The Pearce Place: Ainsley's Special Day

Earlier last week, I told Brantley that on Saturday we needed to have a day dedicated to Ainsley and doing things that would be fun for her. I feel like we are always so focused on what we need to get done and she is just along for the ride. We need to remind ourselves that she has gotten to that age where we need to start scoping out the things that she would enjoy doing as well. Sometimes it's hard to remember that we have an interested, observant toddler now and not just a little baby! So for A's special day we decided to finally make a trip to the Nashville Zoo and then to Babies-R-Us to pick out a new toy! (Ainsley got a gift card there for her birthday from her Aunt Amanda, so we wanted to take her to "pick out a toy" ;)

Friday night, something dawned on me. I realized I couldn't have picked a more perfect day to have a special day for Ainsley because Saturday was the 1 year mark of when we brought her home from the NICU (4/30/10)! It was weird to think the time that has lapsed from her birthday 16 days earlier until then was how long we went without our baby girl being at home with us. I thank God that she progressed so quickly and remained strong during those 16 days because many people are not as fortunate and their wait to bring home their baby is much longer. (As terrible and LONG as it seemed to us at the time, I have come to realize this.)

I was so excited about spending this beautiful day with our little family. That morning, Ainsley fortunately took one of her longer morning naps. While I was getting her ready, Brantley went out to the car and turned A's car seat around so she would finally be facing forward! I had been waiting as long as possible, but I thought this was as good a time as ever to do it. And boy did she enjoy this! She talked the whole way to the zoo and was so smiley! She did pretty good at the zoo, it being her first time and still on a 2 naps a day schedule. I really didn't know what to expect. But we got in a good 2 hours and she enjoyed looking at (a couple of) the animals. Hopefully that will get better considering we paid for a year long membership! Haha. Brantley joked about 10 minutes after getting there saying, "It's a good thing we spent a bunch of money so we could bring Ainsley here to watch kids!" Because that's what ended up happening. We know it will get better and she will eventually want to go to the zoo for reasons that you go to the zoo. For now, watching other kids will have to do. A lot of the animals were so far in the distance that she wouldn't have noticed them. The ones up close she enjoyed watching though. I'm definitely looking forward to going back again, especially considering we didn't look at a map when we got there and only covered about 1/3 of it. After the zoo and dinner, at Red Robin, we headed to the store to pick out Ainsley's new toy. I loved what we ended up with! It's so cute and something I feel like she will be interested in playing with for a long time. Anyways, enough of my rambling and on to the pictures!

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"What is going on!?"

"This is so much better!"

"I can even wave to Mommy now..."

Ainsley's favorite animal of the day: Meerkats

She wouldn't stop pulling to railing to lean over and take a peak!

Walking break...

Juice break...

She liked the flamingos too!

I was kind enough to let Brantley take Ainsley into Alligator Cove. Although I was dying to go in and see the alligators, snakes, and fish, I decided to not be selfish and give him the chance, while I stayed behind to keep an eye on the wagon. HA!

(Hence I have no pictures from here, but Brantley reported that she liked watching the fish.)