Hills Bank Barnyard Day

Dan and I took Sylvia and Drake to the Hills Bank barnyard days while Eric was at a birthday party.  They were both willing to walk right up at feed the cow out of their hand.

Omaha

We joined the Lane family and the Baxters for a long weekend in Omaha this summer.  The 13 of us rented a house and enjoyed a day at the zoo followed by a day at the children's museum.

Sylvia helped me make these zoo snacks filled with animal crackers.

Waiting patiently to see how close the bear would come.

I'll call it a successful family pictures since we're all looking at the camera.

It was nice to sit down and see the rest of the zoo
after walking all day and waiting in a long line for the train.

Drake spent most of the day in the stroller so he
enjoyed getting out to take a closer look at the fish.

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These two may (or may not) look innocent but they sure can get into trouble together.
The two of them went running off at one point and were missing for about 10 minutes.

We made some great memories with wonderful friends.  So thankful to be doing life with this group.

I don't know who thought it was a good idea to put a water feature
right out in the open, but both of my boys sure enjoyed.
I'm glad I packed an extra set of clothes because the hand drier was not going to cut it. 

Eric had a ball running around the ball room.

We finally caught up with Eric in the bug room after he went missing (yes again) for almost half an hour.

Sylvia loved the museum's face painting stations.  

Showing off her DIY face paint and sweat band
while in the middle of working on another project.

Robins

We had a robins nest out back again this summer and the kids were so excited to watch the eggs.  However, another animal must have been more interested in lunch than hatching robins because the nest was soon empty.  We were disappointed but soon found another nest under our deck.  We even got to watch as one of the robins hatched from it's shell and later as they left the nest.

Niabi Zoo

We started the summer off with a trip to the Niabi Zoo with the DeWaards and the Seatons.  This is one of our favorite summer activities.

Drake stayed in the stroller most of the time but still got a good view of all the animals.

Sylvia and her friend Adrian.  These two love spending time together.

You can now feed the giraffes at the zoo (if you buy the zoo's lettuce).  

Sylvia had been talking a lot about tortoises so daddy told her to see if there were any at the zoo.

The petting zoo is always a favorite.

This guy stopped to watch the train almost every time it went by.

It was finally his turn to ride it.  I used my leg as a seatbelt.

Sylvia is grown up and riding the train with her friends Grayson and Kalea.

Sylvia was excited to pet one of the wild animals.

owl babies

Our new yard has been full of wildlife this spring.  We've got the regular birds, squirrels, bunnies and chipmunks.  I already mentioned our spring robins and baby bunnies.  We also had baby owls in the neighborhood.  I'd spotted one here or there a few times.  One night they were loudly screeching so Dan took Sylvia outside and we ended up getting to see all three of them.  We weren't sure if Eric would stay quiet so he and I joined them after they had a chance to look on their own.

Dan pointing out the owl in the tree and the one on the fence.

I guess we got too close to this one and he flew away.

I wasn't able to get a picture of all of them together.  The third one was in another tree in the neighbor's yard.

Sylvia showing the owls in the tree to Eric.

I spotted this one earlier in the week.

Our Spring Robins

We enjoyed watching a robin make her nest on the back of our house this spring.  The kids liked to be lifted up to peek in the nest when mama was around.  Eric called them "baby angry birds."

Her four beautiful eggs.

She was not very happy with us each time we came outside.  Here she is sitting on a cable in our backyard keeping an eye on us while we were in the backyard.

The little robins on day one.

Ready to eat.

Taking a rest.

I guess that guys didn't think he got enough to eat.

We went on a short trip to Colorado and this is what our babies looked like when we got back.

We also had baby rabbits in our yard.  These two little guys scared each other shortly after leaving the nest.

This was our last little bird to leave the nest.  Here he is hoping around in our backyard.

Mama was still keeping an eye on them after they left the nest.