Hartford Children's Museum

During Chris' week in between jobs we decided that we were going to take a vacation.  Come heck or high water, we were going to spend a night away from home with all four children.  Of course, knowing that we only had 3 days away (and a limited budget) our options of where to go were somewhat limited.

For day one we decided to just start driving north, stop at the Hartford Children's Museum, and then keep heading north. We figured going to a children's museum combined Dawnell's love of museums with our practical inability to go anywhere else with four kids under the age of 5.

I must say, we all had a lot of fun at the Museum.  It's a bit older and some of the stuff could use some updating and repairs, but all in all they do a nice job.

This is a huge whale in front of the museum.  It's a pretty cool way to get introduced to the learning.

 Here's Beckett in the belly of the whale.  I should probably mention here that Beckett's favorite bible story is Jonah and the Whale, so he was pretty impressed.

When we were there at the museum I made Beckett hide under the ballet dress of this statue.  At the time I thought this was Angelina Ballerina, but I guess our lack of a daughter misled me, because google tells me that Angelina Ballerina is a mouse, and this looks to me like a ballet cow.  I guess I don't know who it is.

Here we are at the turtle room of the museum.  Beckett is under a turtle shell.  Ciaran has the better idea and is sitting on the shell.

 Here is Ciaran flying around.  The boys' favorite exhibit at the museum was the flight simulators.

We didn't go to the space show, but I made Beckett pretend to be an astronaut anyway.

Here is Beckett all dressed up to go paleontologing.

 Yea, Beckett!  Looks like you found footprints!

So, I guess most of those pics were of Beckett, but the twins were asleep and Ciaran won't stay still for more than two seconds.

Here's our best chance to get a pic of him, with Ciaran looking up at the motel TV when we stopped for the day in Springfield, Massachusetts.  

The babies also enjoyed hanging out in the motel room.

 Ahh, look at how cute they are sleeping together. Okay, this wasn't actually from our trip, it was from a couple weeks before, but it was cute.

Ah, there we go.  Ciaran panned for gold at the Children's Museum.

Tune in tomorrow for the Basketball Hall of Fame!

Primary Program

Our ward had the annual Primary Program on Sunday. The last time that Beckett gave a talk in Primary he had ended up refusing to give the talk, so we were a little apprehensive when Beckett was the Sunbeam they selected to do a talk instead of the one line that everyone else got. With lots of practice he was able to do a great job. We're very proud of him.

In other news, the twins (both of whom are over 14 lbs. now) always look adorable before church, but by the end of church they are both exhausted and look a little more disheveled.

Here's some cute pics...

This adorable little chunk monster is Lachlan.

This adorable not quite as chunk monster is Aidric. You might notice that he's just wearing a sweater vest, with nothing underneath. That's the result of a blowout, not of us deciding to showcase his muscles.

Here they are side by side. Lach on the left and Drickity on the right.

Beckett and Ciaran dressed up in their church clothes with fall leaves laying around.



I'm in between jobs this week, and we've decided to try to get out of town for the next 3-4 days. Wish us luck!

Random Assortment

First of all, here are some cute baby pictures. They currently love to eat their hands. Delicious!

Aidric

Lachlan

And here is a random reason why I hate hurricanes and all the wet weather we've had. We have a smurf village in our front yard. I hate all the mushrooms. Ciaran calls them flowers and picks them to bring to me. One looked suspiciously like it had a bite taken out of it, but I couldn't be sure. I saved that stupid mushroom for 2 weeks in case I had to rush him to the emergency room and have his stomach pumped.

This is just a small shot of the field of mushrooms in our front yard. They sprout up overnight. I feel like if I stared at them I could literally watch them grow. And then here is a pile of mushrooms we picked and threw in the street, because that's fun and evidently we're on Team Gargamel.

Finally, here is how we survived general conference. And sadly, it was "surviving" as opposed to enjoying. I know it's shocking, but 2 and 4 year olds don't like to sit quietly and listen to men in their 70's.

We called it, the "Snack Wagon".

If you look closely you can see that Hiro is pulling a train car filled with Froot Loops. Our Hiro has more oomph than Thomas so he was upgraded for a special assignment as a really useful engine. The boys would send in the snack wagon and I'd fill it up with treats and send it back. It was a pretty good system and we all had fun.

Our new addition

I have been wanting a spinning wheel for years--literally over a decade. I first wanted one when I learned to weave and then like a gateway drug learned to spin. But then I was a poor college student and couldn't afford a wheel. Fast forward years and I learn to knit and that leads me back to my spinning love. But now I'm paying off being a poor college student and have 4 children. So I saved bits and bobs of cash here and there hoping one day I'd find something great. And Friday morning thanks to a nice man on Craigslist who realized he should just stick to knitting, a 2010 Ashford Traditional walked through my door for a very affordable price. It also came with a ton of wonderful wool to spin. My boys think I bought them a pirate wheel to drive so I'm going to have to lock it away from their grubby little fingers. But I probably will try and teach them to spin a little. Beckett keep treadling and telling me, "Mom, I'm making yarn!" I need to oil it and adjust the drive band that you can see hanging off, but I took these pictures as soon as it arrived. I'm in love!!!

