The Zoo and The Factory

Clara's latest thing has been to sleep through the night, BUT she's been waking up between 4:45-5:20 FOR THE DAY! One morning, I put her in the running stroller and she joined me for an early morning run/walk and we got to enjoy the sunrise together. She also fussed for the last mile, but I kept reminding her it was her decision to be up for the day.

This morning however, she slept through the night and didn't make a peep until almost 7:00!! (All the praise hands!!) Thursdays are my rest day anyhow, so I try to "sleep in" but was counting on being up super early anyhow. When Luke's alarm went off at 6:30, I looked over at him and asked him if he thought Clara was still alive. (spoiler: she was.) She also took a 40 minute nap when we got home from running out to Target. We'll see how the rest of the day goes!

On Monday, Noelle had off for President's Day so we headed to the zoo. I told her and Jonah that I was bringing the stroller only for Clara so they would have to do a lot of walking. If there was any complaining, we were turning around and coming straight home. Since it was a holiday, we were there along with everyone else. But we were there for about three hours and Clara eventually fell asleep (it was a 4:45 a.m wake-up that day) in the ergo. It was close to 80* and Noelle and Jonah did a fantastic job walking around!

We waited in line to go into a bird exhibit that we walked around in for less than five minutes. But hey, learning to wait is a good life skill. And it was their choice, and they had fun watching the birds fly around them. When we got to the giraffes, which Noelle had been talking about for days before going tot he zoo, she went straight to the wishing well and then looked at the giraffes for about 30 seconds.

Right before heading back to the car, we stopped at the farm animal exhibit so they could brush the goats.

Tuesday was even warmer, and Jonah, Clara, and I met up with my sister-in-law and niece at a playground near them. Jonah had a blast climbing everything and going down slides, and Clara always loves watching all the kids running around. There's a train car at the park, so Jonah pretended to drive the train for a few minutes before we headed home.

Last week we got our TN license plates and driver's licenses down in a town called Columbia, and we decided we wanted to go back this past Saturday to see more of the town. (I mean, Luke had already decided we're buying an entire pie from the pie place we stopped in briefly.) However, Saturday was pouring rain, so instead we headed to Franklin to the The Factory. It's an old factory of some sort with little shops and eateries inside. They also have a farmer's market on Saturdays, so we walked through that briefly, ate some samples, and then headed inside.

We enjoyed two of the famous Five Daughter's Bakery donuts ($4.50 a pop, but so delicious!), and I got an acai bowl. The kids could see the bakers making the donuts and had a blast watching them. Noelle begged to do the paint your own pottery place, so that may need to be a future mommy/daughter date! It was fun, and I'm loving these leisurely Saturdays to explore as a family.

Ellie's Doughnuts outside at the Farmer's Market