It's Beginning to Look...

Like Christmas!!! The boys have been begging to decorate practically since Halloween, but I have a firm "No Christmas until after Thanksgiving" rule in our house. Since we have checked that off the list, it was time to get Christmassy at the Hoyt house!

Can you tell who else is excited?!? Honestly, I think he wants to decorate because he equates Christmas decorations with presents. I'll take the excitement even if it is misguided. :)

Oh and since we were definitely going to be having a "hang out at home" day, I decided to make Bonuts for breakfast. (Those are fried biscuit-doughnuts for those not in the know.) The boys loved just saying "Bonuts", so they were doubly excited about them. And no surprise, it's an Alton Brown recipe. That man never stops coming up with yummy ideas!

Hot and freshly glazed Bonuts coming right up! They were a little richer than normal donuts, so I (mostly) restrained myself from eating the whole batch.

And because it was just going to be an awesome day all around, we had some long legged visitors show up in the yard! I think Henry was the most excited of all of us - he walked around pretending to be a moose most of the morning. :) 

I don't blame him though - it's not often you get three moose hanging out in the yard! Don't they look so cozy? Maybe the lingering smell of fried turkey was what drew them in?

Also, in a stroke of great timing, a Christmas themed care package arrived from Matt's parents. The boys were all kinds of excited about their new ornaments and reindeer glasses! 

Thomas and I worked on the big tree together, once Matt had it all fluffed up and ready for decorating. He looks like such an old man trying to read the writing on this ornament over his glasses. I was teasing him about needing bifocals, but clearly the joke goes over a four year olds head.

At least I make myself laugh! :)

Henry missed out on the big tree decorating because he was napping, but he did most of his tree by himself. (They each have their own little tree in their room- Thomas has the tree we bought for our tiny garage apartment in the Heights and Henry's came from a super clearance sale after Christmas.) Thomas didn't want any help with his, but Henry requested me to hang a few items for him. I don't mind - it just means he isn't too grown up yet. Whew!

It's amazing how much more like Christmas it feels now that everything is decorated! After the blur that has been the last two months, maybe December will pass at a normal rate??

Happy Thanksgiving!

I really thought that November would be not as hectic as October, but clearly I was wrong... We have gone to Talkeetna for the last four years, but it wasn't really feasible to go this year. (Tears...)

Instead, we decided to celebrate at home and fry a turkey! We thought we had planned out appropriately - Dad gave me his turkey fryer set-up years ago for brewing beer and we bought a giant box of oil at Sam's.  But even with that, Matt ended up having to do a last minute run to the store because it wasn't enough oil. Who knew you needed so much oil to fry a giant bird?? ;)

Matt was definitely on turkey frying duty! I went out to make sure the lowering of the turkey into the hot oil went well, but it was really cold outside and I "had stuff inside to do"... ha! (But really, I did!)

The nice thing about the turkey frying is that it only took about 45 minutes to cook the whole thing, so at least he didn't have to stand out in the cold for hours on end. (And on a related note, we picked up an indoor turkey fryer after Thanksgiving when we found it on clearance for a major bargain!)

Look at that bronzed beauty! Probably not the healthiest way to cook a turkey, but for a rare treat, it is certainly yummy!

Clearly, there was some help with the making of Thanksgiving dinner since there is more food here than just a fried turkey! Heather and one of her friends came over to make most of the goodies we enjoyed. I , unfortunately, spent most of the night working and only managed to take a few photos. You can probably tell these two guys are a little impatient on waiting for the turkey to cool down so they can eat! :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope yours were also full of yummy food!

October on the iPhone

Since the month flew by with my Nikon being almost completely forgotten in the cabinet, I thought I'd do a post of fun iPhone photos from October. We did manage to have a little bit of fun even though I was obviously a little distracted!

One of Thomas' friends had a birthday party at the trampoline park and the boys were super excited to go. They love the trampoline park - which also has foam block pits in the kid's area. But more importantly, I love Henry's cheeks in this photo soooo much! I'm sure he will grow into those cheeks some day and I will be sad. :(

Thomas is getting so much braver - he was all about climbing up on the ropes and swinging. You can see the younger one had a little bit of trouble with it on the right side. ;) 

So bath time with me is pretty boring compared to when daddy is on a roll. I pretty much wash them and let them play with the toys in the tub. Matt decided to empty almost the entire can of bath foam to make a giant blue foam tower. The kids were super excited about what this magical tower was going to bring...!

