New Years Eve and New Years

We had our friends Kyle and Tricia come over for New Years Eve and we ate dinner (chicken pot pie, it turned out pretty well, too!) then did sparklers:

Will wouldn't hold one at first, but he came around!

After sparklers we put the kids to bed and played games all night. It was awesome. We haven't had a game night quite like that since we moved here. Plus, they are pretty great about playing all the games we miss playing. Their son is also a rockstar and goes to sleep pretty much anywhere (the pack 'n play set up in the hallway at the top of our stairs). We had a fantastic time!

On New Years Day we headed to the zoo since Sterling rarely gets to come with and we wanted to show him our favorite spots!

It ended up being a REALLY hot day--over 85 degrees--and so we headed to a little building that has insects and a lego table and things to cool down a bit.

The tiger! I've never seen him that close before, plus he was swimming in the moat around his land, which I thought was pretty sweet.

This makes a really loud noise when you stick your hand inside, Ruth was scared of it.

Rainbow Eucalyptus, so cool! I've never noticed them before.

We saw the turtles eating as well as the tree kangaroo.

It got REALLY hot, so even though we hadn't brought a change of clothes for the kids, we let them run around in the little splash pad. There was a LIVE band playing right beside it, so it was lots of fun to listen to while the kids played.

The guy on the right was playing some really sweet flute type thingy right then. I loved the sound.

Will made friends with this girl.

On our way out (thankfully, it ended a massive Ruthie tantrum) there was a 'live encounter' and we got to pet the snake! Or, everyone else did, I declined. I did hold Ruth's hand to help her stretch it out to touch it, though. She REALLY wanted to touch it, but said she needed 'help' by having me hold her wrist, haha.

That night we decided to try giving Molly her first baby food--she loved it!

Going cross-eyed watching the spoon, haha.

Sweetest baby Molly, we love you so much! She slept through the night after that, which was awesome, but unfortunately it didn't happen again last night.

It was a great day at the zoo as a family and we thoroughly enjoyed the start of a new year!