A birthday trip to the zoo!

Ben's mom, Pattie, and I have birthday's about 6 days apart, so we combined celebrations and went to the Denver Zoo this weekend with Ben's whole family! The weather was amazing and the animals were out enjoying the weather as well...what a perfect way to celebrate!!!!

Enjoying the wonder of God's creation

Simba!!!!!!

Ben is so good at capturing the most amazing detail in his photos!

checking out the animals with the birthday girl!

All I can say is 'wow'!

Easter!

Vanessa's first Easter was spent with several new friends, some old friends and Ben's mom and dad. Since it was snowing out, Vanessa got to hunt Easter eggs in our living room...

I see them...

...I'm going to get them...

...What's inside?...

...Cheerios, my favorite...

...this is really fun...

...and there are so many people watching me...

...I love to tell Oma how much I love her!!!

Vanessa's 9 month check up!

Can you believe that our little girl is 9 months old!?! She weighted 17 lbs and is 28 inches long, so she's a long and lean ball of energy! She can cover the length of our house in a matter of minutes and can pull herself up on anything and cruise around that way! She's so much fun and it just keeps getting better and better! Here are a few pictures of her visit with the best doctor ever...

Our butterfly at the Butterfly Pavilion..

On a recent raining Saturday, we went down to Denver to visit the Butterfly Pavilion. For those of you that know, 'Vanessa' (and Lauren's middle name) means butterfly, so this was an extra special trip for them! The Butterfly Pavilion is home to more then just butterflies, it also has lots of 'creepy crawlers' and some very different fish...

Here are the two 'butterflies' enjoying all the beauty!

Ben was the only brave one to hold the Spider, this one was actually one of the more smaller ones, if you can imagine that!

Ben and Vanessa checking out the starfish and other fish!

What a treat to be able to see all the amazing details on this one!

This kind always seemed to be upside down!

Isn't God amazing!