Zoo Party!

Yesterday was our nephew's birthday and today was his kid party at the zoo!

I was excited to go because we hadn't been to the zoo yet this summer and I knew Avery would have a blast!  Plus our zoo recently remodeled an area so I was anxious to see that as well.

They had this sign up for him which was really cute:

When we got there, each kid got a cute animal cup for their drink. Then they did a craft-a cute magnetic photo frame that they got to color.

Bianca and Avery coloring

Once crafts were done, the party captain brought in three animals for the kids to see and touch.

Animal #1: African Millipede (gross!)

Owen touching the millipede

Avery couldn't wait to get her hands on it!

Animal #2: Hedgehog....it was really cute!

Animal #3: A snake

Avery touching the snake

Avery was quite brave and touched all 3 animals-most kids there (who were all significantly older than her) didn't touch all of them so I was proud of her!

Then it was time for pizza, then cake!

Owen blowing out the candles!

After cake came gifts, then we were set free to see the zoo!

Avery and Bianca

The new lion and elephant exhibit:

They had this safari bus set up that you could go in to get a closer look at the lions....well, the girls loved playing in it!

And miss Cassandra barely slept at all! Gabe's Mom took her on a walk around her morning nap time and she slept a whopping 20 minutes!  Then she was all smiles again!

Butterfly Gabe

Avery is obsessed with snakes (it's a joke between her and Gabe) and couldn't wait to see them!!

The kids played on a playground they have there for at least an hour so I strolled around with Cassandra for a bit, hoping she'd take an afternoon snooze.  Finally, this happened:

Can I just say that I LOVE how she wraps her little fingers around her nose while sucking her thumb?! Cutest.thing.ever!

We ended up at the zoo for like 6 hours! The party started at 10:30 and we left at 4:30! We had a lot of fun and it was the perfect day to be there-a little on the cooler side, but nice and sunny! We were all pretty beat by the time we got home!