Feeling Behind

I need to do a few posts to get us caught up before we head to Utah for some serious fun with family that will have a ton of pictures I am sure.

A few weeks ago we had the chance to go to the zoo with our friends the Maas'. They were visiting from Ohio. We had a great time. My kids kept wandering off on their own but what is new. The zoo recently opened an exhibit called the Giants of the Savannah which was really neat. That is where we found these great elephant statues. You can see my friend Lindsey in the back in the blue shirt.

I could not get Arabella to look at me and Joey does not look so happy either he kept trying to get her to look. Oh well.
We tried to get the kids all together by the giraffes and these were my two best shots. In my pictures the little kids were looking at the camera most consistently. The older ones just wanted to get moving to the next thing.

Really, just look one more time?!

We saw an interactive lion show. The best part was just before it started. A lion suddenly bounded the little hill an pounced on the window. A girl was sitting against the window right where it pounced. It nearly scared her to death.

We also fed the birds. I do not have pictures because I was apparently very attractive to the birds. A bird landed on my head right as I walked in and Arabella freaked out. She was screaming like it was killing me. I got it off of my head using my seed stick and it sat in my hand happily eating. Then I had another bird land on my purse and begin to eat the little container of worms Joey had. The bird proceeded to drop one of the worms into my purse. Jon kept chasing the birds trying to get them to eat and one of the zookeepers kept chasing after Jon telling him he was scaring the birds and likely going to step on one. It was comical to say the least. My friend got a picture of the bird on my head and I will try to get it from her. I am so glad we got to see them while they were here.

Almost two weeks ago, I decided we needed to do something fun but time was a factor so I thought let's camp in the backyard. The kids loved it, parents laughed a lot about it.

Peter and I laughed as we sat roasting hot dogs over a fire when it was 96 degrees outside at 7:00pm. You can't have a fire and not do s'mores. We all enjoyed those.

Peter said to me, "Are we really going to sleep outside?" I left it up to the kids because I was questioning my idea as it was still at least 90 and almost 9:00pm. We toughed it out with the fan in the tent run by an extension cord. Oh blessed electricity!

I would like to say that the below picture was the only wildlife experienced for the camping trip but it was not. And this was not the only link of said wildlife to Jon.

As I was not sleeping well about 5:30 am, (I had set my alarm on my phone to get up early and head to the temple) I suddenly realized who was the last person to come out of the house...Jon. He is horrible about closing the door but he made a final trip to the bathroom. I sat straight up and blurted out, Oh No! And sure enough the door had been left open all night long. We also had failed to turn off the downstairs AC, although it did get cooler so I don't think it ran all night long. I did not find too many bugs flying around the one light we left on. I went upstairs and got ready for the temple. I came down and Joey was up. I started noticing a few bugs. I handed Joey the fly swatter and put him on bug duty. I went in the kitchen to find a smaller than the one above frog hopping across the floor. Joey and I caught said frog and he took it outside. Peter came in and I asked if Arabella was still asleep. He said no, she was inside. I had not yet seen her and she has a homing beacon for me. Joey ran upstairs to look and I headed for the garage. It turns out she had followed Joey outside with the frog and he had opened the gate to the driveway to release the frog there. She had escaped and he had closed the gate. In the searching for her, we came across a small gecko like lizard upstairs and then we found one gianormous cockroach-they really are bigger in Texas.

Really it was a fun experience and I can now laugh about the frog, not really the cockroach yet.

Commercials

This is a conversation that took place at our house a few days ago.

Joey: "Mom, do you have oxi-clean?"

Me: "No we do not."

Joey: "You should get it mom. It will get out those really hard to get out stains."

Me: "Really?"

Joey: "Yes."

Jon: "It will also make your clothes brighter and whiter, too."

Me: "Well, I just might have to get me some of that." while laughing.

In Las Vegas, we did not have cable so my kids watched PBS with the occasional Saturday morning cartoons. We have cable here and it is amazing what your kids can learn from commercials. They have also suggested we invest in "Your Baby Can Read". According to Joey, we should hurry or we might miss the window of opportunity for Arabella, somhow I am not too worried about her reading right now.

Swimming Lessons, Sunflower, and Squishy

It took me some time to decide where to do swimming lessons but I just did the community pool here in Lewisville. I can not say that I was overly impressed. I realize that my kids are mostly opposed to doing such things as floating, especially on their backs but, it would have helped had the teacher at least learned their names. Our second week of lessons went better, we had a different teacher.

Joey was in the wrong level but his teacher the second week did an awesome job working with him. That is actually her walking by in the picture. Next year, we will go somewhere else even if it costs more or we have to drive farther.
Go Joey!

This lovely sunflower you see was planted as a seed in Primary. This is Joey's; Jon's did not make it. I have seen things grow from seeds before but this has been amazing. How many sunflower seeds have I eaten and not given a single thought to the potential within that tasty little salty treat. You can see in the picture below that it is really tall!

And finally, I have been feeling a bit squishy lately. I have to say that I have not been exercising like I would like to; kids, humidity, heat, sleep deprivation, etc. But yes there is another reason. Coming February 11(ish), 2011 Rabner Baby #4!!!

We are quite excited! I hope Jana won't mind likely sharing her birthday.

