Omaha? Don't mind if I do.

For my entire childhood, I lived at least a half a country away from my cousins. While I grew up in North Carolina, my three cousins were growing up in Arizona. When they moved to Virginia, we moved to Kansas. Never in the same vicinity  Never anywhere close. We saw each other maybe every couple of years.

We got along great when we saw each other, but it was pretty infrequent. Laura, Jennifer and I wrote letters to each other in the typical 5th grade girl fashion, but without things like computers and Facebook, it made it hard to stay connected.

When Laura moved to Minnesota several years ago, I could hardly believe it. We were going to be so close. Only a couple states away, and only an 8-hour drive! Plus, our girls are so close in age. In fact, the difference in ages between Molly and Penelope and Charlotte is incredibly similar to what it was between me and Laura and Jennifer growing up. It's like the three of us cousins reincarnated.

All this background to say, I'm so excited that my girls get to have a close relationship with Penelope, and I get to see Laura a lot more. We have the annual Easter visits and other visits back and forth. And, for a while now, we've been talking about the idea of meeting somewhere in the middle for a weekend trip. But, nothing really came of it. Until ...

About a month or so ago, I emailed Laura and said, "Are you still interested in doing an Omaha trip? Let's do it in October." And, despite having just returned from a road trip, she agreed.

Omaha is about a 3-hour drive for us and about a 5-hour drive for them. And, Omaha has a great zoo. That was pretty much the extent of our planning. It was a very low-key, fly by the seat of our pants trip. And, in spite of that, we had a fabulous time.

We couldn't leave until Saturday morning because we'd already committed to going on a hay ride on Friday night (blog post on that later, don't you worry!). So, we roused the girls out of bed at oh-dark-30 and hopped on the highway to Omaha. We got there before 9am, so we still had the whole day ahead of us.

We met Laura, Chris and Penny at the hotel and carpooled to the zoo. All the weather forecasts showed rain all day long. We'd been worried about this, so we packed rain coats and rain boots and were assured there was lots of stuff indoors at the zoo. Turns out, all that worry was for nothing. It ended up being a gorgeous day. A little overcast but a perfect fall day for the zoo. I was, in fact, overdressed.

The first thing we did upon arrival at the zoo. Pictures on the lions.

Checking out the orangutans. I could've watched them all day, but the girls  only watched for approximately 30 seconds and were done.

Seriously, how cute is this?

Molly watching the tiger. Geesh, I'm glad there is a giant metal cage between them. 

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday: Model Minnie

Charlotte has not always cooperated for pictures. In fact, she has caused me quite a few headaches and rescheduling of photography appointments. Recently, though, she has seemingly come out of her photography phobia. But only for one pose and only with one other person. Er, mouse. Minnie. Her favorite pose: setting Minnie on the fireplace, sitting next to her, then pointing to the camera while squealing "picture, picture!" And from that, you get these:

Picture-phobia

So, my precious, adorable, beautiful darling daughter has been giving me quite the headaches lately. See, I had this crazy idea that I wanted to have some professional pictures taken of my two girls together. I know. Completely bonkers, right? And, I wanted the pictures to be taken outside. I am a lunatic. Certifiable. Lock me up now.

We tried first, about a week and a half ago. I got up early, ran in the gorgeous clear weather, got the girls ready. Did their hair, put on their cute dresses. Made sure they were cleaned and pressed. I even had checked the weather that morning. I got Charlotte down for her morning nap early, and she woke just in time for us to leave. Problem? By the time we drove the 10 minutes to the shoot, it had started raining. And, not just sprinkles. Massive, torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Well, that day was out.

We tried again a couple days later. Only this time, Charlotte refused to go down for her morning nap. So, when we showed up, she was tired, cranky and clingy. And, I don't mean your garden-variety clingy. The girl, literally would not let go of my neck. I tried to run around with her or get her to chase Molly, and all we got were giant, gulping-for-air screams of terror. After an hour, we decided to try again another day.

Cut to Monday morning. We decided to go super early, before her morning nap. We even had Cory bring the girls so Charlotte wouldn't cling to me. We packed bubbles, balls, bats. Whatever we could think of to get her to be comfortable. As soon as Cory turned into the parking lot, Charlotte started crying. She didn't stop crying and clinging until they gave up and drove home again.

So, lesson: Charlotte will have no 18-month professional pictures. Luckily, we got some good ones of just Molly. Check out those here. I really have to hand it to Kelly, our photographer, for trying over and over and over again. I will blame Charlotte when she comes asking why she doesn't have any pictures of herself from this time in her life. Little stinker knows how to push her momma's buttons.