The Museum of Science

While my Mom and Jaxon were here we got to do all sorts of fun stuff since we had so many kidlets to entertain. (With the addition of Jaxon and Jet we almost doubled our kid ratio). Since oogling and googling over the new baby couldn't entertain the children 24/7 we had to find some other activities to fill in. We went and took the kids to the Museum of Science one afternoon (which ended up being a huge hit with the big kids!)

They got to check out what it would be like to go to space and lay down in an astronaut bed. We went into the electricity show and the boys thought the things to touch were really cool, but as soon as the host warned us that there would be loud/intense noises, I got worried because Carder has been pretty sensitive to loud noises lately (remember 4th of July where he had a meltdown due to the loud booms of the fireworks). Anyway I made sure we were in line with an exit just in case we needed to make a quick escape. Sure enough within the first two minutes there was a lightning demonstration and we were booking it out of there. Oh well...there was too much other cool stuff to check out to sit through a whole show anyway.

Carder got his science on by creating nano materials, building a skeleton and blasting a tumor (the latter of which was his favorite...he talked about it for days maybe even weeks after). 

The dinosaur exhibit was also a huge hit. His two loves in literature lately have been dinosaurs (or perhistoric creatures) and aquatic animals. So to see some of that up close and personal was a big thrill.

Another exhibit that the museum was featuring was one on shipwrecks. There was real life treasure that had been salvaged from several different shipwrecks and lots of old artifacts etc. Though the boys found the treasure to be quite fascinating, the star of the show definitely had to have been the hurricane simulator.

As you can see it was quite entertaining to see the changes in the kids faces as the winds reached their peaks. When Ellie was in there I think I was literally laughing out loud while her little chubby cheeks jiggled in the wind. And even though they look worried in some of the pictures, they still all came out loving it and wanting to go again.

Our last exhibit of the day was the Mammoth exhibit. Carder had watched Ice Age recently, so he thought this was super cool. Ellie was in heaven too because she is basically obsessed with elephants (I think its because in stories the elephants are always named Ellie). Anyway it was a great way to end a super fun day. There was so much to do at the Museum, a lot of it we weren't even able to get to before the Museum closed. Next time we will just have to get there earlier.

Another night we took the kids to one of their favorite places Chuck E Cheese. I don't know what it is about that over processed pizza and paying all those tokens to win tickets that only buy you something you could have gotten at the dollar store, but it sure is a hit with our kids. It was pretty sparce there (there's not a ton of kids here in Massachusetts...I actually had the cashier at the grocery store ask me one time in a little bit of disbelief "Are they both yours"? Ya, these Bostonians would DIE in Utah.) So since there wasn't a lot of people around I let Brenn get down and meander. She thought she was so big/cool getting to chum around with the big kids.

Carder blew me away with his basketball skills. Ever since he was a baby (like littler than Brenn), the only games he was interested in playing at places like these are the basketball/football ones. He surprised me by making almost all of his baskets...BYU, we may have found your next Jimmer.

Carder's favorite activity there was this thing where it took your picture and printed you out a card. As you can see by the picture above he revisited it many times. (he now stores those in his little library card holder along with his library card). Carder yielded his best picture in a while at the Chuck E Cheese sketch machine/game. (Why does he smile so good for Chuck E and I always just get crazy faces?!?)