Gator 911

We took our kids to the Gator 911 show. They were filming for their reality show that will air on CMT in April, I think. I don't remember the exact date. But if you have CMT, I'm sure you can find out. I don't know that our kids will actually be in any of the clips on the show, but we thought they would really enjoy seeing all the reptiles. Seven, especially...he LOVES alligators! Well, I don't want to disappoint or hurt anyone's feelings who may be reading this, but I know you all want to know what we thought. So, I am going to be honest and say that the actual show part, where the men were on stage talking about the reptiles, was not really meant for preschoolers. My kids wanted to see reptiles, not hear facts about them. So, I must say that part was a let down. But after the show, there was a "nature trail" that we walked through and got to touch many of the reptiles and other animals that they talked about. This part was very enjoyable to me and my children.


Piper petting a caymen. It looks like a baby alligator, but actually a caymen is a totally different reptile.

Seven wanted us to take his picture touching the tanned alligator hide. Seven petting a boa constrictor.
This yellow boa constrictor's name was banana. Can you guess why?

Next on the "nature trail" was a hedgehog.

Everytime one of us put our hand in to pet it, it would jump. This made it very hard to touch. When they get scared, their fur (if you wanna call it that) stands up and has sharp quills. So, each time the hedgehog jumped, his quills were up. Although, if you could get to its belly, it was really soft!

I bet you can't guess how old this tortoise is! Do you see how small it is? It is one of those tortoises that gets really big and weigh close to 150 pounds. They live for about 50 years. Do you want to take another guess at its age now? It is 2 years old.

Finn decided he wanted to hold the tiny tortoise.

The man that was sitting with the tortoises thought we needed a family picture. I didn't argue. Finn decided to be bashful and hide behind Piper. Wait, aren't we missing someone? Don't we have four children? Yes, in fact we do. Rilian got tired during the actual show and so Granny graciously came and got him. I think he would have enjoyed the "nature trail", but he couldn't wait until then. He actually took a four hour nap at Granny's! I guess he really was tired!
We moved on to a baby alligator.
And an alligator that was a little bigger.

And then back to a baby one. This one was smaller than the first baby alligator. Kinda cute! I guess he was small enough that if he bit someone, it wouldn't really hurt, so his mouth wasn't taped shut like the other ones.

This HUGE alligator was stuffed and mounted. We tried to get each of our children to put their heads in his mouth so we could get a picture. Well, none of them were very willing no matter how much we tried to convince them that it wasn't real and it wouldn't eat them. This was as close as we could get. Brave Finn! He wouldn't put his head all the way in.Finn, Piper, Seven, and me posed by the HUGE alligator, so you could get an idea of how big it actually was. Someone had put their wooden turtle on the alligator's snout. I didn't realize it until I put the picture on my blog. Oh well!

Looking Out the Window

We went to Granny's house a few weeks ago for Sunday lunch. While we were waiting on the final preparations, Rilian decided he would look out the back sliding glass door. I captured such a cute picture and wanted to share it with my readers. I love how you can see his reflection in the glass!But I must tell you, he wasn't just looking out the window. He was actually running his face back and forth licking the window. I guess the window felt cool on his tongue. Who knows? When I thought about putting these cute pictures of Rilian on my blog, I remembered a cute picture I had of Piper. It is kind of similar, being a side shot of her face. This picture was taken when we lived in Carlsbad. She was looking through the fence at our 4 Siberian Huskies. I am not sure how old she was here. Somewhere between 18 months and 2 years. I know she wasn't 2 yet, though. This is one of my favorite pictures of her.

My "Little" Big Girl

My daughter has always been small for her age. She was born four weeks early, at 6 lbs. She grew slowly and still does today. Piper was 6 months old when I put her in 3-6 month clothing. In her pre-school class, there was only one other child smaller than her. Does that tell you anything?

This past week, I was going through my children's clothes that are too small for them and putting them in Dittos for Kiddos. Of course, I am keeping most of the boy clothing unless it is too small for Rilian to wear. But since Piper is our only daughter, that means I have ALOT of girls clothing to get rid of. I hadn't gotten rid of any of Piper's clothing until Rilian was born. His sonograms told us he was a boy, but I just wanted to be 100% sure that I would not need any girl clothes. Those sonograms can be wrong, you know. Just ask my brother and sister-in-law!

I was sorting through Piper's baby clothes when I came across this 6-12 month shirt. Jeremy and I know how tiny Piper is and wondered if it would still fit her. Tada! Other than being a little short, it fits! Yes, my daughter will be six years old in May and this is a 6-12 month shirt on her.

I knew I had some other pictures of Piper in clothing that was not her "size" but that we were almost amazed how it fit her. So, I went searching and this is what I found. Piper and her brother, Finn, are 13 months apart. Yes, 13 months. My brother and I are 15 months apart, so I wanted my children close in age. With my brother and I being so close in age, we always had someone to play with. It was fun. This was one of the key factors in having my children so close in age. Yes, I do realize it also has its disadvantages, but that is a subject for another time.

Piper was about 17 or 18 months old in this picture. She is wearing Finn's 0-3 month onesie and jeans. Finn was about 5 months old at the time. Curiosity came over us and we put them on her to see how they fit. Once again, we knew she was small. The pants are a little short. They look like capris. But can you believe a 0-3 month onesie fit her at this age?

Now we have Piper at 3 years old, wearing Seven's 0-3 month shorts. You would never know that they are 0-3 months by looking at her.

And a shot from behind. Still can't tell, can you?
We definitely get our money's worth out of Piper's clothes! Last summer, Piper had a tankini swimsuit that was really cute. Well, she never wanted to wear it. Do you know why? She didn't like it because the bottoms kept falling down. What size was it? 3T. How old was she? 4 years old. I, like many others, wish I had that problem!