Toledo Zoo with Grandma Dolly

This past week Jesse's mom was able to come stay with us and help out with the new baby (by help out, I mean she played with Niko and held the baby while I took naps! So wonderful!!!). We had a really lovely week :) At the end of it, we took a trip down to the Toledo Zoo! (I don't actually have any pictures of Juli...sorry! But she was there, I promise)

They had a new aquarium opening the day we came, and it was great!

Nikolai's favorite exhibit by far was these jellyfish. We loved the display--very simple yet very dramatic. 

Nikolai was a little overwhelmed by the crowds, and was VERY surprised to see a scuba diver in the tank! I tried to reassure him that the person was, in fact, human (he looked a little unsure).

These monster crabs were HUGE!!

Elsewhere in the zoo they were doing free face painting, and Nikolai insisted on getting his face painted.

Despite his earnestness, he proceeded to make all manner of silly grimace faces while it was happening:

The result:

We stayed at the zoo for around 4 hours (a pretty long time for a 3 year old!) and we definitely experienced our fair share of toddler meltdowns. Here's Niko "sleeping" under a recycled bag jellyfish in the middle of one such episode:

Other  (not pictured) favorite things we saw: the monkey house ("so messy!") and the aviary.

I'll leave you with a photo of our little Niko inside a giant egg at the aviary:

"I'n a baby dinasawr!"

The end.