bloggers ate my babies: July 2008

the tuxes are in

after months of debating which tuxes to buy the boys for jessica's wedding and then weeks of trying to figure out what sizes to buy, the tuxes finally arrived yesterday.
it's pretty tough finding chocolate brown tuxes, especially for little boys. but thanks to ebay, we found them! we ended up paying about $30 less for BOTH tuxes than we would have paid for ONE tux if we had rented them. hopefully they'll be a good match to the guys rented tuxes.
now i have to find shoes that will work with the tuxes. because of little 'ol fat foot talan, i don't know that i'll be able to put them in the converse that i had planned on. but we shall see.
this morning i made the boys try the suits on to make sure everything was ok. hayden was less than thrilled as he just wanted to sit in his comfy clothes and watch cartoons. i did finally threaten him enough that he tried it on and even let me get a few pictures.
they seem to fit the boys really well and the only thing that will need fixing is talan's pants. i'm hoping mom will be able to hem them a bit and then it will be prefect. and hopefully hayden won't grow in the next month as his pants are RIGHT THERE.
the tuxes came with a brown tie, but thankfully, gram c. is saving the day and is going to sew the boys ties in the material of the bridesmaids dresses.
we're getting pretty excited for the wedding and everything seems to really be coming together. only 32 more days!
here's a sneak peak:

next time we're going to the toldeo zoo

every year since hayden was born we've gone to the zoo with the woods. i think we may have missed one year when it was a last minute trip and i was working. this year when i'd tell people we were going to the zoo i was asked "which one? toledo or detroit?" because of the busyness of our family and the woods yesterday we went to the detroit zoo as usual, but we are hoping to get to the toledo zoo next year! i've heard great things about it. things like they actually have animals you can see and aren't always asleep.
we had a great time though. no bears (other than the polar bears) were seen. and the lions and tigers were asleep as usual...as well as most of the other animals.
talan meowed at almost every animal he saw and really seemed to love the penguins that would swim by.
jessica was able to come with us which was great so she could take talan out at times and i could get some pictures of him.
i just asked hayden what his favorite part of the zoo was and he told me "seeing all of the animals and riding the zoo train and playing at the zoo park." so that would pretty much be all of it. i'm surprised he didn't add the "frozen drink" he had as well.
he was pretty well behaved this time and stayed within my view almost the entire time. heather realized ella and hayden make a great team. ella likes to move really slow but she won't move too slow with hayden around. and when hayden gets ahead of himself, ella slows him down.
talan stayed awake the WHOLE time but was out before we even left the zoo parking lot. hayden followed not long after. and when we got home, they were a MESS so they were more than happy to take a bath.
we had a great time despite the lack of animals. thanks for going, partial wood clan and jessica!

the traditional zoo family photo:

and one with jessica:

hayden, ella and henry. henry wore that mask almost the entire day despite the sweat dripping down his face:

hayden recently told jessica he was going to marry ella and she would become ella michael skiver:

henry wanted in on the fun:

gorillas:

the rhino's were sleeping with their eyes open:

hayden and ella (hayden really didn't want his picture taken...surprise):

hayden, ella, henry and talan:

the polar bear was the best part of the trip. he was playing with a ball, playing with another polar bear and at one point was more or less playing peek-a-boo with everyone in the tunnel. here he was standing on the tunnel:

my things:

um, there's a dead seal behind you:

henry, ellanore, hayden and talan:

the ice wall:

we threw him in:

i found this funny:

playing in the prairie dog tunnels (hayden informed us that he saw prairie dogs AND prairie cats). jessica almost got stuck. or had a claustrophobic attack. or both:

yet another animal that talan "meowed" at:

superman popping up to make sure all is well:

more sleeping animals. tina believes the zoo drugs the kangaroos because i don't think ANYONE has ever seen them do anything except this:

giraffes are tall:

even the aardvark was asleep:

the zebras were awake and we even got to see them drinking water!:

hayden asked all day when we were going to ride the train and it finally happened:

talan actually sitting for the train ride:

swimmin' in the pond

our friend jason artman was house sitting for a friend and he invited the wutang family and the flowers/artman clan over for a bbq and some swimming in the pond on sunday.
hayden was more than a little excited to put on his floaties and jump into some water again. although he was pretty nervous when we first got there since he couldn't see the bottom. we insisted that it was no different than in the pool he was at a few weeks earlier, but he still didn't trust it.
i was swimming around with talan when i heard a splash and people clapping. i turn around to see that hayden had jumped off the dock right into the water. i don't even think anyone was trying to get him to do it, he just did it all on his own.
when it was time to eat we couldn't get him out of the water, even when we assured him we'd go back in after we ate.
jessica had been up at the church recording a cd and was able to come over right when we started eating. she didn't have her bathing suit (and i'm sure she wouldn't have gotten in anyway) but she did go out on the paddle boat and watched talan as he didn't really care for a round 2 of floating around the pond. he did love throwing rocks into the pond with bella, however.
it was a really nice and relaxing sunday afternoon and it was great to finally hang out with jason again. thanks for inviting us! hayden wants to come back soon!

jason always has fabulous ideas. this one was to pull bella with the paddle boat: