Tumbling and the Zoo

Although Isabel loves performing on stage for dance, she always comes home from dance class and practices her headstands, cartwheels, sommersaults, etc so I decided that she should try out the tumbling class taught by Kandi on Wednesday morning. Isabel LOVED it. She is the youngest in the class (though not the smallest :)) but she did really well. We got into the car to go home afterwards and she looked at me and said, "mom, tumbling is WAY better than dance!" When I tried to get her to go to dance this week she told me that she does tumbling now, not dance! Funny girl! Here she is doing the splits.

Here is her backbend. This is one of her favorite things to do. Her arms are getting pretty strong, and she is already trying to kick over like they taught her in tumbling.

Ben likes to do whatever Isabel does....so here is his version of a backbend. I'm actually not that surprised that he can do (at least tries) cartwheels, backbends and sommersaults. He is a crazy jumper too.

Tamina called last week and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo for Kale's (her nephew) birthday. We decided that it would be fun so we went. This picture is so cute with Ari holding up Sarah! Don't know who the girl in the turquoise is on the end :)

Here is Ben at the water ball near the enterance/exit. This has become a zoo tradition for us. We usually end up spending at least 20min letting the kids play in it before we leave. Ben and Sarah discovered that they could splash each other so they were both soaked for the ride home!

Soon after we got to the zoo we went to see the new exhibit that has the free flying bats and the bird eating spider (luckily it was in a cage). Right where you park the stroller there was a free roaming chicken with her chicks. This kept Ben entertained as he followed them around for a bit. They were eating crumbs that the kids had dropped.

While Tamina and Tera were finishing eating with the littler kids I took the other kids up to see the giraffes. Adam loved measuring how tall they were. Maybe not the best picture, but hey they are all looking at the camera :)

I discovered that the kids love to ride on the 2 person stroller at the zoo. This time Isabel and Ari sat on the back and Ben sat in the front. Made for a heavy stroller! I love it though, way easier to push it than it is to pull the wagon up those hills with all the kids in it :) Here is Isabel at the water ball before we left. I just think she is so cute, even when she isn't smiling all the way....

We tried to take a picture with all the kids in front of the gorilla statue, but the ones I have were awful. This one of the kids in the boat was the best group picture I got, and most of them are even smiling :) From left to right the kids are: Adam, Kale, Isabel, Ari and Ben.

Luckily we made it to the zoo in the morning so that we could leave before it got too hot. Next time we promised the kids we would go on the merry-go-round so they are looking forward to that. We went home and played in the pool in the backyard to cool off. All in all it was a good day :)