Cousins

     To end our summer, we took one last trip. This time, to visit family and celebrate Peter's 5th birthday. It does help that this cute funny guy is born around Labor Day, as we can make the trip to be with him. I kind of feel guilty for Mikil and Silvia, I guess at some point we'll have to make it up to them and have a HUGE party for all the birthdays we missed.

   Since we took days off from work, we had 2 days alone with the kids. On Thursday it was also Peter's real birthday, so the party was in the air. Lincoln has a nice small zoo, extremely kid friendly (yes, there are zoos that are NOT kid friendly, check out Philly zoo on a summer Sunday and you can easily loose your kid in the craziness around).

I think this one here should be one of those pictures that you take every year to monitor the growth of kids. Somehow, every time we come to this zoo the kids kind of line up here. You can see here, that Mikil is showing us the best, most efficient, most fun route we have to take :)

Feeding the goats never gets old. From the whole group, Marius was definitely the most entertained. Catalina decided this year she wants to participate as well.

Hey, I'm a goat, who's feeding ME??

All the kids behaved exemplary that day. They even lined up for a picture!

Radu/Edu/Foss/ cousins

This zoo promotes recycling and to attract kids to do so as well, they have a paper eating lion.  The first time I saw it I thought it's the silliest and most naive thing ever. Well, guess what, kids from 4 to 10 enjoyed it and we spent there quite a bit of time. It was awfully hard to convince them to leave, but promise of ice cream beats a paper eating lion any day :)

All lined up for ice cream :)

   And, since this was truly Peter's birthday and we did not have a cake, we sang Happy Birthday over ice cream. I started quite shyly and quietly, but the kids joined in forcefully and it all transformed into a mini party with 2 adults and 4 kids singing at the top of their lungs. We got some cute looks and Peter improvised a candle for him (the spoon over his head), to show everybody that he is the celebrated one.

We dug some dinosaur bones afterwards and left home. And family dinner, and preparations for a new day!

The second morning was slow, just a short visit to the library and then it was noon and the orther mommy came home. Petronela and I took the kids to Children's museum and they had a BLAST! Peter took off and made some new friends, while Catalina and Silvia played together the whole time! They started making pizza, and I was one surprised momma. My shy Catalina who runs away when other kids come to play got herself totally involved, took away most of the ingredients to the point I HAD to tell her to share with the other kids. I was beyond astounded!

Maybe these three will open their own pizza place. They can have Mikil keep the books and it will surely be a successful business!

 Catalina and Silvia went ahead and played all sorts of doctors. Animal doctor, baby doctor, emergency doctor. Once again, I was watching my girl in disbelief, as she was running around, coming up with ideas, and playing whole heartedly. These two cute girls were in charged of the animals and the babies and started telling kids around what they are supposed to do and where they should take the dogs. It has been previously said that Radu girls tend to be bossy. Oh well, maybe we handed this to our girls as well :)

Of course, we had a short stop at the gift shop and Catalina asked for colored hair braids. Mommy got them for her and actually thought that her cutie pie who played so nicely with her cousins will share them. Nope, not longer than it takes to take a picture.

Seconds after I took the picture Catalina started a tantrum that earned her her braids back. I guess I should enjoy the little wins (like playing with other kids...) and wait for the bigger ones later :).

And then it was party time. Peter's party started around noon and we had big helpers in setting up the party place.

It was a pool party on a sunny, warm day, with ice cream cake and lots of kids splashing. Picture perfect!

Later, we went out for dinner. The kids were exhausted, and started all sorts of silly and unreasonable demands. Catalina fell asleep in my arms at some point, so I dropped half of the noodles I was eating on her. When she woke up, she started screaming that she doesn't like the noodles. Marius decided to throw some sort of tantrum himself. Catalina joined in. But...the weather was warm, and pleasant. We were a loud, big group, pretty much like those you see in the movies. It filled my heart to be there, with them.

There were no specific plans for the next day and this made for a relaxing one. We went to children's museum again, mostly because Marius HAD to go, jealous that in his stubbornness he refused to come the first time around. The kids enjoyed it once again, and we later had lunch at a Mexican place. It is pretty awesome going out with a big group!

Some of the cousins joined me outside. It was freezing inside!

And just like this, 4 days were over. They were not full of adventures, or things that make the evening news. It was just what a family should do: spend time together, doing mostly nothing, just eating at the same table, sleeping in the same zip code, walking the same streets. Living.