As you could probably have guessed, he smashed the tower and bath foam went everywhere! And predictably, the boys loved it. It's hard being the less fun parent. :(

My little guys want to be helpers any time that they figure out I am making a cake. This particular time, I had to unwrap a lot of candy bars, so I definitely appreciated the help. And they obviously took their unwrapping work very seriously!

Not to brag, but this was one of the most amazing cakes I have made in awhile! One of our good friends at work is retiring and I figured he needed a super special cake to send him off. It was a chocolate-peanut butter flavor explosion! (For the record, it also needed a glass of milk to counteract the richness...)

I don't often get to wake the boys up in the morning because I am always at work super early during the week and they definitely wake *us* on the weekend. But sometimes I get to wake them up and they really do not handle mornings well when they are woken up...

Ha - mornings are hard!

I feel a little bad about posting this photo... I took the boys to get their flu shots and their reactions were so dramatically different. Henry didn't even react when he got his shot - I literally don't even think he noticed it. Thomas, on the other hand, was still upset about it while we were checking out. Even the sticker couldn't make up for the "agony"...

So I did what any sucker would do and took them both to get ice cream. Real ice cream - I like frozen yogurt and all, but Baskin Robbins was closer. And it made me realize that ice cream is so much better than frozen yogurt. Especially the Halloween themed one I got with chunks of oreos and candy bars in it. Sooo yummy!

I found this post with the most appropriate bumper sticker ever on it. I tried to get Matt to go, but he figured it would just be the "mommies" and decided he had some critical stuff in the garage to work on (or something). So I made Thomas pose next to the "Matt would go" sticker, but the sad look was all on Thomas. Ha!

Happy Halloween!

Somehow, the rest of September and October flew by and suddenly it was almost Halloween! Luckily, the boys were pretty vocal about what they wanted to be this year, so at least I was prepared on the costume front! They have been a little obsessed with the Lego City episodes on Netflix where the "bad guys" breaking out of jail and the police recapturing them. So guess what costumes we ended up with?

Anchorage actually did a downtown trick-or-treat the weekend before Halloween and some moms who are much more organized than me invited us to join. (Thomas' best friend from daycare is hiding under than Storm Trooper mask.) You can tell everyone is pretty bundled up for the cold, but a princess has to look good for her debut photo! :)

Thomas was super excited when we saw a real police officer on the trick-or-treat route. He graciously posed for a photo with the kids. And our sweet princess was nice enough to restrain Henry so I could get the photo - she's obviously been around Henry before...!

They got a pretty decent haul of candy downtown, but we were pretty excited for trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It wasn't nearly as cold as last year, so I thought we might be able to visit a few more houses!

All layered up and ready to hit the streets for real Halloween! I also added several glow sticks to make them more visible. I like our neighborhood, but it is lacking in streetlights! And sidewalks in our particular cul-de-sac, so I figured it was better to maximize visibility. 

The little guys did great at walking up to houses and saying "Trick-or-Treat!", but tended to get a little confused / distracted by the bigger kids and their costumes...

This year Henry was even able to do most of the stairs by himself. It was icy enough last year that I carried him up all of the stairs, but there was no way my back could handle doing it again this year. The two of them made me so proud - not only did they do great at walking all over the neighborhood, they always told people "Thank you!" when they got candy. And most people thought they were super adorable (because they were!).

Which is probably how they ended up with soooo much candy! Their pumpkins were filled to the brim when we finally called it a night. As much candy as we got, I think the two of them were most excited about the house that gave them toothbrushes (that house didn't mess around - they also gave them a full sized candy bar!) Happy Halloween indeed! :)

Beach Bounce

Gina had to work most of the days we were there, so she suggested that if we needed to entertain the boys during the day, there was a new kid's play place that had recently opened up in Seaford - Beach Bounce! We looked it up online and it looked promising from the photos they had posted on line. It was a cross between an indoor play ground and a Chuck E. Cheese. Perfect for two little guys!

As soon as we got there, Thomas bee-lined for the Bob the Builder truck ride. You can see how excited he is about our fun outing!

