Riding the rails

 Today we went to the nearby town of Lebanon, Ohio, to ride the railway. It was a great day for it - beautiful weather (the train is neither heated nor cooled). The kids loved the experience, and Jacob and I enjoyed it too.

identical crazy smiles and posture

We spent most of the ride outside in this uncovered train car - the so-called gondola. 

on a bridge

This guy got some one-on-one with the conductor.

half-birthday (1.5)

Sophie recently had her half-birthday; she's a year and a half old! She's overflowing with personality, and her vocabulary is increasing daily. Here are the photographic highlights from the past 6 months.

(I didn't get this posted earlier because we were very busy moving out of our house in preparation to move to Albuquerque in the coming months.)

She's in the 90th percentile for height; 80th percentile for weight; 30th percentile for head circumference. Off-the-charts cuteness. 

favorite food by far: watermelon

The past few months we've really enjoyed pigtails!

Her favorite part of the splash pad was drinking the standing water. 

ice cream beard

Easter dress

Half-birthday (4.5)

I'm just using this half-birthday as an occasion to post a few photos of this incredible, smart, funny kid. His favorite things right now: friends, cousins, grandparents, chocolate, strawberries, riding his bike, telling stories and jokes, Netflix, swimming.

Easter 2015

Leading up to Easter, Gavin participated in a few egg hunts. Here are a couple of photos from 2 of those (a third is not pictured - it was too cold that day!)

This exclusive invitation-only egg hunt yielded some really fun prizes.

This one was a very exciting egg drop, where 2 helicopters dropped eggs on the high school football field. 

On Easter we had family and friends over for an egg hunt of our own. 

When he realized he couldn't reach that green egg in the tree, he got creative.

helping his sister: so sweet.

Twix are her favorite; she lost interest in any other egg contents when she discovered this Twix.

When we came downstairs on Easter morning to examine the contents of the baskets, Sophie immediately mauled the stuffed bunny and wasn't too interested in anything but cuddling the it.

After seeing this Peeps sunflower cake on Pinterest, I knew I had to make it. Except it's brownies instead of cake. And most participants at our Easter meal didn't really think it looked like a sunflower.

But the biggest benefit of making it was seeing my kids each try their first peep. Priceless stuff.

not a fan

clearly also not a fan

We tried getting a family picture on Easter, and this is about as good as it turned out: 

family zoo day

We enjoyed meeting some flamingos up close.

We had a great zoo day as a family. Here are some pictures of the fun.

He's not feeding her to the elephants; he's making sure she sees them.

Gavin + giraffe

Gavin + penguins

Sophie's back side + manatee's back side

We only fed the animals we brought with us.

The carousel was a highlight. Sophie was gripping the pole pretty tightly and wasn't sure at first, but then she seemed to enjoy it.

(note the small curl developing behind her ear)