Santa Ana Zoo

I love taking Kyle on "field trips" when we have a free day. Sometimes we invite friends along, but other times it's fun to do things just the two of us. Last week, we checked out the Santa Ana Zoo. I had heard that it was a smaller zoo, so we knew going into it that there wouldn't be a huge variety of animals, but it turned out to be the perfect size for a 2 year old.

One of my favorite things about my schedule is that my "free day" is usually a Tuesday or Thursday, so when we go on these types of field trips we usually don't have to fight the crowds. This particular day was a Thursday, and aside from the bus of middle schoolers enjoying their actual field trip, there weren't too many people around. We saw tons of monkeys swinging around, which made Kyle laugh, an anteater, camels and an ostrich. But the highlight of Kyle's day was probably discovering that there is a CHOO CHOO at the ZOO! He was in heaven.

We took a lunch break and then I let Kyle play around on the playground for a while (by the way, he asks that I stay down now so that he can play by himself - what the heck!) and climb in the jeep, which was probably his second favorite part since he loves playing in daddy's real Jeep at home.

When Brian comes home from work in the evening, Kyle and I love to tell him about our day. When I asked him to tell daddy what we did that day, I expected him to say "ride choo choo," but the first thing he said was "see monkeys!" So cute.

Overall, we had a great day and I'm sure we'll be back again. Parking is easy and free and the zoo is right off the 5 freeway. Kids under 3 are free and adults are only $10, so it's a pretty affordable and fun outing for mommies with young kids. 

my daily routine with a 2 year old

chillin at home

park day

checking out the petting zoo

For some reason I love reading other mom's "daily routine" posts like this one from Pig & Dac, so I thought I'd share what a typical weekday is like for a stay at home/work at home/working mom. Plus, it will be fun to look back later and remember what life was like "back then" :)

6-7 a.m. (sometimes 5:45) - rise & shine!

Kyle wakes up, gets up from his toddler bed and comes and gets in bed with us. Sometimes he'll fall back asleep for a little bit, but he usually just snuggles with mom and kicks dad for about 30 minutes before we're all "ready" to get up.

7 a.m. - rise & shine, con't.

We all get up and head to the kitchen. I make coffee and pour Kyle some milk in a sippy cup and usually cut up a banana for him. Kyle and I either play or watch some Curious George/check emails/work on writing projects/prep for class while dad gets ready for work. (On Mondays and Wednesdays I need to be out of the house by 8 a.m. to teach my class, so those mornings are a little more hectic as Brian and I are both getting ready and taking turns keeping an eye on Kyle). After we're both wide awake I'll make us both breakfast.

8 a.m. - noon

Mondays/Wednesdays: I'm gone (teaching/office hours) during this time and grandma is home with Kyle. They usually take a walk in the park, do puzzles, read books, play outside, have snacks, etc. 

Tuesdays: auntie day! After breakfast I drop Kyle off at my sister's house so he can play with his cousin Jake, who is 3 (older cousin Harlow, who's 6, is at school). They usually do chalk outside, watch a movie and play with Jake's endless supply of cars/trucks/airplanes. My sister will feed him snacks and lunch because she is amazing. Kyle loves his auntie days so much and gets so excited every week. While Kyle is playing I head over to Coffee Bean to enjoy a latte and use their wifi to BUST SHIT OUT. This is my time to plan for my class and work on writing projects. I get so. much. done. during these uninterrupted hours and am so thankful for my sister for her help.

Thursdays/Fridays: I'm home with Kyle, so we will play around the house, paint/color, do puzzles, play choo choos, clean the kitchen, go to the park or do a fun activity/outing by ourselves or with friends. Kyle starts up his gym class again in a couple weeks, so he'll be doing that Thursday mornings for a while. Sometimes on Fridays we like to go to story time at the library at 10 a.m. and then stop at the park on the way home.

[Note - if I am having a crazy busy work week with lots of deadlines, sometimes I have to use this time to work at home. On those days, Kyle watches more TV than I'd like or makes crazy messes while I try and get stuff done.]

Noonish - lunch time/wind down for nap.

