Toddlers

For Christmas this year, the Yeager's got us a gift card to the Children's Museum of Houston. It took us a few weekends to find the time to get there together, but we did it finally.

We drove up to their house immediately after naptime on Sunday and then we all piled into their car for the remainder of the drive. The entire museum is very colorful and child-oriented. The first floor is aimed more at older children. It was a MAD HOUSE. Children running and screaming in every direction. We walked straight through the first floor to the elevators where we made our way up to the TotSpot on the second floor.

It was like heaven after the madness of the first floor. I can't believe our boys will be running around with all those kids some day...

Anyhoo, there is an area where you take off your shoes and park the strollers, then you walk through a manned gate to the play area. Everything is on a toddlers level with rounded or padded edges and corners. It was AWESOME.

Going for a drive together - two steering wheels, two horns, two pedals. Enough car to go around!

The boys spent the first 20 minutes at this slide. It has two sets of stairs - one normal and one padded. They went up the stairs, down the slide, up the stairs, down the slide. Over and over and over... well, you get the idea. There was a window in the ground before the slide where you could see through to a tunnel below. The dads had a good time banging from the bottoms at the boys when they were on top.

The second most popular section had a series of windows with a variety of moving parts. On the inside, were dioramas. One window had a shade, another had doors. One had a toilet handle, another a door bell. Both Aiden and Luke kept heading back to this section.


Oh and the "big boys" had a good time too...

We spent two hours playing in the TotSpot. I was wishing we'd gone on Saturday because after all that running around, I'm sure Aiden would have slept in this morning if he had the opportunity. It was so funny to see all the toddlers interacting with each other. They all have their own personalities. That really comes out in free play.

Before we left for the museum, Luke tried to hug Aiden. Aiden would have nothing to do with it. He's like that with Travis and I, but I didn't know he was like that with other kids too. I don't know why, but that kid cannot stand affection. If I try to rub his back while we're reading a book, he leans away from my hand and whines "No!" Ugh, little stinker. Luke is so affectionate, it makes me a little jealous! Well, while we were at the museum, the same little boy hugged Aiden TWICE. Both times, Aiden started screaming "No!" while struggling to get away. He always failed and they ended up on the floor with Aiden crying. What is wrong with this kid?

After the museum, we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Considering how busy our day was, I was surprised Aiden did as well as he did at the restaurant. Afterward, while we were waiting for Travis to move the car seat back to our car, Linsey showed me how the nursery wall was coming along.

Zach and Linsey are expecting a baby girl in April, so she has a chance to get girly this time around. They have a fairy theme for the new nursery. The walls are a soft lavendar and they are painting whimsical, white trees on the wall. There are two trees that will bend over the crib once it's in place. Zach's mom is an artist, so she is going to paint fairies playing in the trees. Then Linsey is going to glue little skirts to the fairies so it looks like they are popping out from the wall. So cute!