Birthday Party at the OKC Zoo

For their 4th birthdays, Kylee and her 3rd cousin, Peyton, had a joint party at the zoo. It was awesome! The zoo staff was absolutely wonderful, and all the kiddos had a blast! Instead of party hats and goody bags, I got safari hats and binoculars for all the kids. They were a huge hit! The kids really got into character, and Roshelle (the zoologist) was great about playing along with the kids' assertions that there were REAL zookeepers.



The party started with story time. My little bookworm loved that! Kudos to the zoo for choosing a fun, age appropriate, birthday relevant zoo animal book.

After the story, the kids got to meet, learn about, and pet Ivory the hedgehog.

Next the kids went on a tour of the aviary. I didn't expect the kids to be overly excited about  birds, but they loved it! Their mission was to count the birds and to find one bird for every color on Kylee's hair bow. They were all about it! Roshelle did an excellent job keeping them in character and really played up the binoculars, which was fun.

 The kids returned to the tree house for cake, ice cream, and lemonade (because zookeepers that work hard deserve a break).

Kylee got some great gifts! She was excited to open them, but I think she may have been even more excited about all the cards.

 At the end of the party, all the kids were given plush giraffes and some play time on the cool log slide.

After the party everyone (children and adults) got free admission to the zoo. We didn't have a lot of time before the zoo closed, but we made the most of the time we had.

Makenna had the best time running around the zoo without her stroller! After we saw the bears, she (all on her own) started searching for the monkeys. She must have remembered them from last time we went the zoo. I was impressed! 



All the excitement wore Makenna out! She slept most the way home. I thought Kylee would do the same, but she stayed awake for the whole drive back (and was great in the car).