More Visitors and A Ton of "Firsts"!

This past weekend we had Uncle Brian and (soon to be) Aunt Lauren come visit us for the first time! It was also the first time they met Bennett!

Uncle Brian with Bennett

And Lauren with Bennett

Lauren is a nurse and has worked in PICUs, NICUs, CICU's and probably more U's that I don't know about but she has a lot of experience with babies as well as babies with Down syndrome and has cared for some that have had the same surgery as Bennett. Needless to say I felt very safe with Lauren around and she was all about the hand sanitizer so you know I was loving that!:)

Not sure what Ainsley and Uncle Brian are doing here, Brian and Lauren had an early flight so I think he is pretending to go camping with Ainsley and he's pretending to sleep but I think he may have really been taking a nap!

On Saturday Ainsley went to her first ballet and tap class!

Here she is in her little ballerina shoes and leotard. She loved it and is thrilled about going every Saturday until May but she wants to know why she can't wear the recital costume now-she's is ALL girl!

It rained all day Friday and Saturday so on Sunday the sun finally came out and we went to the zoo for the first time! And what zoo did we go to??

America's first zoo, of course! The Philadelphia Zoo!

We thought that was pretty neat when we saw the sign about it being the first zoo.

The Philly Zoo was great and the girls loved seeing all the animals but both were a little scared and didn't realize at first that the animals were caged up. Both held on pretty tightly when we went to see the lions and tigers...

Harper was not so sure about the tiger that was sound asleep. I'm convinced the animals all have a party when the zoo closes because when people are around waiting for them to do something grand, they just lay there like we're boring them to tears!

Poor Lauren carried Ainsley for the first hour until Ainsley felt pretty sure that a lion was not going to jump out and eat her! {Oh and the pigeons, ducks, peacocks and geese that were casually walking around the zoo were not winning Ainsley over either}

Daddy with his girls.


The giraffe was a BIG hit!

We had fun on the jungle carousel (Harper's first carousel ride)!

Ya think she looks tired?? Yes, that was about all Miss Harper could take- she had an all out temper tantrum after I took her off of the carousel, she was exhausted but did not want to get off!

Umm...yeah, she was not happy. This is what Bennett did for most of our zoo trip. He's such a good baby!

Monday it was back to work for Mike and back to school for Ainsley! (Her first day:)) If you've been following my blog long enough you may have noticed how I like to look back and compare pictures from the same events in years past. So here is Ainsley last year on her first day of school...

(She started in November when we moved here)

And here she is this year-
she's looking so mature! I can't believe my baby girl will be five soon!

One last snuggle with Bennett before Lauren and Brian had to leave on Monday.

All in all we had a great visit and we're really looking forward to their wedding in December! I've got the girls dresses so now we just need to start practicing! {Brian and Lauren, I'm pretty sure Harper will not behave how she did this weekend at your wedding....I hope;)} Thanks again for coming to visit us!