Henry settled for riding along with Stuart the Mouse. The two of them rotated through all of the cars until I made them go play on the bounce houses. The bounce houses were free, the cars were not. I figured I should wear them out well before running out of all the tokens we bought! ;)

Thomas was showing Aunt Dot the ropes for climbing up the bounce houses, but she didn't seem convinced on joining him. Ha!

Unlike her younger sister who keeps climbing to the top of everything she can. I think my mom has lost about 10 years since she had grandkids. She will go anywhere with them. She actually guilted me into going down the slide since she did it first. It was a pretty tight corkscrew and was not adult friendly. Bump, bump, bump! 

There was also a pretend kids gym for the kids to get some exercise in! Henry was not too impressed with the kid-powered treadmill...

Thomas was having a blast pumping some "iron" though! Look at that guy go!

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, which meant the adults got to have about as much fun as the adults! Cam and Mom were having a blast on the big slides. I got a few slides in myself - it was actually a pretty fun ride down!

Henry never managed to make it down without falling on his back, but he loved it anyhow!

We finally went back to play some games. Nonni's favorite game in the world is ski-ball, so she was trying to show Thomas the ropes. He was having a little trouble with rolling the ball and ended up launching it up in the air pretty badly. Cam was playing catch at the end to make sure it actually made it into the end of the game - thanks Cam!

Henry and I discovered this ducky punching game. It was actually pretty fun to knock the little rubber duckies over. And Henry was surprisingly good at it!

We ended up getting enough tickets to buy them the super cool finger lights (they're recently obsessed with these things) and a few leftover tickets. So I decided to introduce them to the sugar loaded Pixy Stix. Thomas had no clue what they were, but he was insistent that he figure out himself how to eat them.

Henry needed some help with his, but was willing to let mom pour some in his mouth... 

I think he liked it!! A morning of excitement followed by a sugar shock, what could possibly go wrong??  Ha - they made it back to the house, but completely crashed for a long nap shortly afterward. Mission accomplished!

And I know I didn't take very many photos while we were visiting you, dear Delaware family, but we had a blast! The boys are already asking when we can come back. So, see you all soon! :)

Reheboth Beach

After our whirlwind trip around Texas, the boys and I headed to Delaware with Nonni. My mom is from Delaware and we hadn't seen her side of the family in several years. They hadn't even met Henry yet, so we figured it was past time to go spend some quality time with them!

We spent most of the time hanging out with the family in Laurel, but we decided to take a day trip down to Rehoboth Beach. We figured the boys would like the boardwalk and it was their first chance to see the Atlantic Ocean! I rented a minivan for this trip so we could take Aunt Dot (Nonni's sister) along with us and not make anyone under 5 to climb in the backseat. :)

Also minivans are magical and all of us were obsessed with the doors that automatically opened and closed themselves. The boys liked that feature almost as much as the DVD player!

It was a super sunny & hot day and somehow all of the beach umbrellas were already taken. I decided that maybe a full beach day would mean all of the Alaskans would be lobsters, but letting the boys get their feet wet still seemed like a fun! Aunt Pam and Cousin Cam decided to join us while Aunt Gina and Aunt Dot opted to stay in the shade and wait for us.

And this side of the family has random names assignments because Mom is so much younger than her sister. All of my actual "Aunts" are grandparents to the family members my age. So Pam is actually my cousin, Gina is her daughter and Cam's mom. It seemed easier to refer to both of them as "Aunt"s with the boys. It's a mess. But I love them all no matter what the nomenclature! :)

Back to beach time! The boys weren't too sure about the waves - you may recall they weren't big fans of the waves in Homer this summer. And there were no rocks here to chuck in the water to convince them to get any closer - ha!

Nonni finally convinced them to get close enough to get their toes wet. Which was a little too close when a bigger wave swamped us all. You can see Cam and Henry both got their shorts pretty wet while Thomas was smart enough to run for higher ground! :)

But the boys really got excited when Nonni showed them how to wiggle down into the sand when the waves came. Thomas wiggled his little heart out and suddenly exclaimed "Where's my feet?!?" He was pretty excited to show off his missing feet! He was even better at burying his feet than I was - such a talented little man!

