Today was all of wonderful and fun and huge and exhausting and hard. We did alright in the night, but of course no one got enough sleep, as tends to happen on fun family getaways. We picked up breakfast and headed to the zoo for the day. Rowan was shrieking VERY early in the game, and we discovered he had just cut an eye tooth. Thats three in total, so while number three is cutting, he’s also working hard on number four. One kid screaming fairly consistently obviously sets the others on edge, so it wasn’t exactly smooth. But we rolled with it, and at least Dekker and Laela were excited about going to the zoo! Behold! Far too many pictures of the day!

Dekker: Look! I can walk like Rowan!

Rowan was completely riveted by the emu, of all things. Probably because he could see them. I think everything up to this point was enclosed behind a concrete barrier, and the more we pulled him out and put him back into the stroller, the more he screamed.

Laela: Hi, Chickaletta!

Dekker: Why doesn’t the bunny use soap and water when he cleans hisself?

This beauty and I watched Brady and the big kids take on the carousel.

Don’t worry, he got his chance 😉

Maybe it doesn’t look like it, but he had a total riot on there!! Win!

Solly had a bit of a breakdown towards the end of our time at the zoo, and the rest of the kids followed suit. That was how we ended up not seeing the last ten exhibits and just heading to the van. All four kids fell asleep right away, so Brady and I drove aimlessly while they slept. When they did wake up, we drove to West Edmonton Mall for my birthday presents! Brady pushed the double stroller alongside me while I perused some of my favorite stores, and after a lot of Rowan’s shrieks and everyone’s tears and quite the run around trying to ask for assistance in stores, I came out of it was a beautiful haul of new makeup! I’m SO excited to play with all of the new products! Eek! Thanks, hubs.

The rest of the evening was a continuation of the gong show that the day became, and we definitely didn’t get the nice snuggle and snack break with them that we had yesterday evening :/ Which is too bad, because we really enjoyed it!! But it was just not in the cards for us today.

Now that the kids are down, Brady and I are trying to figure out supper. We were both so wiped out from the day that we weren’t hungry. And frankly, trying to eat while the kids are in the state that they were in never works. We just placed a call in to Red Robin, and I cannot wait for the next 15-25 minutes to pass so we can get our supper on! Woot!

All things in, it was a really good day 🙂 We are very tired, but I’m so glad we went to the zoo, so glad we shopped, and SO glad for Red Robin!