Saturday, February 14, 2015

Happy Valentine's Day!

Usually, we don't make much of Valentine's Day.  We use it as an excuse to spend extra time together and maybe splurge on our eating habits, but that's about it.  This morning I woke up at 6:30 to a baby who was crying because he'd slept through the night (thank You, Lord!), but no husband to go change his diaper so I could feed him.  What??!  I didn't look around enough to wonder but went upstairs to appease the Man Cub.

A few minutes later, Isaac appeared in the nursery, saying his head had been spinning, and he'd gone for a drive.  Yeah right.  I knew something was up.  The pups came upstairs to join the fun, and once Man Cub was fed, all 5 of us trooped downstairs.  I had mentioned I was super hungry and was ready for breakfast.  When I entered the kitchen I saw this:
Yellow roses (to remind me of my great-grandmother), KitKat, and a super sweet card. This was a complete surprise and totally unexpected.  Love!  I then turned around and saw this:
Valentine donuts were a hit.  After breakfast, we went to the grocery store to get that out of the way for the weekend.  Man Cub was supposed to go down for a nap when we got home, but between teething and learning he can now stand in his crib, a nap didn't happen this morning.  We decided to stick with our plans of going to the zoo for the afternoon and let him sleep in the car while we drove and had a side trip to the Chick-fil-A drive thru.

I've mentioned before that Man Cub adores his 4.5 foot tall stuffed giraffe that lives in his room.  Her name is Chikondi.  Last weekend, he recognized a painting of a giraffe face and just squealed and squealed.  His mama of course then bought the painting for him.  This made me very curious if he'd recognize a real giraffe, so we decided today would be a perfect day to find out.

Valentine's Day in Houston is always a toss up when it comes to weather, but today it was a balmy 77 and sunny.  The zoo was crowded, but not unbearable.  We visited the sealions and the primates, took a wander past our favorite elephant herd, and entered the African Forest.  The gorilla house is all ready to go for our gorillas' arrival in May, and it looks fabulous!!  Can't wait.  Man Cub napped through a lot of this, but he woke up just in time to see the giraffes.

Once he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes enough to focus on what was in front of him, his eyes opened wide, and he got the biggest grin on his face.  Those little arms of his just flailed with excitement!  Hi Chikondi was alive in front of him!  This face isn't the clearest, but he was overcome with excitement:


We wanted to stick around long enough for feeding time, so we petted some goats and road the carousel.  We found the giraffe on the carousel, and of course Man Cub thought that was absolutely amazing.  Then the ride began, and he was even more excited.  The sweet boy was just in baby heaven!  We were in heaven watching him!
In line:
 Waiting to ride:
 Weee!

I then stood in line for 20 minutes to get lettuce while the boys stared and stared at the giraffes.  My sweet love was absolutely mesmerized.  His squeals when it was our turn to feed Daddy Mtembe could be heard clear across the zoo, I'm sure.  Mtembe's tongue might have grazed Man Cub's hand as we fed him, and I'm pretty sure that same little hand got a pat on Mtembe's nose as well.  This boy must get to Brevard Zoo in Florida were giraffe petting is not just allowed but encouraged ASAP.  Road trip, anyone?  I can't wait to see what this boy does when he see a wild giraffe this summer!!

We wound down our day at home with steak filets and all the fixings, homemade strawberry cupcakes, and a little boy who has decided he's big enough to pull himself up on absolutely anything.  Feet are amazing things, friends.  Watch out, world!
 Happy Valentine's Day!

2 comments:

Lisa Loves John said...

Andrew is ALL smiles, and I absolutely love it! So fun that he was able to make the connection between his stuffed Chikondi and the one in real life - way too sweet!! So happy you and your sweet family had a great Valentine's Day (and girrrlll, any excuse for a donut, ha!) :) :)

The Lady Okie said...

Oh my gosh what a fun Valentine's surprise! You got a good man :) Glad you guys had a good weekend!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...