Henry finally got over the short soaking and decided to trust Nonni again to keep him safe. Plus he needed a little help balancing to try to wiggle his feet in the sand. :)

They had a blast hanging out at the beach and could only be convinced to leave with the promise of getting frozen custard back on the boardwalk. But before I could be convinced to go, I had to write a message in the sand for them! Matt went back to Alaska a week before we were heading back, so I wanted to send him a photo of the boys from the beach. They miss you, Dada (but are still having a blast!).

Fort Worth Museum

We stayed an extra night in San Antonio because leaving Sunday afternoon was too hard. Since Theresa had to actually get up and go to work this morning, it was much easier to leave! And since we left after breakfast, the kids got a good power nap in the car before arriving back up in North Texas. Since it is still super hot, we opted for a day at the museum to stay inside.

We brought the boys here last year and they loved it! Thomas always asks about this museum, so he was super excited to come back. He even posed with the dinosaur this year and roared for me! :)

They didn't have this super awesome caterpillar last year and I thought it looked really neat. No time to enjoy it though - you can just barely see Thomas near the museum steps. He was not waiting for his momma to appreciate anything but going inside!

Since it was just September 11th, I found the museum tribute to the World Trade Centers to be even more meaningful. This piece is 36' long, so I couldn't get it all in one photo. It was from Tower One and they have a little video that plays about it. It's all in first person, so it says things like "I was on the 101-103 floor. I was hit at 8:46."

It was a reminder of a very sad day. But I liked the tribute to it. And I like that they left the marked on "SAVE" on the piece.  

Off to the kids area and happier times! Henry was off to the ambulance to start rescuing people. Or, you know, playing with the lights and sirens...

He was very focused on it though!

Thomas found the construction gear and then proceeded to walk around to different exhibits and holding up his stop sign to keep me from following him. Ha!

But even construction guys need groceries. I tried to convince him he could shop easier if he wasn't holding a stop sign, but that was not going to happen. I think he only gave up the hard hat because it kept falling off. :)

Back at their favorite grocery store! The play area that all other museums are judged by. I honestly contemplating starting a campaign to get one installed at our local museum. They love it sooooo much! But there's really not room in the kid's area at our museum. Though I've noticed the museum is expanding. Is it too much to hope for a pretend grocery store?!?

Grandpa met us at the museum to get in a little more play time with his two favorite little guys. Thomas was showing him how to get the big wheels to turn by spraying the flaps on the side. (I'm pretty sure dad knew, but he went along with the instructions!) 

We couldn't really figure out what we were supposed to do with this water table... Some of the blue "walls" had holes in them, but the water never got high enough to go through the holes. It was beyond us, but we did managed to build up a little water and send the balls rushing down the table a few times.

This one we figure out just fine! Though it was a little hard for the boys to pull / push the water pipes on their own, so we helped them shoot the balls up in the air!

Thomas had a blast with this one. There were holes that shot water up and you could put pipes in the holes to make the water go everywhere. Thomas wasn't paying enough attention and partialy doused himself at least once. He still thought the table was awesome though! You can't see the whole tall & twisty pipe I built, but you can see the water on the far right coming back down from it. It was pretty rickety engineering, but it worked!

Dad and Thomas built this big ramp for rolling the balls down. His engineering was much sturdier than mine was! And it was quite the hit of the playground, all of the kids were stealing balls from the water table to roll down the "roller coaster"!

As we were leaving, we found the slightly older kids area and this giant Light Brite. I thought Aunt Theresa would like to see what the boys designed! 

Totally kidding - this partially completed Bevo was already there, they were just moving other random pieces around. :)

And last but not least, riding the giant Bumpersaurus in the gift shop. Not surprisingly, they had a blast at the museum and are already asking when we are going back! :)

San Antonio & James' Birthday Party!

After a few fun-filled days in Houston, we finally made it over to San Antonio. I think Theresa was a little horrified that we would be in Texas for almost a full week before we made it there. But I did plan more time with them to try and make up for it! (Also, this is a super long post because it was a fun-filled time!)

Anna convinced Nonni to play cards with her as soon as we got there. I'm not sure who was more excited about it - Nonni is a bit of a card shark. And you can just barely see Meredith in the background - she adopted a new hobby of wearing socks on her hands. I kept thinking I was misplacing my socks the whole time I was there, turns out she's a bit of a sock thief!

