birthday love wishes

my children had very definite ideas about how best to spend my birthday.  :)
and since I didn't (at least for the first day)....

Maddie and I have been talking about learning to play the Recorder.  this morning we started our lessons.  which is really a wonderful way for a Mama to start a birthday, if you ask me.

aside from a bowl of oatmeal and a ds game while sitting next to the morning heater, of course.

this year i get a little spoiled by Mama Nature... these two days in October are our last very warm days.  remarkably, we still haven't had frost yet, and are still consistently able to live in short sleeves
so let's celebrate, hmm?

our aviary was having a couple of special Halloween activity days, so we thought it might be alright to play and tromp around there.

 

flamingo mud nests!

there was a scavenger hunt, a craft,

and we saw a spooky bird show - did you know that a group of crows is called a Murder of crows???

 

and of course we played at the park... carousel and ferris wheel rides....

and Eric rowed us around the lake in a canoe.  (which was, I am sure, comically stressful as Trevelyn kept leaning this way and that, distressing Maddie (and frightening me, too!), while I kept a sharp eye on the depth of the lake so I was prepared to keep my precious camera out of the water when we classically toppled our canoe....)  :)

the second-half of our boatride was quite alright, however.  we all settled in... and remained quite dry, I am very happy to say.

while we had other plans for our day, as sometimes happen we stayed and played longer than we supposed we would, so arrived home just in time to make supper.

birthday part one was quite lovely with its chocolate icecream faces and ghastly vultures...

tomorrow breakfast in the mountains and fall festival play.
perfect.