The Malones: Mondays with Crosby and Jane Claire

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 4 years and 6 weeks old!!! At 1:03 pm, Jane Claire turned 45 weeks old!!! I don't know what happened this week. We did stuff. We went to the zoo. We had small group at our house. We did stuff. The camera barely made it out. I mean barely. Because of that, this is the most pathetic post EVER!!! Sigh. I have got to find it in me to start picking up the camera more. I suppose the broken lens isn't helping. And a very mobile baby. Excuses, excuses. Sigh...

On Tuesday after school, we had an impromptu playgroup at the zoo!! I love spending a beautiful, sunny day outdoors with friends. Especially in MID winter!!! Gotta love living in the South. This was Jane Claire's first time to "play" at the zoo. She was a tiny thing the last time we went. She thought she was big stuff...

And of course the big kids think they have this place mastered! We were able to get a few of them to stop running long enough to pose for a few pictures. We got the big boys anyway! Dean, Lucas and Crosby...

Now we are minus Dean, plus Annie (in the background) Crosby and Leighton...

And finally a big cheese from Lucas because no one else was paying attention!

Jane Claire had a good ole time crawling around on the foam mats! Crosby LOVED this place when he was her age. It is so sweet to see her loving it too...

We love surprise fun times with fun friends! I am looking forward to more zoo days in the spring! Come on SPRING!!!

I was able to get a sweet little video of Jane Claire laughing at Crosby. It doesn't take much for her to laugh at him. She thinks he is a pretty funny brother...

On Friday afternoon, we met up with the Graves crew at Opry Mills for a little shopping and play time. Crosby is all in to Nemo at the moment and is a big fan of saltwater fish. We didn't even make it past Rainforest Cafe for the first 15 minutes of our visit! Crosby and Lucas loved running from tank to tank looking at all of the fish...

I suppose we need to make actually dinner reservations for these two soon! They would love it!!

On Sunday, we hosted small group at our house. Crosby was soooo excited to have his friends come over for a visit. From the moment we walked in from church, he asked when our visitors would arrive. When the time actually neared, he asked me to stand at the door and watch for their cars. It is pretty sweet to see how much he loves being with his buddies. I have no idea where my social butterfly gets it...

Once our friends left (no, I did not take a single picture of our friends!?!?), I started to work on fun crafts for the Valentine's party. I had a lot to do! Mainly because I thought the party was Tuesday when it was actually THURSDAY!! Oh heavenly day. I am so scattered I annoy myself!!! Anyway, I had a shirt of Charlotte's for Jane Claire to wear for Valentine's day but had nothing for Crosby. I couldn't have that! So I did a little internet search and came up with a felt shirt to make for by sweet boy. I managed to cut the felt and sew a heart on last night. Today, I was able to sit down and stitch the completed love robot to Crosby's t-shirt...

I thought it turned out pretty presh! He was a fan of it too. We made a video so Lulu could see our completed project. He really wanted her to like it!! ;-)

A special Valentine's gift came in the mail for Blake today. As soon as Blake told me Nugget was sick, I thought about having a pen and ink/watercolor drawing of him done. The day after we put him to sleep, I began searching for someone on Etsy. I came across Azucena Nava-Moreno and really liked the work she had displayed on her Etsy shop. After a few conversations back and forth, I sent her pictures of Nugget and let her decide what to draw. Less than a week later, she sent a image of the completed project. I nearly hit the floor. It was AMAZING. This is what she sent...

It looked EXACTLY like Nugget. Exactly. And yes, it was only THIRTY dollars!! Amazing. Well, it came in today. And it looks even more perfect in person. There is no way I could wait until it was framed to give it to Blake. I just gave it to him today as an early Valentine's gift...