At the Zoo with Tony and Alyssa

Tony and Alyssa came to visit the Salvateenies today.  I suggested they come over at 2, by which time they are generally awake and lunching.  Today, though, I actually had to wake them up at 2:40, three hours into a very successful nap.  They sat down to a lunch of fish sticks and popcorn shrimp with watermelon.  Alyssa works with toddlers in a pre-school, so she was a big help talking them through the new food and was not nearly as distressed by Daniel's decision to dunk his watermelon in the cocktail sauce as Tony was.

Tony is not a baby person.  He's not anti-baby at all, more just a bit at loose ends what to do with them.  Well, that and he doesn't like to get his hands dirty (literally).

We decided to go to the zoo to check out the "family farm" and the playground, and Alyssa helped with diapers and dressing.  Tony offered to put one of Max's shoes on.

He made a valiant effort, but Alyssa had to take over in the end.

When we got to the zoo, it was already 4pm, so we only had an hour.  We made a "B" line for the petting zoo and let them loose to run around in it for the first time ever.  Caroline loved feeding the goat, while Max preferred to pet her.  Daniel thought it was most fun to run full speed toward the duck pond and terrify me.

On the other side of the "farm", they have little toy tractors for the kids to play on.

Max didn't feel like playing on the tractors, so he hung out with Tony.  Neither of them looked too uncomfortable.

By the time we left the petting zoo, there was only a half hour left before closing, so we eschewed the rest of the animals and went to the playground.  There isn't a ton for kids their size/age to play on, but the zoo playground has SIX BABY SWINGS, compared to most parks that have only two or three, so we spent a lot of time swinging.  There was also a slide that everyone took a try on.  Caroline even climbed up the slide!

And the climbing, of course, did not end when we got home.

This may just make getting out of the van a little bit less of an ordeal.  At the very least, it should mean I don't have to call and beg family members to meet me at the house to unload babies.

In other news this week, Daniel had another fit modeling job for Gymboree.  This one involved arranging babysitters (Uncle Kelly) and driving half an hour downtown for a five minute job - they had just one Halloween costume for him to try on:

This picture is so cute I may have to abandon the other ideas I had for costumes this year.  Plus, Daniel seems to like it!

Max was not to be outdone in the costume department, incorporating an Easter basket into his new "look".

Which meant that Caroline had to go looking for something to put on.

I don't know if she found a costume or not.  I was too busy laughing.