1-3 p.m. - NAPTIME AKA HAPPY HOUR AKA BUST SHIT OUT

I'm beyond thankful Kyle is still a rock-star napper. He's usually out for a good solid 2+ hours. This is when I frantically do laundry, vacuum, clean the floors and bathrooms (I try and clean when Kyle is up and he loves to help, but cleaning with a 2-year-old helper can sometimes be more trouble than it's worth), work on writing projects, grade papers, blog and every once in a blue moon sneak in a nap myself!

[Note - this is probably when I should be exercising, but you don't see that on the list above, do ya?]

3:30-6 p.m. 

Run errands or continue our play/learning time at home, head back outside or meet up with friends. Today when Kyle gets up we're heading to Costco, the post office and the gas station. He's a pretty good shopping buddy and I'm lucky that he loves to be in the car and helps me unload the groceries. There is definitely some snacking going on during this time as well. Other things we like to do: use our Knott's Berry Farm passes for a few hours of fun, go for a bike ride with Kyle in the "baby" seat, play with blocks, do sidewalk chalk, ride his little push Jeep or pull the wagon around the park with Penny or play on the playground behind our house. We sometimes like to check out other parks or kid-friendly places around town, like the petting zoo or children's museum.

Fridays: this is when I leave for my bar shift, and don't come home until 12:30 a.m. On these days, grandma comes over to play with Kyle until dad gets home from work, and then dad handles dinner/bath/bedtime.

6-7 p.m. - dinner time

Dad usually comes home around this time (usually closer to 7). Most nights I'll make dinner, some nights he'll bring something home for us and some nights we go out. Dinner is all over the board for us.

7:30 p.m. - bath time

I'm lucky to have an amazing husband who 90% of the time handles Kyle's bath while I take 15-20 minutes to myself. I'll usually just sit on the couch and catch up on Instagram, or sometimes I'll get a head start on the work I need to do that night. It's a nice break and I love him for it!

8-9:30 p.m. - play, think about bed time, watch a show, talk about getting Kyle to bed earlier tomorrow

We are in a bed time RUT! Our routine is so ridiculous right now. I think he's still in the in-between phase, stuck between the crib and toddler bed. Bed time takes forever because I'm not ready to just put him in bed, close the door and say goodnight because he will just play around, come out of his room, jump on his bed, etc. until the cows come home. So what we usually end up doing is play/read in his room for a bit, then saying goodnight and I'll stay in his room until he falls asleep. Sometimes I'll rock him, but lately he's just been wanting me to lay down next to his bed. A few nights he's gotten out of bed and fallen asleep next to me on the floor, then Brian picked him up and put him in bed. I'm usually in there for 45 mins- an hour (seriously) and 90% of the time I fall asleep myself. Sometimes I'm ok with that, but on nights that I need to do work it is BRUTAL to have to wake back up and turn on the computer.

10 p.m. - midnight

Depending on my work week, I'll use this time to BUST SHIT OUT. I'll plan for the next day's class, finish projects, catch up on email. If it's a light work week, sometimes I'll just leave Kyle's room and go right to bed. On fun nights when we aren't tired and have no work, Brian and I will watch a show together, have some drinks and enjoy some hub/wife time. Those nights are my fave :)

Thanks Pig & Dac for the inspiration. I'll have to remember to do these posts every six months or so to see how life has changed.

2 years old!

We celebrated Kyle's 2nd birthday with a train-themed party at the park behind our house. This kid loves his choo choo's, and he was pretty stoked when an actual train arrived to take the kids on a ride around our neighborhood! For the next few days every time we'd leave the house he would put on his fake pouty face and say "choo choo bye bye" - meaning he didn't want to say goodbye to that thing. It was pretty cool.

