Illinois Visit: Friday and Saturday!

On Friday morning, we set off to Eckert's in Belleville to take part in their Easter festivities.  We got there with just minutes to spare before the first Easter egg hunt registration time was almost closed.  But, we made it!  My mom and I thought that there would be so many kids and with Clara being so little, that she would only get one egg, so my mom staked out a spot near one egg so that we knew she would at least get one.  Luckily, she got more that just that, each child was allowed 12!  We had forgotten to bring a basket, so the eggs were thrown in my mom's purse.  We may have had Clara pick up a few too many eggs since they were swallowed in my mom's purse once they got thrown in!  Anyway, Clara loved it!!  Unfortunately, it had rained the night before so it was wet and a little muddy, so we couldn't let her crawl to find the eggs by herself.  Still, it was fun to watch her "find" them and pick them up.

 

 

 After the egg hunt portion was over, we got to see and pet baby chicks and rabbits.  Those animals were putting their lives on the lines by being there and held and touched by so many little kids.  While my mom held a one of the chicks for Clara to pet, she proceeded to strangle it!  She wasn't quite as bad with the rabbits since she only pinched the poor rabbit's ears.  We are still working on her giving gentle touches...

 

Picture taken right after the chick had the near death experience!

 Once we were done petting the bunnies and chicks, we were ready to get out of the cold wind that we definitely had not been prepared for!  The next task was for Clara to meet the Easter bunny.  She did not enjoy that!!  But, she did get a nice little duck toy from the scary guy in a bunny suit!

Then, she planted a seed, and mom and I got a sugar cookie with icing.  Once that was done, we went back to the car to load up for the rest of our day.

For those of you who don't know, the Art Museum's special exhibits are FREE on Fridays.  They currently have a photography exhibit, so going to that was my birthday present from Mom and Dad.  Unfortunately, we had to park at the bottom of Art Hill and walk up it... it is steeper than it looks!!  The exhibit was pretty AWESOME!!  Some of the pictures were kind of weird, but there were a few pretty great ones!  My favorites were: one with men in uniform doing target practice on an aircraft carrier, one of high school football players on the football field during a night game, and one piece consisting of six different pictures taken from different vantage points all at the same time.

After taking in the whole exhibition, we found a place to nurse Clara.  And, once she was a happy little girl again, we were able to enjoy a little bit more of the museum.  By then, we were starving, so it was time to head out of the museum and back down the steep hill.

The little specks on the trail to the right is my mom with Clara in the stroller.

 At the bottom of the hill, we ran into a BEAUTIFUL horse with a Forest Park Ranger on her back.  Her name is Esmerelda, and she is a ten year old Percheron/Morgan cross.  Clara was able to pet her, however she was a little scared.  But, we got a few pictures of Clara and her, and her Ranger took a picture of us with Esmerelda's ears in it that he has now posted on Esmerelda's Facebook page.

We headed back to the car and back to Illinois.  We ate at Red Robin (where I learned that not every Red Robin gives a military discount like the one in Topeka... BOO) which was yummy.  Afterwards, we headed back to Fed Ex where I did yet another hour of working on things for Clara's party.  My mom and Clara went to Toys R Us to keep Clara occupied.  She LOVES toys that make noise!

Saturday was another stay at home day.  We did more projects for Clara's party, and we looked through some of the things in the basement that were mine as a little kid.  Unfortunately, I think that some of the things that I had as a kid got thrown out in my parent's move.  I wish I would have known what I was going to want for my children when my parents moved!

My grandma and grandpa came over again for dinner, brownies, and ice cream.  They loved seeing Clara.  She is definitely A LOT bigger than she was the last time that they saw her!

Once my grandma and grandpa left, we played with Clara some more.  Then came one of the biggest milestones for her to date: she WALKED!!  And, she did it over and over.  We didn't get her official first steps on video, but we did get her taking steps on video from the first night.  YAY!!  (And yes, you hear correctly, we were telling her to fetch the rat...)

I hope that you enjoyed all of the pictures and videos.  Tune in on Monday for the end of my Illinois visit!  Have a great weekend!