Do not attempt this at home, we are professionals

So you know you have the "full-time-at-home-mom" (new title I borrowed from my friend John Williams) job down when you are able to fit in a zoo outing (one hour before it closes) into an already jam-packed day. This past Friday Anabelle and I started off the day with breakfast from Einstein bagels and orange juice. After breakfast we took Nathan to work since it was raining and he couldn't bike. After dropping him off we headed to Target to buy laundry detergent and some other things. We stopped by the grocery store to stock-up on more snacks and headed to the park. At the park we met up with Anabelle's favorite little playmate the "Ya-Ya" (aka Amilia Wignall) After about an hour of chasing Anabelle and Yaya all over the laundry room (next to the park where she was suppose to be playing)we headed home for lunch. Anabelle had a great nap while I added more books to my Good Reads list (yes, I am addicted). At about 2pm Emmy Hansen called and invited us to the zoo. Originally we were going to head out as soon as the kids woke up (Gabe was napping too) which was about 2:30 pm. Anabelle and I headed to Emmy's around that time and...about an hour later we headed out to the zoo (Long story short: Murphy's Law hit again. Emmy couldn't find her keys which meant we couldn't get Gabe's seat out to put in my car, nor lock her apartment's front door). So, one hour before the zoo was due to close Emmy, Gabe, Anabelle and I were pulling into the zoo's parking lot. We ran across the parking lot pushing our strollers with one hand while searching our diaper bags for our membership cards with the other. We whipped out our ID cards two minutes before the gates closed (they stop letting people in at 4:00pm) and barely scrammed past the employee at the entrance. As I said, "Don not attempt this at home, we are professionals!!!"
-MPL



Getting two excited toddlers to both stand still, smile, and look at the camera at the same time was almost impossible.



Gabe and Anabelle loved the petting zoo, but Anabelle's enthusiasm wore off fast once she realized that although some of the animals were smaller than she is they could climb higher than she could. Listen closely and you'll hear her say "scary" towards the end of this video.




As much fun as it was to see all the animals, I think one of the highlights of the day for Anabelle involved sitting on top of an elephant in a Merry-go-round (that wasn't going around because we didn't have any change) while I tried every bribe in the book to get her to step down so we could go home and start dinner.
I must admit that I might have traumatized poor Anabelle by telling her that the ride didn't work because it needed a coin and we didn't have any, this morning she saw these pictures of the merry-go-round and she kept shaking her head while repeating "no money, no money."