Frederik Meijer Gardens

Today we made a last minute decision to head up to Frederik Meijer Gardens with Becky and her 2 girls.  I wasn't sure it was worth the drive and the money, but we had a great day!  I have no regrets at all about going . . . until the major meltdowns that happened after we got back home from 3 tired little kiddos!  The weather was low 60s and beautiful.  We spent most of our time outside and only went inside to see the butterflies for about 20 minutes. 

 When we first got there Samuel was literally bouncing around and jumping up and down.  He told me, "I'm so excited!"  

 Sitting on the eggs.  Samuel told me that when his hatched it was going to be a dinosaur!

 Playing with the boats and water.  Definitely a highlight of the day.  Samuel had just watched his boat go over the waterfall in this picture.

 The girls playing with their boats.  Once again, Hope won the prize for the wettest child at the end of the day!

 My Samuel Butterfly

 My Hopey Butterfly

 My Aliyah Butterfly

 Eating lunch.  All sitting in big chairs!  Where did my babies go?!?

 Aliyah loves carrying coats around.  She is a little girl that knows what she wants and wants to do it without any help.  We often hear her saying "Delf! Delf!" (self) or telling us "No!" when we ask her if she wants help.

 I love this picture of Samuel and Hope together.  They truly are the best of friends!  We were sitting at the supper table the other night with the girls (Samuel was at my parent's house) and Hope says to us "Where did my buddy Samuel go?  Where's my buddy?"

 All 3 of my precious kids.  These pictures in no way show how crazy busy it was while we were there.  It was nuts.  Lots and lots of school groups.  Kids running everywhere.  You get the picture.  And b/c of our warm March, all of the flowers were in bloom!  When we've gone in the spring the past two years the flowers haven't been blooming yet so that was an extra special treat.

 The kids were fascinated with the butterflies.  They alternated between totally freaking out if a butterfly would come close to them and then shrieking in delight.  Better than last year when Samuel cried. :)  In the picture above, Hope is saying to a butterfly, "Can I touch you?"

 This is one of Samuel's freak out moments . . . shrieking in delight but also in terror.

 Aliyah kept doing this and saying, "catch you, catch you!"  It was too cute!

It was really hot in the butterfly house so we weren't in there for long.  But I was glad we made it up there for it because the butterfly exhibit ends in a couple of days.

Another highlight of the day was the big sandbox.  For whatever reason, I don't have any pictures of that!  The kids had a great day and had a lot of stories to tell Daddy when he came home from work.  And I loved it too.  What a special day it was!