Children's Museum

We took our first trip to the Minnesota Children's Museum this weekend. I had heard many great things about it and people had been asking me if we had taken Julia yet since she is walking. With a free weekend, we decided to give it a go. We were fortunate to have free parking since the hospital I work at is only about a block away and I could just park at the hospital (where I pay for employee parking of course).


Julia had a great time. She was hesitant at first, but then warmed up to the place. They had many floors and rooms filled with different themes and activities. Julia enjoyed the rooms set up like a forest, a town complete with road, buses, businesses and mailboxes. From there we headed to the water works exhibt...of course Julia's love of water showed through. She loved the "tot" area where you could play with different water spouts, tubes of water and bubbles. She has had a facination with bubbles lately, so she really enjoyed this area. We then left the water works and headed to the imagination center to draw a dinner placemat for the Meals on Wheels' program. We then checked out a few other rooms such as the Earth room and dinosaur room. She didn't seem thrilled with the dinosaur room, though she said the lighting was "pretty". We eventually ended up back in the water works area, where Julia enjoyed much more time with the water features and functions and also watched a few little boys race boats down a ramp. Next time, we will see if we can get in just to go to the Water Works area!

Afterwards, we had a yummy lunch at a local restaurant (awesome sweet potato fries!) and then a nap at home (Julia napped, not me). After a nap, we went to the library to get more books. As I have said before, Julia loves the library. I am thrilled that she loves to read so much and loves books. At the library, she likes to read one or two books, but mostly loves to run around the library and children's section and pull books off the shelves only to have mommy right behind her picking up her book trail!

Making a placemat with mommy

Building towers and knocking them down with daddy

Playing in the water and water tubes

Catching a boat at the bottom of a water ramp

Feeling the water spout

Bubbles!

Christmas Celebration #2

Since we did make it back to Wisconsin for Christmas (see previous post) we made a second attempt over New Years weekend. There was luckily no snow storms to stop us! Julia made quite the haul of new toys and clothes. We barely fit everything in our car for the trip back to Minnesota. She won't need new toys for about 5 years! Here are pictures of Christmas #2:

Julia reading her new book with Grandma Mock

Opening gifts with Grandma Stephany

Helping Cousin Ainsley open her gifts (Julia didn't want to sit on mommy's lap-she wanted to sit on Aunt Heather's)

Julia showing Cousin Ainsley how to work her new ball popper (Julia has one at home)

Julia really enjoyed her Christmas dinner #2-canned pasta with tomato sauce (she got a bath after this picture)

Julia and Cousin Ainsley playing in their PJs (Yes, Mike is playing with a dollhouse with Ainsley in the background!)

Christmas Celebration #1

Christmas certainly didn't go the way we thought it would this year. Mother Nature had different plans for us. Typically, we spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family and then head to Mike's family. Well, we attempted to drive to Wisconsin in the evening before Christmas Eve. As many of you know, there was a huge snow storm brewing and it was starting to get nasty outside around the time we were driving. We got about an hour from the cities and decided that it was stupid to be driving, so we turned around and headed home. We were having Christmas in Minnesota this year. Once home around 10pm, I headed to the grocery store to pick up a turkey to roast and other fixings so we could have a Christmas meal (I wasn't sure if we would be able to get out of our driveway the next morning). Well, on Christmas Eve the snow ceased for a while, so we headed to Kohl's to pick up a few gifts for Julia to open on Christmas morning from Santa (not that she would know the difference if we didn't have anything..but it mattered to me). We hadn't bought her anything knowing she would get lots of gifts from family. Below are some pictures of our Christmas #1 weekend...

Julia assisting with making Christmas dinner

Julia was tired after all her cooking...yes, she actually fell asleep in her high chair while eating (there is a biscuit in her hand)

Posing in her Christmas Eve attire...we were heading to church

Opening her gifts from Santa on Christmas morning

A bunch of new toys and THIS is what Julia wanted to play with (she discovered it in the bathroom cupboard)

A beautiful red, cardinal amidst the wintery white branches in our yard