Brooklyn turned 4!

Brooklyn's birthday follows right on the heels of Travis's, and we all know it's kids that get all the birthday attention, so I'm afraid Travis did not get quite the birthday extravagance that Brooklyn got. (But to be fair, he's had 20ish or so more birthdays than she has {*cough* 30 *cough*} so birthdays are old news to him, right?)

The night before her birthday, we still needed to do a little birthday shopping. So we all went along! Brooklyn and Travis broke off from the main shopping party and went to look for other particulars, but that didn't stop Brooklyn from picking out her own birthday card! Ha ha! That has got to be a first.

The morning of her birthday, she opened her presents and we ate blueberry waffles (her new favorite, dictated by me because I do the cooking). Then our good friends the Burnetts invited us TO THE ZOO!!! Kate even stayed home from school so we could all go together.

Maybe you don't know exactly how I feel about the zoo. You know when I was a crazy small child and my mother would ask if I belonged in the zoo? The answer was yes. I love the zoo way more than any of those children at the zoo love the zoo, and definitely more than my own children, although they are good sports and support me. Especially when you throw a train and/or carousel ride in there. And trail mix. Lots and lots of trail mix.

I'd like to draw your attention to ↑ this polar bear. First off, I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen a polar bear in real life. Pretty freaking awesome. Second, this one was definitely crazy. He kept circling this rock, swimming right up to the window, and then pushing off the glass with his gigantic paws into a back dive, after which he'd circle around and repeat. The kids thought it was pretty fantastic because they could put their hands right up against the glass on the other side of the bear's paws. He did this over and over again (this was the first thing we saw as we arrived), and then when we were leaving, some 3 or 4 hours later, he was still doing the same thing! A friendly zookeeper told us that his route changed enough that they didn't consider the behavior neurotic. I'm not so sure I agree with him... Really I think he's like that parent who is in denial that his child is completely backwards because he loves him too much to see him objectively. Also this zookeeper let us touch a scrap of real polar bear hide, which was also cool. I did not ask him where he got it. And he told us the bear's coarse hairs are hollow (helps to insulate). I will spare you the rest of the biology lessons I learned at the zoo, because there were many.

Okay, and in the picture at the top, you can see these fantastic rocking chairs they had set up so you could watch the kangaroos hopping! The kangaroos, by the way, were not fenced in! When we entered the "Australia" section, they were just lounging around among the trees, just feet away from us. They could have come up and kick-boxed us, if they'd wanted to, I'm sure! But they didn't.

 My birthday girl made friends with a sheep...

 And of course there was the carousel

And after the zoo, we took the kids out for ice cream! Of course they were sufficiently exhausted. All in all, a perfect birthday! THANK YOU Burnetts for making it so fantastic!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet baby girl!