After the zoo we went to the playground up by us. We didn’t end up staying long because the weather had gotten a lot colder and we didn’t bring jackets or anything. Both Eloise and Desmond had fun running around for the 20 or so minutes we were there though.

I had fortunately packed a pair of sweatpants for Desmond so he didn’t have to go out in his shorts.

Dan had stolen my sweatshirt here. Because he was cold, this was about the time we decided to head out.

We finally got to the zoo in April. We went on April 17th after Dan’s doctor’s appointment. We had a lot of fun. Both the kids enjoyed seeing the animals. That being said it was extremely busy which was kind of weird for a random Saturday in April. Desmond requested visiting Monkeys and Tigers and Eloise just liked looking at all the animals. We didn’t see the pandas because we weren’t willing to deal with the crowds. We had a lot of fun though and it was a good day. We also figured out the best place to drive to to catch the metro to the zoo, which is nice.

Here are Eloise, Desmond and Dan watching the lions. All three lions were out, which was impressive, normally only one of the lions is out when we visit. Of course I only brought the small point and shoot camera because we never get great pictures at the zoo so why bring the big camera, oh well!

When we got home from my Aunt’s Eloise got her basket and she quickly discovered all the chocolate! The girl is a chocolateholic! She loves her chocolate.

Mommy I’m all out of chocolate .

So Easter morning Desmond woke up to a big Easter Basket. Eloise had one too, but she was asleep and didn’t wake up until we were getting ready to leave for my Aunt’s house. He loved his basket and ate his chocolate bunny quickly, after playing with it for awhile.

Look Mom candy!

Look at all this cool stuff! I got an Easter Rabbit Mr. Potato Head, that is kind of cool and candy!

I think I will start by nibbling the ears!

Hmm how will he get across the water without getting wet?

Oh well I guess he fell in!

Yum in my tum! as Desmond likes to say.

The night before Easter we let Desmond dye Easter Eggs. He had a ton of fun with this, but liked to drop the eggs from a height into the containers, which led to cracked eggs. So we didn’t actually get to eat any of the hard boiled eggs, which wasn’t a huge deal. He loved this activity though and I bought a couple more dye sets when they were on sale after Easter so we can do it again.

Here are the pictures of Desmond and Eloise, though mainly Desmond celebrating their birthdays at Easter.

First Desmond’s cake. There were two little girls about his age next to him and one of them blew out the candles before he got to. It was cute. It then took all three of them to blow out the newly relit candles.

Here is Eloise with her vegan cupcake, there is a giraffe on the top of it. Desmond had toodles (from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) on his cupcakes, but there was so much food there including the huge cake that he didn’t eat any of his cupcakes till the next day at home.

Desmond opening his presents

And Eloise opening hers. She loves that bunny rabbit it is her car toy and she hugs it and plays with it whenever we get in the car.

So we celebrated Desmond and Eloise’s birthdays on Easter. It was about 3 weeks late for Eloise’s birthday and 1 day early for Desmond’s birthday. Since my parents were out of the country for Eloise’s birthday it made a good day to do it. We celebrated at my Aunt Mary’s house, where we also celebrated Desmond’s first birthday. The birthday part was just a small part of the day, since a lot of my Aunt’s relatives from the other side were there too. Desmond and Eloise both had fun and got to play with Nonnie, Pom, MomMom, Dahdi, Dahda, Uncle Noah, Aunt Clare, plus my Aunt and cousins and various other people that were there. It was a good day and we all had fun.

Here is Desmond giving MomMom a hug.

Here is Eloise playing with Easter Eggs that Desmond found.

Here is Desmond Easter Egg hunting. The candy got thrown away that evening because he poured a glass of water in the bucket if I remember correctly. And yes my child went Easter Egg hunting with a Halloween Bucket.

He would open the eggs and then dump the candy from them in his basket and then dump the eggs on the ground because they weren’t useful anymore, with no candy in them.

Here is Eloise with Nonnie

And here she is with Pom

Here is Desmond giving Eloise a hug

and a kiss

And one last Eloise picture

One of Desmond’s birthday presents was a my little sandbox. He got the one in the link. He loves it and it is a great toy. It lets him play in the sand at home, with less chance of a mess and he can play around with it without me worry too much about it. The first day he got it he played with it for an hour straight, took a 10 minute break and played with it for another hour. It is great. I plan on getting him a second one for Hanukkah. He really likes playing with it and running the two toy trucks through the sand.

I did put it in a plastic 12×12 box and then put the playmat underneath it to help keep the sand contained. So far we have had little sand loss, except when he grabbed a handful and went to the middle of the living room to release it. Actual playing with it though, has resulted in little loss of sand.

I really don’t think anything else needs to be said, she is a little diva, even in hairbows, a diaper and one baby leg.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the two of them at the playground from April. They are not all from the same visit, but they both love the playground.

holding hands

hanging around

sitting on the bench

Desmond can now climb the rock wall at the playground by himself, which is really quite impressive.

I also have some playground videos to put up, but I’ll get to that later, I’m just trying to get semi caught up with pictures at the moment.