As I was scanning this US picture, in the computer Jon asked me what it was so I told him and Joey. Jon proceeded to ask me "Why I had eaten the baby?" I tried to explain but Jon always likes detailed answers to his anatomy questions-bathtime can be interesting. Truthfully, Joey has said more than once to me over the last few weeks that I am pregnant as he pats my belly. Gee, thanks! It is my fourth so things are more willing to "show". All in all, I have felt pretty good with the usual nausea, sensitivity to smell and I am tired with no energy to do anything extra. I do feel blessed that I have the energy to care for my family and fulfill my responsibilities for Relief Society. Peter has been immensely helpful. If I can't stand the smell he is there to do it, especially the guinea pig cage.

Well, it still looks a bit like a blob but if you look really close you can see the little legs. When the doctor did this US the baby did a little bit of dancing.

I always feel way anxious at the beginning of my pregnancies hoping that everything is okay and this time has been fun because I have had two in office US already, way cool!

Little Rock

The weeked my parents were in town we headed to Little Rock, AR for the Taekwondo World Championships. The boys competed and did wonderful and we did some playing too.

Friday we went to the Little Rock Zoo. The first thing we saw were the chimps and at first I thought one of them had some fleshy growths. No it was this little baby holding on to it's mama, it was it's hands and feet. He was so adorable to watch.

Really is that not the cutest little chimp you have ever seen!

He was trying to climb like the others. It was really just a bush and he was only about a foot off of the ground but mama came and got him down pretty quickly.

Check out those dreads?!

Oooo, the elephants.

Silly boys!

Good lookin' couple.

Even better lookin' couple, riding the train.

My favorite little men!

My favorite man and a not so smily but adorable little girl.

She is just so cute!

It was a beautiful tiger!

These sculptures were made of rebar. They were pretty neat. We sent a picture to my brother who works at a place that bends and sells rebar.

Mr. Pechacek being made a mast by the Grand Master. The opening ceremonies were really cool. There were some amazing stories and some impressive displays of skill!

This is Saturday at the Tournament. Arabella was a trooper, especially if she had a snack.

A gaggle of kidswith the ATA Tiger (I can not remember his name). My smiley boys look so cute in their white uniforms.

Jon went first. Even though the boys had earned their camo belts they tested with their yellow belts because that is the form that they knew.

Jon was a bit grumpy in the 45 minutes proceeding his competition but we kept telling him that he would do great and had him say "I can do it!" and he did!

He is still in the younger group that gets to have a helper as they do their forms and one steps.

Jon actually did a pretty good display with his bo staff.

Jon earned two trophies at the end. He was awarded one for a great black belt attitude. I will have to post a picture of them sometime. They are jade green with some Korean writing on it in gold and are a bit bigger than a dessert plate.

Joey is in the older age group and does not get any help. He kind of raced through his form but did it really well. He actually gets a score and did not place in the forms part of his comptetion but did get a trophy for participation.

Joey did place 4th in his weapons. He did place 2nd in one steps (which is the precurser to sparring). Yea for Joey!

We had a good time in Little Rock. We plan on going to the World Tournament next year and there is a chance that Joey may be a black belt by then or close to! Thanks for coming with us Grandma and Grandpa Bird.

The Bird's are in Town

My parents came to town 2 weeks ago and stayed for a week and we had a fabulous time. We tried to do as much as we could and we made sure they had a chance to sample some of the local good food.

We went to the Dallas Aquarium on Wednesday. I had let Peter take the GPS and so I did not drive right to it but past it more than once before finally seeing it and arriving at our destination. Once we got there it was so cool!!

First we went to see the sharks becasue it was going to be feeding time for them. This first picture is a view from above. There is a tunnel you walk through to see them but it was pretty neat to look down on them too.

This is called a sawfish and was probably my most favorite fish/aquatic animal seen while there.

Although this gianormous turtle was pretty amazing too! (Sorry about the glare.)

Even worse picture but those hammerhead sharks were not too fond of having their picture taking but they were Jon's favorite.

Can you see how long that sting rays' tail is? WOW!

I am not really sure what animal that is but Jon is sure cute! Arabella loved the rabbits but she did not feel it would be fun to hold still to have her picture taken with them.

This tree did not have any sort of fence or anything around it and yes, that is a sloth hanging in it.

There is not a great way to show how big these were but believe me they were huge!

A really bad picture of some stranger but that is a bird that has landed on his partially bald head.

What mom, you wanted all of us to look at you for a picture and not at these cool animals?!

Another blurry picture but, I wanted to get a picture of Jon's had so that you could have something to compare to the size of this bird eating tarantula. Yes, it eats birds!

We watched the turtles for a long time in this tank.

Joey did not spend as much time at each exhibit and walked with my dad at a faster pace so he is not seen as often.

Still chekcing out the turtles. Arabella did not know what to think of my parents the first day but after that she warmed up more and more each day. I am glad we will see them again soon.

Joey was most excited to see this jaguar and then it was sleeping and not too exciting but that is Joey and Jon witht he jaguar.

Watching the Flamingos. Arabella seemed to take to the birds. She liked the penguins alot too.

We also got to go see Karate Kid on Tuesday night with my parents and it was a really good movie. I had to work on Wednesday night and so we did not have too much fun and Thursday morning we spent getting ready to go to Little Rock. My next post!

Thanks for the great visit Mom and Dad and especially for the fun time at the Aquarium.