He had already spun a little and left this on the bobbin since there is more of this wool to spin.

All the great fiber and a niddy noddy for making skeins.

3 Months

The twins turn 3 months old tomorrow, which is super exciting. We'd share with you all the pictures of our exciting adventures, but we have 4 kids 4 and under, so we're pretty much stuck at home most of the day. Dawnell tells me that she did get to the opening of a JoAnn's near us on Friday. Yea Dawnell!

Last week there was a huge fight between the twins. As you can see, they both thought that they were the #1 baby. Turns out they were both right, and it was a TIE! I couldn't figure out which picture I liked the best out of these three, so here they all are...

Ciaran and Beckett got a haircut today. For Beckett, not such a huge event, but for Ciaran it was the official transition from baby hair to toddler hair. Here are some really cute pics that I took at the park the other day of Ciaran in his swing. Let's call these the "before" pictures.

And here are the after pictures. Still so cute, but the curls are gone for now.

Dawnell's editorial insert--And this is why you should never send your child to a barber with your husband alone if you only want a trim on his curls so he doesn't look like a girl. The plan was not to shear him entirely. And they didn't even save a curl for me. I actually cried when he walked in the door. Devastating.

Here's one of Beckett. No before picture necessary.

Drickity and Lockers did not get a haircut today. But they are still cute. Here are a couple of pics. Picture #1 is Aidric and Picture #2 is Lachlan.




Hopefully we'll have some fun labor day adventures to share with everyone.

The babysitter is back

We have power!! The children did a happy jumping power dance and ran around flipping on lights. Then they asked for tv and to play Mario Kart. They are so sweetly quiet as Backyardigans plays in the background. Ah, tv. Most of our freezer items were saved by my friend. We'll probably lose a few things on the freezer door, but really we were inconvenienced and not much else. We're safe, our house is safe, and all is well after the storm.

Hurricane

Here is an update for all of our friends and family in the west. Areas of Mamaroneck are being evacuated as a result of Hurricane Irene. We are in a safe zone and thankfully in a position with our basement to shelter some friends who are in the evacuation zone. We have a propane stove (thanks mom and dad), canned food (and a non electric can opener), water, flashlights and an car insurance policy that covers hurricanes. All devices are charged to the fullest, but if lines are knocked down we don't know when we can communicate. We'll keep you updated as long as possible. Right now we are pretty prepared to weather the storm. Love to you all.

Playing with the New Phone

Dawnell and I picked up new android telephones a couple of weeks ago.  They both have pretty nice cameras on them, and I was excited to see that there is a blogger app, so now we can even blog on the go. 

I was trying the settings on my camera the other day, and Beckett didn't like the idea of being a dot person. I got one of him anyway, so take that.  And as you can see, the twins are starting to smile pretty regularly, which is cute and precious and etc. etc. etc.

Mystic Aquarium

This picture is cute.



We got a new set of twins! See... Okay, just kidding, these "twins" are totally different. One is the 2004 Toyota Sienna owned by Dawnell's parents. The other is a completely different 2005 Toyota Sienna that we bought last month.

The first thing that Dawnell said after we found out we were having twins was that we needed a new car. And she was factually correct. Our trusty Camry was not going to work for a family of six.



Ironically, even our new minivan didn't work for our first big weekend family excursion, since we took along my parents. We ended up having to borrow a minivan from our friends, because our new minivan fits 7 and we needed it to fit 8. We decided to try to make a trip to Mystic, Connecticut (perhaps best known for that Pizza movie starring that toothy gal). Mystic also has the best aquarium in Connecticut, so off we went.





I think Beckett's favorite animals were the penguins. They were pretty cool.




I think Dawnell's favorite part was trying to instill the joys of archaeology in Beckett and Ciaran.



Ciaran's favorite part was sitting in the stroller drinking juice. He also enjoyed sitting on this huge fake turtle. It took us like five minutes to get him to leave the exhibit.







Here's one of the twins. They held up pretty well for their first big trip. Their favorite part was getting held by grandparents, especially once they got matching Mystic Aquarium swag.





At the end of the trip we stopped at a shack for lobster rolls. Literally, Lobster Landing is just a shack next to the water that sells lobster rolls. Since I'm not a fan of the seafood, I can't speak of the quality, but the foodie message boards are pretty unanimous in singing its praises.





All in all, a fun weekend journey.