on sunday, before making the long drive back to minneapolis, we made one more three-year old birthday pitstop at the great plains zoo.

when you first enter you get to see all of the animals standing completely still. how nice of them. better for photographing.

i liked this wall. who wants to help me paint a wall in my crafting room with this sort of scene?

hannie is a silly monkey.

they’re just playing.

monkey pile!

such a fashionable little fish.

karyn was eaten by a hippo before we even got to see any moving animals. tragic!

ok, enough of this. real animals, please!

the first animal we saw outside was a peacock and this is about all that i remembered from the zoo when i first visited a million years ago.

the alpaca was the most apprehensive.

after hannie rode the carousel (the first time), i had to go look at most of the african animals alone. because she wanted to keep riding the carousel.

lazy cheetahs! very boring.

this is the baby rhino that, at one point, hannie was excited about. before the carousel happened.

hannie’s last ride on the carousel was with me. honestly? i got kinda dizzy.

i like lemurs because they look like cats with even crazier eyes.

we ended our visit with the asian kitties. and there was one i’ve never seen before: pallas’ cat! adorable.

he was a little bigger than a house cat and he was all chatter-y and chirp-y. wanted to bring him home!

and i thought about him the whole way home to minneapolis. (not really) (maybe)

last weekend, i joined my sister, brother-in-law and niece for a roadtrip to sioux falls, south dakota. we were celebrating hannie’s third birthday!

the hotel we were staying at was very nice and comfortable, but the pool was made for the kids. it’s deepest point was only 3′! so on friday night i spent some time playing in the 1′ deep end with hannie (and bryan). we went down the slide together a few times — we couldn’t quite convince her to go down the slide on her own! maybe next time.

bright and early on saturday morning, we went to the sertoma butterfly house.

“May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun,
And find your shoulders to light on.”

before going to see the butterflies, i spent some time chatting with the fish.

puffer fish are adorable.

i also pet a manta ray and a horseshoe crab. then the crab flipped itself over and we all went “ewwww!”

from left: dad (trying to find every fish listed on the guide), gramma d, karyn, hannie and bryan.

have you noticed how every clown fish ever will now be know as nemo? i first experienced this phenomenon at an aquarium in salzburg, austria, many years ago (geez, over 8 years ago, actually).

on to the butterflies!

the butterfly room is kept at a certain temperature and humidity level so when we walked in, my camera immediately fogged up. oops! i might not have noticed if it weren’t for all of the owl butterflies near the doorway that greeted us.

this flower is very pretty and quite tall, though i don’t remember what its name is.

there were special fruit-feeding stations every few feet. fun to see the butterflies with their “tongues” out!

“pop-pop” gives hannie a lift to see the butterflies.

then a butterfly landed on dad’s shoulder and it was the coolest thing ever.

and THEN a butterfly landed on ME and it was WOW THE COOLEST THING EVER. i am so easily excited, y’all.

he was a very nice little butterfly, posing with his wings open and everything.

that guy was up on a wall out of reach (and almost out of sight) but i think it might be the moth that had an 11″ wingspan — the atlas moth. he was huge.

and as bryan and i were about to leave the butterfly room (it felt like it was getting gradually warmer in there), another guy landed on me — a blue morpho! he was not as cooperative about opening his pretty little wings, though.

i look stern because i was telling him to just open his dang wings.

bryan readied his camera as i (gently) poked the butterfly’s legs (he poked back at me). he quickly fluttered his wings a few times and bryan managed to get a shot. then it was bryan’s turn!

so pretty. then we finally scared it off and it went and landed in the next’s lady’s hair.

and then it was time for lunch! can you believe all of this fun happened before noon? more about the weekend later.

where jason’s family near des moines lives is about a four hour roadtrip, mostly straight down i-35. we got on the road in the early afternoon last friday, stopped for an unhealthy, fast dinner, and were hanging out with the family by 7:30. i decided to start re-knitting the ravelclaw scarf that i ripped apart last year, so i worked on that most of the evening while jason was busy catching up on video games and remote controlled cars and trains. it was a leisurely, quiet night, which was nice.

the next morning is when the christmas fun began. the boys were pretty excited for their gifts, so after lunch they got to work on sorting out all of the gifts from under the tree.

where’s my harry potter lego game?! (oh, right, it’s waiting for me to load it into my wii at home… i am not so good at finishing video games.)

of course, that’s not really a ps3.

it’s just a bunch of air pockets… and brown sugar…

and a few gift cards, too.

it looks pretty…

but it’s just toilet paper. (this family has a lot of fun messing with each other.)

jason is goofy and cute.

nicholas was so excited about his new mario kart jammmies, that he ran off and put them on right away. (you’ll notice them in photos to come.)

alex got a kindle, which involved a drive into town to find a wi-fi hotspot (dairy queen) to get set up.

i wrapped missy’s gift with a lot of tinsel and tissue paper. a lot.

renee found some neat earrings for me — made from the glass of a wine bottle!

nikki has been studying acupuncture lately, to accompany her mad chiropractic skillz. (she fixed me a bit before we left for home the next day.)

already putting the toilet paper gift to good use!

i think i meant to be taking a photo of renee, but this capture is pretty hilarious. i was giggling as i sorted through these photos.

i thought the bow fell off of my head right away, actually.

jason and i got logan a beer-making kit. logan loved it, but it made missy cry.

jaxon has a tinsel butt.

wine charms made from scrabble tiles — enough to spell out “laughter” (which would be an excellent play).

