20 pictures for a 2-year-old

I wasn't kidding about wanting to put 20 pictures on my blog...but the thing is, even though it's samantha's birthday, I still have to include pictures of emma, because she's cute too. :)

Anyway, we had never been to the Zoo in our city before so we thought we'd give it a try for mantha's birthday. Fortunatly for us, our expectations were so low that anything beyond a cement slab with animals would have exceeded them. We ended up having a great day - the sky was overcast so sweat, squinting and overheating were out of the question. The zoo was unusually quiet, hardly any people to speak of, so it really felt like we had the place to ourselves. This almost never, ever, ever happens.

As I was the official photographer of the event, josh had the duty of being the guide (a duty that usually falls to him anyway). I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of green that surrounded us.The first stop was the monkeys. Even though the zoo exceeded our expectations, I doubt they exceeded the monkeys expectations of a long and carefree life. The monkeys paced nervously through their cages, stopping only to belt out fierce shrieks at any humans that might be watching. Josh convinced Samanthat that the monkeys were smiling at her and saying happy birthday, so she wasn't afraid. I, on the other hand, was. And I was also very thankful for that little peice of glass.After a while, we made it over to the part of the zoo where the animals are a bit more calm. Of special interest to my girls was the baby giraffe - emma especially loves anything those name has "baby" in front. We took a little rest on some rocks......the girls pretended they were elephants......and just enjoyed themselves. We started walking toward the "little animals area" and found that indeed there were some very little animals! Most notably, this little pony - what is their official name, the ones who are always so tiny? Anyway, it was super cheap to ride them and the girls were enamored by the tiny pony. I was a little taken aback by what seemed to be a glass eye on this particular one, but the pony dude was insistent that we ride this one. I agreed, even though he was the uglies of all of them.

I will never be able to express my gratitude to pony man for teaching my children how to flash the V-victory sign that is so quintesentially Asian. Sheesh.


The girls had a blast on the ponies and have talked about often since then. On the way out, we saw these "ponies" too and gave them a try. Too bad they didn't walk around, but they were free.

We stayed most of the morning at the zoo, then made it home just in time for lunch where our house helper made mantha's most-ever-favorite lunch: pepsi chicken and potatoes. It's a bunch of tiny chicken legs and potato chunks marinated and stewed in some sort of concontion made of pepsi - samantha truly loves it! After lunch, it was time for the much-requested "flower cake" to make its debut.

First, let me just say that whoever knew it wasn't easy to decorate a cake never informed me of this little fact. I consider myself to be decently endowed with hand-eye coordination and at least a twinge of artsiness in me, but I found that I was all thumbs when it came to cake decorating. Ok, well, mostly the writing on the cake. I even had little decorater tips to write with, but it totally came out botched. Because I have not a shred of pride about me, I'm posting this picture.

We had princess decorations and princess crowns instead of party hats, thanks to our local Carrefour supermarket.
Samantha didn't seem the tiniest bit concerned that her name was botched on the cake. She ate several peices and enjoyed them thoroughly!
After lunch, we opened presents together - samantha got new rain boots from our house helper, a talking toy broom and lady bug remote control car from josh and I, and several packages that came just for her! She loved all the special things from josh's parents and his sister kristen - thank you guys! Paint books, sticker books, new clothes....it was a happy day for her.

Later that night, mantha got to have her choice of movie for a Family Fun Night - and, surprise surprise, she chose Cars. So there you have the recap of mantha's happy 2nd birthday!!