Bubble Bath

Our nightly baths are usually a no nonsense event. We wash, wash, wash, rinse, rinse rinse, and then it is out>dry>dressed>done. With three kids who tend to get a little splashy in the tub and have recently started getting on each others nerves, we don't linger in the tub for too long.

Well today it was rainy and cold and we had nothing to do. Our kids made it clear that they were bored and our lack of planning anything fun was not acceptable.

Enter - Bubble Machine. Meant to be an outside toy, this little gem has been tucked away in my closet. They had a great time. They ended up covered in soapy slime, but we were in the tub and there was plenty of water to rinse them down with after it was over.
BTW - it was 10am. This was a fun mid-morning event.



If you have small children and do not have a bubble machine - get one. It's a blast and will save your lungs and jaw muscles from all the manual bubble blowing. We had a minimum of 20 minutes of happy bubbly tub time.

Menace man

Doesn't this baby just look like trouble? With the sweet smile and the long curls? He is a really cute baby with a big personality.

He loves to climb and throw.

He hams it up for the camera.

And he is pretty good at getting what he wants. We love our little man.

The City Museum of Total Awesomeness

If I haven't already told you, I loved loved loved this museum! (and no - I am not in a marketing deal with the place or anything) It was just the most awesome place I've been to date, like ever. We got there about 10 minutes before it opened and parked in the very first spot near the door. We walked in and they let us right in the museum before they were even open! I would say we had about 45 minutes to an hour before we even saw anyone else in there. We went right up the grand stairs to 'no-skate park'. This is a huge room filled with skateboard ramps that you play on and slide on. They have ropes to swing on and the world's biggest pencil. It was super fun and once Layla warmed up - she loved it. We laughed, we squealed, we had a blast. The whole museum is itself a work of art. Every part was constructed to be unique and architectural . We walked around to get the lay of the land and see what we wanted to do next.

Oh yeah - and the whole museum is a giant maze of secret passageways and gerbil tunnels built to let your kids explore and have the most amazing fantasy experience ever. Seriously - this place is a kids dream! I do warn that if you are much larger than a 12 year old, you might get stuck. Since that doesn't apply to me - I LOVED IT!

Fish - so cool.

Turtles and swordfish you can't see, but they were there.

We crawled and explored and slid down some great slides. We got lost, we played pretend, we imagined we were being chased and we loved every minute.

Matt trooped through those tunnels like a kid himself - albeit one with bad knees. No complaints though - it was too much fun to complain.

We spent 45 minutes in "Art City" painting, doing clay crafts, paper crafts, making wands and getting our faces painted while Matt had a conference call. It was after 10 and we still had the place to ourselves!

Then the girls rode a train.

And then we went back to no-skate city for more playtime.

and more slliding.

and more exploring.

Layla did this "Slide" about 100 times. She loved it. It looks like she is falling, but it is a skateboard thing so very steep, but rounded on the bottom. You know what I'm talking about - it was way cool in the early 90's? Yep - fun fun fun (and I did it 20 times too just to be sure).

And then we saw a magician perform in the circus.

It was awesome. Totally awesome day at the City Museum. The girls loved it and we had the best time with them. We will be going back soon and of course with Adam when he is old enough to hang.
This is the kind of place I personally dreamed of when I was a kid. I loved getting lost and playing pretend. I would have been in heaven here. I'm in my 30's and I had all the excitement of being 10 again. It was just that fun.

Did I mention I really loved this place?

Big news about a big girl bed

Layla got a big girl bed - it's on the left. And this is our new bed setup. Layla's bed/Crib for when she gets up too many times/Hannah's bed. It's a bit crowded, but how it has to be until she learns to stay in her bed. She did sleep ok last night and napped in it today so perhaps we are over the worst of it. Also Layla's bed is just a matress on the floor. This is also necessary as our kids can't really handle furniture. They climb and jump off everything so we are regressing a bit and going back to basics. Pretty soon you might find us sitting on the floor eating with our hands too.

It's a bouncy kind of day

We went to a birthday party today at the Bounce U. The kids had a blast. Thank goodness for something to do on a cold snowy Sunday in February.

Adam @ 16.5 months

This was our last can of formula. My last last last can of baby formula.

Bye Bye formula.

Adam will still get a bottle of regular milk in the evening for as long as he wants. He won't drink cold milk in a cup so we are fine with the bottle. It is one of my favorite parts of my day when he just relaxes and lays with us. He is so calm and sweet, I am secretly hoping he enjoys this one bottle of milk for a while longer.

I let Adam put on a nightgown the other evening (he insisted) and I could not resist taking a picture. He just wants to be involved with the girls and since they both changed into their jams at 5:30 - he wanted to also. Adam LOVES his sisters.I could not help but post this picture again. How sweet is this evil baby face?

No - we still haven't cut his hair. We love it too much and know he will look like a big boy when we do, so for now it's long curls.

Adam is a daredevil. He loves to be thrown and flown and swung around. He is a very happy to play rough. We have a lot of fun with him and usually he tires us out. It exhausting trying to keep him safe all day and he usually ends up with a new bump/fat lip/bruise about every day. He's all boy (except when wearing his princess nightgown).

Adam is talking a ton these days. He probably has about 75-100 words and says new ones all the time. He puts 2 words together sometimes so he is getting ready to just explode with language. For the most part he can get his point across and he has pointing and yelling to fall back on. He weighs about 26 lbs and is 33 inches tall. We have his 18 month visit in about 6 weeks so we will get new stats then.