Thursday, July 31, 2008

Children's Museum in Seminole, OK

We went to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum while we were in Oklahoma (on Leah's birthday!). I just got the pictures from my mom today (our copies got accidentally deleted, oops!), so that's why I'm posting them 2 weeks later.


How cute are those sunglasses?? I just noticed that they MATCH her carseat :)


The kids are ready for the one hour trek to Seminole.


Hannah and Bailey outside of a real ambulance.


This exhibit was really cool, the stationary bike is hooked up to the skeleton and as you pedal the skeletons legs move like yours.




I thought this was a great picture of cousin Bailey.


I wish I had a mirror like this in my bathroom!! I could pretend that I was tall and skinny.


Elijah flying an airplane


Elijah drives a Model T.


Mr. Entertainment puts on a puppet show.


Leah and myself taking a bit of a break.


Hannah inside an airplane cockpit.


The day was topped off by a visit to the EVIL EMPIRE which my kids thoroughly enjoyed.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Indianapolis Children's Museum


We were greated by a giant, flying Curious George.


Elijah was very taken with the "All Aboard" exhibit.




Leah, Pete, and Elijah put on a dinosaur puppet show.


Leah enjoying being OUT of the stroller


Reflection of the Chihuly sculpture


Fireworks of Glass by Dale Chihuly


Hannah "drives" an Indy car.


Elijah takes his turn.


Hannah and Elijah really liked the water play area in Playscape




Leah LOVED the Babyscape area






Here are my future paleontologists.

We had a grand time at the world's largest children's museum. It really was quite large, and we didn't see everything there was to see. I really want to go back next June because they are hosting the Tutankhamun exibit. I've been waiting to see King Tut since I was Hannah's age!!

We spent the night at the IUPUI hotel downtown, and the kids had a "campout" on the floor. We ended up getting room service for dinner because we were too wiped out to find a restaurant. That was quite an experience!

New Camera!



We are the proud owners of a new digital camera!! It's a tiny Nikon CoolPix s600, and we got it just in time for our trip to Indy to visit the world's largest children's museum (see next post).

Hee Hee Hee

I have to write this down before I forget it!!

I sent Elijah to the potty, and he started singing the following made up song, "Home is where the POTTY is..."

That boy is something else.

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Potty Train Has Left the Station!

I can't believe how amazing Elijah has done since getting home from our trip. We made the switch to full time undies, and he's done great. He still has some accidents, but they've all been 1-2 drops of pee when he declares, "I'M SOAKED!!!!" I take him to the toilet and he finishes. I wanted Pete to teach him to pee standing up, but he said there was nothing to aim, lol. So, I had to teach him and help him aim... I can see that the bathrooms are going to need a bit more frequent cleaning from now on. He's even pooped on the toilet for the past two days. It looks like my days of two in diapers is finally over :) I have found that if I put him in a pull-up when we leave the house he pees in it almost immediately, so those are now out of the question. I'm not sure what exactly to do when we go somewhere for more than an hour... back to the good ol' plastic pants I suppose. I do put him in a diaper overnight, but he wakes up dry 90% of the time. Congratulations to my big, little man!!

Our Little Pumpkin Patch

Anyone else remember when our pumpkin patch looked like this? Well now it looks like THIS!


It's hard to tell how big it is from the picture, but it's about 10 feet from the fence! Not bad for no work on our part. But here's the best part :)


The orange pumpkin is bigger than my head! It's at least as big as the "mother" pumpkin that we bought at the store last fall... I had no idea we'd have full size, ripe pumpkins in July! I thought that happend in the fall. Thankfully, I found this site which tells how to store your summer pumpkins for Halloween.


This little guy is about the size of a grapefruit.


Here's one more that I found. So far, we have one orange pumpkin and 3 green ones. I think we'll probably have LOTS to share with our friends this fall!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tractors!!

We were invited to the county fair to ride on some antique tractors, and we couldn't pass up an offer like that.




We were all very surprised that Hannah wasn't scared! The tractors were SO noisy.






Elijah was, of course, ecstatic.




Pete and Leah hopped up on a stationary tractor.




Even I drove one! Steering was interesting. Let's just say they DON'T have power steering.




I thought this one was quite impressive, but it belonged to someone else.


I took this picture specifically for the Schuppel family.

Thanks to the Hawkins family for the great time!

Coming Home

We drove home to Indiana on Monday, and I decided to snap some photos on the way.

Here's Leah playing with her toes. She was NOT happy much of this trip, but 12 hours in the car is a long time for anyone.


Hannah was an angel during the entire trip.


Elijah even managed to entertain himself for the majority of the trip! He's playing with a Transformer that he got from the Evil Empire (McD's).


Once we hit Illinois, this is what we saw out our window... corn, followed by corn, and then some more corn.


Not too much farther!


Our exit!! Hooray!!! We made the trip in 11 hours and 45 minutes, a record! While we thoroughly enjoyed our three weeks in Oklahoma, we are really happy to be home.