Happy 2nd Birthday Abbie!

Two years ago today our adorable daughter, Abigail Anne, was born. Our lives have been forever blessed and changed since that day. She brings us laughter and happiness every day (mixed in with a little frustration here and there :)). She is caring, intelligent, funny and so much more. We celebrated her second birthday with something very special, our first family trip to the zoo! Abbie and I had been to the zoo before with friends, but never with Daddy or Mimi. It was a fun and exciting day enjoyed by all (well maybe not Carter, as he was stuck in a stroller the whole day)!

I spent literally an hour last night planning and packing for our big day. It is not easy thinking of everything a two year old and 7 week old could possibly need for many hours! By the time Stephen and I woke up this morning it felt like we had just gone to bed!

Abbie slept in until her normal time, around 7:45. She was her normal cheerful and crazy self when we went in to get her! She loves jumping around on her new big girl bed!

She changed into her "Birthday Girl" shirt for her special day and then headed out to say "hi" to her brother. What a pair!

I let her hug him for this picture and then immediately told her to get off of him! She is constantly "hugging" him during the day. I feel like a referee trying to break up a wrestling match!

That's my birthday girl!

Our Family

We headed out bright and early (well 9:00) so that we could be at the Ft. Worth Zoo when it opened at 10:00. We had heard on the news there had been record crowds this week due to beautiful weather and Spring Break. We pulled into the parking lot a few minutes after 10:00 and walked into the zoo right away! We enjoyed the zoo while there were still very few people there and tried to see as many animals as possible.

Our first stop on the way to see one of Abbie's favorites, the elephants, was to see the zebras. (Notice Abbie is wearing her puppy backpack again. I think the zoo is the only place she has ever worn it. Thankfully, she does not mind wearing it at all and it makes me feel much better about letting her walk in large crowds of people.)

Finally, we arrived at the elephants! Abbie has a love/hate relationship with elephants, as I have mentioned before. She loves talking and reading about them but is scared when she actually sees one on TV or in person! She was even nervous about standing in front of this sign with Mimi! Of course, she loved looking at the real elephants, as long as her Daddy was holding her.

After the elephants, we saw the hippos and giraffes. Carter slept his entire first day at the zoo! We even had to wake him to eat. I think the fresh air and constant motion of the stroller lulled him to sleep all day!

After seeing the giraffes, it was time for Carter to eat. Mimi sat on a nice shaded bench and fed him while we continued to explore the zoo. We were able to see a rhino up close which was very neat!

Mommy and Her Favorite Girl

Next, we continued on to see the lions, tigers and bears! All of the animals were enjoying the beautiful weather and were generally very active. It was a great day to be at the zoo!

I am sure there was some mom at the zoo who was not very happy her toddler threw his shoe in the bear pit! It was crazy to see the bear trotting around with a shoe in its mouth.

We saw the same lion and her babies that we had seen at the zoo last time. The mom was very protective of her babies, pacing up and down the rocks. The babies were playing around.

By this time it was getting close to lunch so we decided to ride the train up to the restaurant. Steve decided to walk it with Carter and the stroller. Abbie loved riding the train again and is still talking about the "choo-choo train".

After lunch, we continued to the Texas/dessert area. I had actually never been to that part of the zoo. We saw various birds, reptiles and even a coyote. There were lots of areas with water and waterfalls. Abbie was very interested in all of them! After all, she is our little waterbaby, sorry watertot!

This was not the first time we had seen a coyote up close! We had actually seen one in the wild, if you can call Plano the wild! Last Fall we (Steve, Abbie, Bailey and I) took an evening walk to the pond across the street from our neighborhood to feed the ducks. We have made the same trip countless times! It happened to be a Sunday night at dusk so there weren't many people out. As we were walking home, I saw what I thought was a large dog run across the street in front of us! Upon thinking about it more, the "dog" was running way too fast and was way too big to be an ordinary dog. Then it occurred to us that it was a coyote! I was terrified and my first instinct was to pick up Abbie and Bailey. Thankfully, it ran right by us and we didn't see it again. I called Animal Control as soon as we got home and listened to the recording. Apparently coyotes aren't considered an animal emergency! I am not sure I believe that! I was much happy seeing this one in a contained setting.

Abbie wanted to ride the train again so this time I decided to walk back with Carter. We stopped along the way to watch them go by on the train.

By this time, we were all getting tired and the zoo was getting very crowded. Abbie finally gave up walking and decided to ride in her new stroller. I can't tell you how wonderful the new stroller was! It practically pushed itself!

Abbie reluctantly left the zoo. Actually, Steve carried her back to the car kicking and screaming! She had so much fun at the zoo that she didn't want to leave, not to mention that it was very close to nap time. We finally managed to get everyone and everything loaded in the car and headed home. Abbie fell asleep within the first five minutes. Oh, and Carter continued to sleep the entire ride home!

So relaxed from a great trip to the zoo!

We all came home and rested for a while after our big adventure. We all had a great time at the zoo. I think Abbie really enjoyed her birthday! She was especially happy that Daddy and Mimi could join us. Nana and Pop Pop were supposed to join us at the zoo as their flight arrived into DFW this morning. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and they eneded up at the Dallas Zoo! We were very sad that they weren't there with us. However, they did seem to enjoy their trip to the zoo as well!

We love you our big two year old! We hope you had a wonderful birthday! We can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays with you over the years. We love you Abbie!