We went to Anna's cheerleading practice Saturday morning and neither one of us got any photos because the other 4 kids were running all over the place. Luckily there were a ton of empty fields for them to stretch their legs in, but it was all hands on deck for containment. James' birthday was right after the practice, but we ended up arriving a little late. Rachael planned the party at the children's museum in New Braunfels and the kids were so excited when we got there! But since we were late, the boys only got to play for a few minutes before it was time to eat. They could not be convinced to take their astronaut costumes off to come in to the party room (hey - at least they came)!

James had a lot of help blowing out his candles... Thankfully, he didn't seem to mind! And once my two realized there was cake involved, they let me take the costumes off long enough to eat some cake. 

Literally long enough and no more. While everyone else hung out, my two were back at it. There were space ships to land!

And of course, there were ambulances to get to the hospital! I was actually born (prematurely) in New Braunfels and took an ambulance shortly after over to McKenna Hospital, so I thought this ambulance was pretty darn fitting!

Thomas insisted that I sit in the back on the stretch so he could take care of me. He carefully gave me several shots (also fitting giving the whole rabies debacle that was coming...). Henry more just ran up, hit me with the reflex hammer and ran off. Gentle, he is not!

Except with the baby dolls! This kid loves playing with the baby dolls. He carefully feeds them and carries them around. I guess he's still trying to prove he would take care of the baby sister he keeps demanding from me. (Side note to clarify - there is no baby sister on the way, but one of his friends at school has a baby sister and he points it out *all* the time!)

He finally put the baby back down to sleep and wandered over to try out a high powered banking job. (It did not last long!)

Thomas was over in the grocery store trying to figure out why his register was out of tape. Ha - I have no idea if he knows what goes in there, but he clearly knew something was missing!

Nonni was on re-stocking duty. Thomas looks like he is comparison shopping on some canned goods. Probably mimicking how his mom is always checking the sodium levels on the canned beans. We use the heck out of canned beans in our house, but I try to not buy the total sodium bombs... "/

It forever to convince one of my boys to go outside and Henry was the first to grudgingly go out there (I may have carried him out). I'm not a mean mom, there was super fun stuff out there. And Henry realized that pretty quickly! 

The water gun required a separate knob be held down, so I'm doing so fun gymnastics to help him shoot the targets while getting a photo of him. But he actually managed to get it in the hole to spin the disc while I was getting photos. Go Henry!

Then he started climbing up this big tower of wire mesh and giant plastic discs. I tried to go with him, but the route he chose was pretty impossible for an adult (apparently my mom found a different route later and went up to the top with him!). Thankfully Anna was more than happy to help boost him if he needed it. 

Henry's bravery inspired the birthday boy to give it a go as well! James wasn't too sure about it until he saw someone else his size try it. It is a pretty big & intimidating tower!

Thomas was still inside playing with a new blower. This one had a separate craft area where you could cut up a paper cone to see how well you could get it to soar upwards and not to brag, but I made the best one there. Thomas was wowing all the other kids with how awesome his cone was. I made another one to show him the difference in how you cut it can be dramatic. It flew pretty awfully and he told me I should just throw it away. Such a sweetie...!

Finally I convinced Thomas to go outside and he was up the tower with his brother in no time. And just like Anna, was giving Henry a boost when he needed it. It's awesome when the kids work together so nicely! :)

The kids were finally all worn out, so we left the museum birthday party and headed to Rachael's house for birthday party, round 2! All of their extended family came into town, so they hosted a dinner and play time at their house. We have been super excited about visiting them (again!) ever since Justin had sent us a video of him and James tractor racing. Of course, Anna knew where the tractor was, so she got the first ride!

Thomas was happy enough to settle for pushing the toy lawnmower until he got a chance to ride. We obviously don't have a big enough lot for a riding lawnmower, so he knew the push mower was just like dada's! 

After patiently waiting, Thomas got his chance on the riding mower. And he took it very seriously! He was a little jerky on the power at first, but he was soon tearing around the yard. (There may or may not have been a near collision with his momma when I was trying to get a video to send to Matt). You can see Henry in the background is headed to check out the recently abandoned push mower. 

