The Children's Museum

Several weekends ago (yes, it's been that long! I don't know if I'll ever catch up on this thing!), we went to visit Jessie and Grant while Josh played golf with a buddy from work. We hadn't seen them in a long time, so we were both excited to get to visit and play with them. There isn't much to do in their town for kids, but Jessie did her homework and a friend of hers recommended taking Eli to the Children's Museum there. It caters to kids between 1-5, so it sounded perfect to me.

We went to eat at the BEST pizzeria ever established in this country...Johnny's. Yum, yum, yum! Eli has been a very picky eater lately, but when it comes to pizza, he's like his Momma and will eat it every single day. He ate a whole piece by himself, some goldfish, fruit snacks, and drank some sweet tea. Can you tell we live in the south? He's not even 2 yet and he loves to drink sweet tea. On a side note, the tea we drink at home is decaffeinated and sugar free, so it's perfectly safe for his little teeth.

Eli kept offering Grant some pizza, but couldn't understand that Grant couldn't have it because he didn't have teeth yet. Poor little guy. He'll have to wait until he gets older before he can have some yummy Johnny's pizza.

Jessie and I devoured the pizza. We may be two skinny girls, but we can eat. Yum! Looking at this picture makes me want pizza right now.

We got to the Children's Museum, bought out tickets, and Eli, Jessie, and Grant posed for some pictures before we went inside. Eli was in a silly mood as you can tell.

The museum wasn't that big, but I liked that because Eli could run around and do what he wanted to do and I didn't have to worry because I could see everywhere he went. The first room you walk into is geared towards the little kids, so everything in here was on Eli's level.

He stopped to build a model city first.

Then decided to "brush" up on his oral hygiene (pun intended!).

He found the Ball Raceway very intriguing and stayed there for several minutes. He and another little kid had lots of fun placing the golf balls on the track and watching them speed down into the bucket below.

He posed for a quick picture as the firehouse dog.

Then climbed to the top of the firehouse, with Mommy's help, and used the binoculars to spy on everyone below. There actually is a firehouse pole that you can slide down, which looked like lots of fun. I made sure to keep Eli away from it though! When we go back and he is old enough to not kill himself, we'll try that then.

Jessie snapped a quick picture of us at the top of the firehouse.

Then another picture on our way down the stairs.

We made our way into the second room, which was geared more for older kids. Jessie and Grant had to leave early because the air conditioning was out in half of the building so it was EXTREMELY HOT and Grant couldn't take it anymore. They left to go back to a cooler climate and Eli and I stayed to brave the elements.

Eli went to the police car first and decided to pretend to be a policeman. He loved being able to "drive" and push buttons without anyone fussing at him to "don't touch that, please!"

Then he went to the bayou room and kayaked down the river amidst the crocodiles, snakes, and turtles.

He learned how tornadoes are formed,

and got a close up view of what it would be like to have 3 more siblings that look exactly like him. EEK! God bless you, moms of multiples!

We went back to the front room and went to the Bubble Factory. Eli played with the boats in the big metal tub first.

Then we tried unsuccessfully to put ourselves inside a bubble. We got close several times, but could never make it go over our heads.

It was a fun and very exhausting trip to the museum. Eli was asleep before we even got back on the interstate, but I'm glad he got to have another fun experience. This is the kind of thing I dreamed about being able to do with my kids one day. I'm so thankful I can now!