??? Well yeah, Collin was able to reach an open container of sour cream, and had invited the dog to help him eat and smother the contents of the sour cream container over everything. When I glimpsed him, Collin's face was covered in white sour cream, his hair was covered, his clothing, and the surrounding other items that he had also manged to pull down were covered too. I screamed, just shocked, and Collin started bawling. The scream turned to laughter, cause what really can you do but laugh??? I lifted him up and into the bath  (he would take a bath ALL DAY if he could.) It was pretty funny, and thank heavens for the dog, because besides Collin, clean-up was minimal!!!

Mike, Collin, and I on the train at the Zoo

The days Mike and I both have off together are few and far between. The days we are both off and Mike does not have school are even fewer and far between. So when we had a chance to spend the day at the zoo (well as long as you can at the Salt Lake Zoo with a 1 year old and two tired parents) we jumped on the chance. It was a really fun day! We got there a little before 11 (can I just tell you how well I have that route perfected? It is on the way to Primary's, just about a mile away from there!) and started with the train. It was a lot of fun. Collin loved it (except for the part where you get close to the buffalo because he may or may not have cried!) He loved the train whistle and was cute to watch as he pointed to things that he found interesting. We than started to roam the park. He loved having Mike hold him (we brought the stroller but this kid loves to get up close to the animals!) and looking at the different animals.

He loved the monkeys. They have quite a few different exhibits of monkeys, and he thought they were pretty funny. The last time we took him around animals was to the petting farm at Thanksgiving point and since pictures paint a thousand words, we will just show a picture of what Collin thought of the animals the last time:

So we were a little worried how the zoo would go, but he loved it. He was just so fascinated by all the different animals, if all shapes and sizes. When Collin went the first time to the zoo, he was only 4 months old. He really did not care about the animals, and slept through a lot of the visit. And the little baby pictured below was not there, this poor Momma Elephant was in her 21st month of pregnancy with little Zuri.

Collin thought the cute elephant and Momma were just so neat. He did not take his eyes off of them the whole time we were at the Elephant Encounter. Zuri was just so cute, and although little, weighs in way more than I have ever been. She was cute, running around and chasing balls and toys while staying close to Momma.

If you know my husband, you know that he is a kid at heart. At every photo-op place around the zoo he wanted me to take a picture (funny note here, the camera truly does not love me because besides the one shot at the top, it did not save any of the other pictures!)so I happily obliged his cute inner-child!!!

This is probably my favorite picture of these two.

 Funny enough, this Turkey wanted to hang out with us. Not really, it pretty much hated us, hated our presence. It constantly had it's feathers up and would hiss and spit at us. Who knew turkeys could spit??? We were not the nicest, you know, simply walking up and merely admiring the bird with our threatening little one year old ad stroller. We should have wanted posters or something for our behavior. Yeah, we moved away once it was made known our presence was not appreciated.

Another first for Collin was the carousel. It was his first time riding, and it was a lot of fun!!! Mike held Collin during the ride (apparently the carousel is for big kids too because we both rode) and Collin had a lot of fun. He loved watching the animals go up and down and up and down. I know he will have a lot of fun this summer going to the carnivals and fairs. All in all, it was a good day. The one fast story is about the gift shop. As a kid, my parents were always too poor to buy presents for all seven of the kids in my family when we went to the zoo or a theme park. So it has been fun getting little things for Collin when we have gone places. We went into the Zootique to get Collin a little toy. We decided to let him pick, by giving him different ones to hug, and than putting the two up and seeing which one he picked. Well, this kid is truly related to Mike's side of the family. Time after time, we would offer him bigger and more expensive stuffed animals, and he would consistently choose the cheaper one every time. Just shows more expensive apparently is not always better.