Except the toy push mower wasn't good enough for Henry. He instead tried to use the real tractor... You can see how excited he is thinking he is going to go for a ride. Sorry little man - you would be too dangerous with that much horsepower!

Finally it was piñata time! And since it was a Cars themed birthday, it was a Lightning McQueen piñata! The birthday boy obviously got the first go at the piñata. He got a few good whacks in - he must have done this before!

Thomas definitely knew what to do with the piñata - they have had them several times at school parties. The first time I saw him with one, he was super upset because all of the big kids knew things would fly out and Thomas didn't, so they beat him to the goodies. But this older kid in his class gave him stuff when he realized Thomas didn't get anything. So sweet!

Know he has figured out how to hit the piñata hard and run for toys. Smart guy!

Henry clearly had no clue what he was doing. He was swinging the bat one handed and the piñata came back and hit him. Henry was not impressed...

Wallace had absconded with one of the push mowers and was happily "mowing" the front yard until he finally noticed it was piñata time! James nicely handed over the bat after his second turn, so Wallace would get a chance to help out in the piñata beating. :)

Anna was the first one to knock it down! We actually went through a few more rounds after this - it was one stout piñata! But once Anna knocked a decent sized hole in it, James got a chance to finish it off. The benefit to being the birthday boy!

And once there was enough candy on the ground, the parents decided it was probably safer to take the bat away. There were a few near misses with kids lunging for candy while other kids were still whacking the piñata. So Justin ended up dumping out the rest of the candy for a candy free-for-all.

But where is my candy hound? 

There he is! He had taken off to go claim the tractor once he decided piñatas were not for him. But once he realized there was candy on the ground, he came running back at full speed!

Which is the exact opposite of his brother! Thomas picked up a partial cup of candy, threw it to me and then took off for the recently vacated tractor. He was in such a hurry that he ran over & smashed a can of coke (on foot!) and didn't even seem to notice. I'm pretty sure if Theresa had been sitting one more foot to the left, he would have bowled over her as well. He only had eyes for the tractor!

These two clearly need a toy tractor. We did discover shortly after this photo that the weight limit on that trailer might be less than they weigh, but no one was injured in the derailment... Whew!

Thanks for having such an awesome birthday party, James! :)

The Woodland's Children's Museum

I had lunch and dinner plans with friends today that were both on the north side of town. I didn't figure trekking across town twice in one day was all that fun, so I decided to find a fun place to hang out and kill some time with the little guys after lunch. I vaguely remembered there being a Houston science museum extension in the Woodlands mall, so I googled it and set off to find it. Well somehow I wasn't paying attention and ended up at a completely different children's museum.

An awesome children's museum!!

And since it was a weekday, it wasn't crowded at all. The boys were so excited to have the awesome fire truck all to themselves!

Thomas was most excited about the lights that would turn and flash on the top of the truck. It didn't make the fire truck noises, but the two of them were more than happy to provide the soundtrack for their fire-fighting adventures.

There was even a fire pole to slide down! Thomas was obviously not too sure about it, but after I talked him into trying it, he was all about it! Henry was not at all interested in trying to grab the pole across the gap - in his defense, he doesn't have quite the reach of his older brother..

The museum even had their absolute favorite play area - a grocery store! This register didn't have a moving conveyor belt, but it did make the scanning "beep" if you passed something in front of the sensor. That was clearly Henry's favorite part!

Of course, Thomas was all about the train table! Henry was mostly just causing derailments and driving his brother crazy trying to push Thomas' trains off the tracks.

Henry got bored that Thomas wasn't playing train demolition derby with him and wandered off. There was a ball on the floor by the train track and Henry grabbed it, walked around the wall of marble pipes and immediately put it on the Bernoulli blower. I was impressed, we hadn't looked at this table at all and he knew just what to do. Either he's a genius or we go to * a lot* of museums...!

After we had been there a while, Henry started to get pretty tired - no real surprise as hard as they were playing! He was doing the run away and hide toddler business, so I took him over to the most open area to try and keep an eye on him. Sine he just wanted to sit, I made him this awesome train out of the big foamy blocks. He seemed pretty happy with it - but Thomas, my train lover, was not impressed. He started knocking it down as soon as I finished it.

So rude!

