Children's Hands on Museum

Yesterday morning we made a last minute decision to ride along with John for his work day in Tuscaloosa. I've been wanting to take Big Sister to the Children's Hands on Museum that's just down the road from the office for a while, and yesterday seemed to be a good time to go. I went to CHOM several times as a kid, and over the years I've taken my younger siblings, little friends and my nephew, and I thought it was time for Big Sister to experience the fun! She had a great time, and I was pleased to see that while the museum has been updated a bit over the years, they still have the same exhibits I enjoyed as a kid. If you're ever in Tuscaloosa, check it out! It's a fun way to spend a day!

Nurse Big Sister filling up the baby bottles with juice

Driving the barge up the river to the "River House"

Teaching a "class" like her Aunt Jamie

working in the farmer's market

trying to catch flying ping pong balls

playing dress up in "Grandma's Attic"

Tea time!

Trying to gain access to the space ship

We landed safely on the moon!

Disney On Ice!

This morning John and I took Big Sister to Disney On Ice (Grammie watched Little Bud, so that she could enjoy a date with just Dad and Mom).  She had originally planned to dress as a princess, but changed her mind last minute, deciding to wear her Minnie Mouse dress and her new sparkly red shoes.  We ended up with great seats for the show.  TicketMaster makes choosing seats online almost impossible (you're basically stuck with whatever seats the computer wants you to have), so I called in to order our tickets.  We were able to get front row rink side seats for the same price as the mid level seats (which are still a little pricey, but having the better seats made the price a little easier to swallow!)

Big Sister seemed to enjoy the entire show, although the second half was definitely more exciting than the first.  There were a few characters she was unfamiliar with (we haven't let her watch all of the Disney movies yet, because some are a bit too scary, and she also seems to have a hard time realizing they're make believe - she cried for several hours after watching The Fox and The Hound!).  At intermission, we let her pick out a souvenir; her choice was Mickey Mouse binoculars (lucky for us it was the cheapest thing they had for sale!).  We were kind of surprised she didn't want a plush princess doll or even a Barbie type princess doll, but she had her heart set on the binoculars.  She actually used them to watch much of the second half of the show.  On the way home, she chose to eat at Chipotle for lunch; she loves a good black bean quesadilla!

Ready to GO!

rink side seats!

Mickey Binoculars

 

8 months old

Our Little Bud is a month older.  I can hardly believe that he's 2/3 of the way to his first birthday.  He continues to be a super sweet and happy baby.  He's army crawling all over the house, and loves to follow his big sister around.   His top two teeth have been trying to come in for over a month, but they're taking their own sweet time.  I'm hoping they'll both be fully broken through within the next week.  

Here are his 8 month stats:

Weight: 14 lbs., 4 oz

Head Circ.:  43 cm.

Length: 26 3/4 inches

Because he's still slightly underweight the doctor wanted to do some blood work just to make sure everything is okay (she fully expects everything to come back "normal", but felt like we should run a few tests to be on the safe side).  They had to pull 2 vials of blood, and I was so worried that he would have a difficult time with it, but he handled it like a champ.  Big Sister helped to distract him and play with him too.  My mom recently told me that I only weighed 14 pounds at my 15 month check up, so I guess he got the tiny baby genes from me. 

Here are some of his 8 month pictures.

This little rocking chair was John's when he was a baby.  

It's so special that his mom saved so many of his baby things.

This one just might be my favorite!

sibling love :)