Keeping cool...

Aunt Amy and Addy came up for a visit at the beginning of August and one of the things we wanted to do was take them to the Austin Children's Museum before the downtown location closes. The Children's Museum is a fascinating place. The boys love it there and we (the parents) would rather take a beating than spend an hour and a half there. It is a chaotic place where anyone over four feet tall is desperately clinging to their sanity, taking one for the team, or hiding in the corner and pretending like the "husky" kid sitting in the middle of the train track doesn't belong to them. It would be an awesome place if there were about 60% less bodies running around and you could actually discuss things and play with your kids..... Okay, I'm finished. Maybe the new, larger location will make everything better.

There are a handful of must-do activities for our boys. The first is always the model train station. Aaron loves to stand on the platform and pretend that he is controlling all of the train's behaviors. Adam just likes to push buttons and watch out the bird's nest windows.

Then the golf ball room... 

Aaron taking things seriously. I think Alan was hiding....he was a trooper.

Hey, I've got an idea, put a bunch of over-stimulated, boundary-less children in a closed room and give them small, dense balls to do with whatever they like. If used as it was designed, it's a pretty cool exhibit. But I've got to admit, it makes me nervous. Adam however, had no qualms about climbing in to active zones to retrieve more balls and take a few hits if that is what it took. 

The trick is to hang out long enough to let the groups come and go. The boys would have stayed in there all day if we'd let them. We should just convert the screened-in porch into a golf ball room.

Then we went upstairs to the hands-on room where they built foam cars and played with the gears.

The slide was not opened the last time we visited, so Aaron was quite excited about it. Unfortunately they allowed riders based on age and not size, so Adam was out, but Aaron and Addy enjoyed a tacky, slow ride.... or two, or five.

--Subject change-- 

Adam's interest in puzzles has picked up again and it seems to be a good way for him to focus some of his energy so we pulled out every suitable puzzle and he went to town. I can't really help but watch him and take his picture, he is so serious and cute. 

He humored me with a few funny faces then went right back to work...

He's starting to get irritated.

Standard Adam smile.

He was coming to teach me a lesson.

By attacking the camera.

Back to work.

One night after dinner instead of playing in the 104 degree humid heat, we played with play-dough inside.

We acquired some more puzzles so he would have more to choose from...

When Baby Adam is happy, everyone is happy.

"Hey mama, can we sit up there and watch you make supper?" 

Random picture of Adam and I making a pie for our company.

And that's it folks, I have caught up. Not for long though, as we depart soon for our trip to the mountains, where I will undoubtedly take an excessive number of  photos and videos and have stories enough to fill five posts, at least....I'm excited. Stay tuned.