So we ended up making this spaghetti wall monster of his own creation. Henry rotated between helping us and sitting in the truck in the background. For some reason, he liked sitting in the driver's seat chilling. At this point, I figured they could do whatever made them happy! In the end they ran out of energy in time to go meet Nonni & Grandpa on their drive past us to Galveston. Wore them out, then gave them ice cream - they were snoozing in no time. Winning! :)

The (So Crowded) Perot!

Just like last year, I had the genius plan of getting breakfast with the Hoyts (at Cafe Brazil!!), then wearing the kids out at the Perot Museum before heading off on a long drive. Except I didn't take into account that today is Labor Day and all of the school aged kids had the day off. And apparently everyone was trying to wear their kids out at the Perot!

It started off just fine, we got there and stopped to play in the musical forest. And just like last year, Pawpaw was just as interested in the instruments as the kids. 

And Henry beelined for the frogs as soon as he saw them - though he was markedly braver about climbing on them this year. Thanks for the added stress, Henry!

This year, my parents didn't end up joining us because Mom wasn't driving with me (yet!), but Aunt Jo ended up joining us instead since she had the day off work. The boys don't get to see her nearly as much as everyone else, so I was super excited she could hang out with us! They were obviously pretty excited too!

And I have to say that I love Pawpaw joined in the frog climbing photo. :)

Henry seems a little unsure of how to play with his boat when they are soooo many people crowded around the water table. 

Thomas was having similar problems in the farmer's market area. Once he claimed a basket though, he was back in action shopping for his fruits & veggies!

And dutifully dumping them into the restock bin before headed back to complete another shopping list. He honestly didn't seem to mind the crowds as much as his momma did. 

I finally managed to convince them to go outside and play in the sandbox / dinosaur dig. It wasn't nearly as crowded since it was quite warm outside. 

But most of it was shaded, so the boys didn't seem to mind at all. They even let me take "posed" photos of them! And this totally American Gothic pose was all his doing. I just told him to smile (and got the usual half hearted "cheeeeeeeeeese" back).

I thought that maybe the upper floors wouldn't be as crowded since it's not quite as geared toward kids. But there were dinosaurs up there and I was sure my boys would love that! Unsurprisingly, they were more drawn to the touch screens than the giant skeletons... 

And the animal that finally piqued Henry's interest wasn't even a dinosaur - it was the moose! I'm still not 100% sure why the moose was in the dinosaur exhibit, it was some sort of comparison on having to fighting for mating rights. But the boys were pretty happy to see an Alaskan "friend"!

Of course, it is still an awesome museum away from the kid's area, so they had plenty of interactive things for the boys to play with. Thomas was especially excited about this giant magnetic Triceratops puzzle. 

Henry was less excited because he couldn't figure out how the pieces went on his own and my offer to help him was definitely rebuffed ("I do it!!!"), so the two of us ended up wandering around to look at the rest of the exhibit. Henry was looking this dinosaur footprint and as I was trying to get a photo of him admiring it, he tried to climb on it...

Then he tried to pull the rock hammer off the wall. Although, I was a little more proud of that because - rock hammer! Future geologist! :)

We finally left the dinosaurs and made it down to the climate / earth floor. The boys were super excited by this tornado generator. There was also an earthquake generator, but that had no interest in trying that out. I guess they get enough shaking action at home. Speaking of which - I know Texas and Alaska have a bit of a rivalry going on but they didn't even mention the largest earthquake in North America on the sign about earthquakes. They listed a lower magnitude one in China instead for their description of "big" quakes. Soooo rude!

After a long nap and even longer drive, we finally made it to Houston! The boys were ready to burn off some newly formed energy, so Jack and Mia took them out to play on the trampoline. Henry was so funny, he kept yelling at everyone that he was bouncing because he kept falling over. So we ended up taking turns so that Henry had his bounce time and everyone else had theirs. Silly Henry!

Of course, Jack and Mia wanted to show off for their favorite little Alaskans, so my two sat on the side to watch their Jujitsu demonstration. Jack was showing off his mad rolling skills!

And then they started doing bounce competitions. I didn't have my shutter speed up high enough for how fast they were moving, but I still love this one because Jack was so high up in the air and even he seemed a little surprised by how high up he was!

Good air, Jack! :)