And check out that amazing train birthday cake that my mom got for him! The entire front part was made out of a rice krispy treat, and then the three train cars were chocolate cake, topped with hard candies, cake pops and cupcakes. Kyle was pretty obsessed with it and actually woke up early the next day, snuck into the kitchen and climbed up on the counter to stuff his face with blue frosting before I even woke up! Oh, and he pooped blue for 2 days :)

Since we kept Kyle's 1st bday party relatively low-key (just invited the family over for some cake and ice cream), this was our first time throwing a kid's party. I tried not to go too over-the-top, but I did want to throw a fun party for all of his little friends. We splurged on the train, but other than that I just had some train coloring book pages and crayons/colored pencils out, lots of outdoor toys for free play and sent the kids home with a cute little goody bag filled with a train cookie made by grandma, a train whistle or little wooden train, bubbles and a sheet of Thomas stickers.

Since his party was on Saturday and his actual birthday was two days later on Monday, we wanted to do a few things to make the day special for him. We snuck out to get him some birthday balloons and a birthday muffin, and then took him and his cousins to Chuck E. Cheese's for pizza dinner. Overall I'd say he started his 2nd year on a pretty happy note!

three things

one

MARS ONE. I cannot believe I didn't read about this before last night. Humans will establish a permanent settlement on Mars starting in 2024. Meaning, people are signing up for a ONE-WAY ticket to another planet to dedicate their lives to space exploration. They will say good-bye to their loved ones and lives they once knew, hop in a space ship and take the seven or eight month trip (with no running water) to Mars, where they'll spend the rest of their lives exploring their environment and reporting back to earth. Some of the American finalists to take the trip are married, and at least one man has children. Can you imagine seeing your dad for the last time as he boards a ship to live on Mars, never to return? This whole concept is blowing my mind. I stayed up waaaaay too late last night reading all about it.

two

PIECE BY PIECE comes out on Tuesday! I get so excited about new Kelly C. albums and love that you can buy 6 songs right now and then pre-order the rest for just $5.20 ;) LOVE the John Legend duet and also the title track. The whole thing will be on repeat in my car for a while - sorry Kyle!

three

THIS SMILE. I had the best morning with Kyle yesterday. We stopped at the local bagel shop, which has a kiddy corner made for my boy: a TV with Mickey playing and a little car to ride around while I enjoy my bagel and coffee. Oh, and he got a donut hole and apple juice, so he was on cloud 9. Then we headed to the library for story time, where he was such a good boy and so cute. He usually doesn't like to sit and listen to stories - he'd rather run around the room and explore what's under the table in the corner - but yesterday he sat on my lap and listened to Brown Bear and then participated in the songs and dances. It may have had something to do with the fact that I told him if he was a good boy we could stop at the park after to play with his new sand toys, but either way it made me a proud mama. This picture was taken after he didn't want to say "cheese" for me, so he stood up to get down and it started wobbling, forcing him to laugh and give me the cutest, biggest REAL smile. Even better :)

"snow" trip 2015

A few weeks ago we took our 2nd annual trip to Lake Arrowhead with a group of close friends. We look forward to this trip every year, getting all of the kids together and enjoying some time away. Kyle is the youngest kiddo of the bunch and probably the most work since he really, really loves walking up and down stairs all day long (and there were plenty of stairs in our three-story HUGE cabin), but we had fun nonetheless. It was fun comparing to how it was last year, when he was juuuuust about to take his first step and was crawling all around the cabin pulling himself up on everything.

The weather was gorgeous and we were able to play some outdoor games, and on Saturday we drove to Snow Valley for some sledding fun. Kyle loved going down the hill but was not a fan of his gloves or the ski lift (which freaked me out, too, thinking of him squirming out of my arms and falling out), so after his second run he got so worked up that he ended up falling asleep on me for a nice afternoon nap outside.

Instead of bringing the pack n play we just brought along his mattress to sleep on, but the first night he ended up rolling off and sleeping directly on the cabin carpet - which really irritated his poor face. That, combined with the sun/snow day and lack of good naps, really did a number on him and it took him a few days to recover from our vacation.

Next year Kyle will be almost 3 for this trip and I think it will be the most fun yet. Can't wait to go back to the beautiful cabin on the lake and watch him play baseball/soccer outside with all of his friends! Maybe next year he'll actually have fun in the snow, too :)

(You can read about our last year's trip here.)