The next morning we all drug ourselves out of bed, determined to pretend to be awake until we actually were. Thankfully we had a pretty sweet plan all ready to go! Lulu bought everyone tickets to get into the Children's Doseum and it was so much fun!
Ready to go!
Our first stop was outside to see the waterfall, creek, and tree house.
Emma and Molly investigate - and get very wet in the process
Little wet foot prints
Loving the chance to explore
Typical Emma - more interested in the mechanics of something :)
Clara checking out the tunnel under the tree house
Racing each other down
A chance to climb
Looking for frogs and fish
So cute!
Love this picture of Lulu and 3/4 of her Ladybugs
Once we were hot and sweaty, we went inside in search of some A/C and new things to explore. We found the Little Town and it was amazing!!!
It had all kinds of cool stuff: an airport (complete with security and an airplane and control center), a bull dozer (with a mulch pit for digging), an HEB (with a dry goods section, fresh produce, frozen, bakery, butcher, as well as check out stations with actual scanners and little screens to push buttons), a bank (complete with a drive through), taco truck, car and gas station, trolley, vet clinic and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. Really impressive!
I confess these photos are out of order, but I tried to clump like-activities together, rather than the sporadic way they ran everywhere :)
Headed to airport security with her luggage
I looked up just in time to see Emma putting HERSELF through the scanner!
Molly and Clara in the control center
Monkey see, Monkey do
The whole crew flying!
Clara loading up her luggage on the "Molly Trolley" to visit "her neighborhood" hehe (Daniel Tiger reference for those of you without toddlers)
Clara driving the trolley
Emma driving around town - backwards
She found a fish steering wheel! What could be better?!
There was a little screened in patio right off of the town with a few things to do too.
Clara found this musical armadillo xylophone thing out there.
And a lizard slide
Checking out the balls and frogs
Rocking ship
When we went back inside Clara found a car and a gas pump. Don't worry, this car is all ready to go now!
Taking a turn to drive
Emma's turn
No worries - we won't hook them up up with drivers licenses just yet.
Then they went shopping at HEB - probably one of Clara's favorite places in the museum. She had fun picking out produce and looking for the dried goods (like quinoa and milk cartoons) that we buy. It was cute.
These check out stations were so cool! There were 3 or 4 of them, each stocked with paper bags, plastic bags, and resumable bags. There was a scanner (that little black circle) that actually scanned barcodes and then put the item name and number and price on the screen!
And it was a touch screen too! They could select something like "bananas" that didn't have a barcode from a picture, enter the quantity and that would pop up.
Emma mostly just wandered around grabbing random things :)
I never saw Molly shop at the HEB center, but she may have.
Emma loved the bank. It had all sorts of drawers and cabinets and flopping thingys to mess with. There was also the tubing from the drive through (look through the window) to the bank itself, putting money in the little balls and push send (and it actually created a wind tunnel to push it through. Crazy.
Emma eating at the Taco Truck (notice the bank drive through behind her)
Then we went to explore the bulldozer!
Emma going to drive
Clara checking things out
All dressed up and ready to work
Emma with her goggles
Playing in the mulch - for way longer than I would have guessed their attention span would have lasted!
This was a pretty cool little conveyer belt:
I should note that Emma's very favorite thing about the Little Town was this little pill bottle she picked up at the Vet Clinic that she could put the lid on and off. And did it repeatedly. And again and again and again. She was a little distraught when we finally pried it out of her tiny hands. Poor baby.
We finally managed to heard them out of the little town to see what else was around.
A musical staircase! Every step made a different sound
Putting things together
This screen was a projection of a camera above where the girls were playing
There was so much more we could have done, but our girls were tired and hungry and cranky.
We decided we'd go ahead and leave and feed them and hope for naps.
This past weekend all of the guys went hunting, three of whom were Bryan, Papa, and Uncle G.
Rather than let the guys have all of the fun, Lulu, Marissa and I concocted a scheme to have a girl's weekend in nearby San Antonio. I'm going to have to do a series of blog posts about our weekend because there was just too much and too many adorable cousin moments to not do the weekend justice.
We left on Friday after I finished teaching at 11:30am. (I love not teaching an elective on Fridays!) Mom picked up the girls from school and I met the three of them at her house. We loaded up the van, insisted Clara go potty, and took off for San Antonio. Unfortunately the traffic and weather were not on our side.
Clara "helping" load the car
Emma being a goofball during our potty break halfway there:
Clara passed out about 15 minutes before we arrived - doh
Despite the hold ups, we did finally arrive and were super excited to meet up with Auntie M, Molly and Baby Jessie in our room!
Who wouldn't be thrilled to see this chica!?
When the three oldest girls heard "wanna go swimming?" there was a mad dash to grab "baby suits" and pool toys. They were ready!
Emma took a little while to get there though ...
Thankfully this hotel had a little baby pool with a beach entry and deepest part only slightly more than a foot. A perfect warm up to our weekend.
Lots of kicking splashes!
This is Emma's new "cheese" face - she gets a little stuck on the "ch" part, hehe
"chhhhhhhhhh-eese"
This new move scares me!!
Jessie got in on the fun too!
These little girls don't even know how awesome their Lulu is!!
Jumping is hard work.
Sleepy Emma snuggled Lulu
Rocking the shades!
Double Double Trouble!!
Emma checking Jessie out closely
Oh girls :)
Realistic representation
Tiny weirdos
Emma had so much fun getting to know little Jessie Jane!!
Tree! Bird! Tree! Bird!
We worked up an appetite swimming! So we had a "pake-nake" according to Clara :)
It's so much fun to eat outside!!
oh Emmy Lou
Cheesy Clara & Pirate Molly
On the way back:
This sweet girl! :)
Once we were tired and full, it was back upstairs for us to start the bedtime routine.
Little Molly Mouse
All of the girls thought it was pretty cool to have a sleep over in coordinating pajamas :)
And they also enjoyed the patio outside!!
Her hair, man
Even though Emma was given a perfectly comfortable crib to sleep in, she kept trying to steal Clara's cot :)
That particular night was very rough. 3 adults and 4 kids in a small living area = loud. Especially when a kiddo has a rough night. But we made it through (and Marissa showed a remarkable amount of patience!!) and had a blast the next day. More to come!