i wrapped nikki’s gift with a simple paper bag. which she was afraid to open.

but the inside was full of chocolate and minnesota wine.

this is a photo of jason and me opening a gift together.

yarn! hand-spun and hand-dyed, renee found it from a local business in des moines.

nicholas loves being in front of the camera.

and, of course, this was the first christmas without uncle fred. renee had some of his clothing sewn to make clothing for “papa” bears, which each of the boys received. (jaxon was not into having a photo taken, unfortunately.)

i think that’s a pretty sweet idea.

after opening all of our gifts and cleaning up, we celebrated jaxon’s second birthday. that kids sure likes applause!

and his laughter was infectious.

but then it was time to try the cake!

the detail of this capture is awesome. (photo credit goes to jason.)

yes, it was a very good birthday cake.

after jaxon opened his gifts, we had some fun with balloons and static.

some of us unwillingly (at first).

we rounded out the night with a game of apples to apples. always fun!

the next morning we took it pretty easy. renee always arranges a yankee christmas gift game, and i went home with a tray to make a wine cork trivet. some of us (me) were still in our jammies, though, so the camera didn’t make it out for that fun.

then it was back home to minneapolis, and now? christmas is really over.

it’s not quite over yet, because i haven’t posted my millions of photos here.

(this is chocolate-covered bacon, courtesy of aunt kim.)

during the actual christmas weekend, jason and i went to south dakota to celebrate with my family. we hung out with a bunch of my hometown friends on friday night (and mostly had the karaoke stage to ourselves), celebrated with my mom’s family on saturday (christmas eve), and celebrated with my dad’s family on sunday (christmas day).

other long-overdue posts on the way: the monday after christmas was for celebrating bertine and zach’s wedding. last weekend, we drove down to des moines to celebrate christmas (and nephew jaxon’s second birthday) with jason’s family.

that’s a lot of celebrating!

this is the face that hannie makes when she is excited but shy. she’s a pretty adorable kid!

have i mentioned the four shih tzus that accompany my mom’s side of the family?

we have been doing a white elephant-style gift exchange for quite a few years now. the premise is that you roll the dice and if you get a pair (or two pair), you can pick a gift (or two gifts) from either the pile in the middle or you can steal from someone who has two or more gifts. this year, dad tried to steal a gift from hannie and you know what she did?

she cried. of course. don’t steal gifts from the baby of the family!

jeremy got a jar of preserved lemons. what would you do with that?

pretty much all of jason’s gifts were for me (zebra-print snuggie, bubble bath, fondue set for two — i suppose maybe i’ll share that one with him).

i like this sequence of photos. dog in box — kid petting dog in box — kid in box.

these desserts may look the same but one was pistachio and the other was chocolate. i tried both, both were awesome.

later on christmas eve, after returning to my parents’ house, we had our own little christmas. hannie is very good at opening presents!

i gave bryan coffee and sausage for christmas. he claimed it was exactly what he wanted.

dad got a giant box of chocolate and a donut maker.

jason got a domo calendar and many home depot gift cards (and we got a joint home depot gift card) — time to get crackin’ on those home projects!

this face is for ryan, the sender of the “unicorn meat” for bryan.

actual bits of “meat” inside! too funny.

a couple of my christmas gifts. (have i mentioned i’m in love with my iphone? last night it kept me up 30 minutes after i meant to go to bed — this happens too often now.)

hannie would later tell me not to mess up her piggies.

can you guess what this gift from pop-pop is?

hannie’s first fishing pole! we all had to make sure she didn’t swing it into our heads for the rest of the night. and the next morning.

(playing with the bokeh kit, which has all kinds of fun shapes.)

i wish i looked less tired in this photo, but as joyful and exciting as it had been, it had also been a long christmas eve day.

bryan and jason helped mom frost christmas cookies before we all wound down and went to bed. (visions of sugar-plums dancing in our heads…)

we went to grandma d’s house for christmas day. bryan and dad made homemade ice cream, yum!

three kinds of soup for lunch: zuppe toscana, chili, and chicken noodle.

homemade vanilla ice cream and jason’s egg nog cookies for dessert. yum x 2!

we all watched with excitement as hannie opened her gifts from “owl grandma.”

this is the view from grandma’s house, so we also watched the sheep graze all day.

hannie and i played with my iphone. she wanted me to try on aunt deb’s glasses, too.

jason and i drove home to minneapolis from grandma d’s house. on the way, i introduced him to the jolly green giant in blue earth, minnesota.

and when we got home, the kitties got to enjoy their christmas gift from hannie:

i’m finding that my iphone isn’t quick enough to properly capture playful cats!

iPhone for Christmas? I wanna see how the WordPress app performs… Between the regular camera app, Hipstamatic, and the Vintage Camera app, I already have 150 photos to share. (Yikes!)

Hannie tried on Pop-pop’s glasses.

Then Hannie and I took a photo together (while I tried on Aunt Debbie’s glasses). SMILE!!

Jason and I stopped in Blue Earth, Minnesota, to meet the Jolly Green Giant.

LOL, egg nog.

This afternoon I had a few dozen Thrushes (I think) hanging around outside my office window. Kinda creepy.

So many more photos to share! Why do I take so many?

In theory, having a WordPress app will help me to update more often but I think I’d rather have my photos linked from Flickr instead of uploaded to my blog’s media center. I’m torn. Any iPhone bloggers out there with helpful tips?