Imagine It!

We celebrated Father's Day a couple weekends ago by spending Saturday as a family and taking the kids to the pool and just having a great relaxing day together. Angie spoiled me with an awesome breakfast of biscuits with sausage gravy and a big helping of bacon. (I'm kind of a health nut if you can't tell.) It was a perfect day of just hanging out together, playing games with the kids and being silly.

The following day, we celebrated Father's Day with my family at Imagine It! Children's Museum. We've been wanting to take the kids there forever and just never got around to it. I didn't really know what to expect because I hadn't heard that much about it other than it existed and we should go. It turned out to be the perfect place to spend the day. Like, perfect. The whole place is basically a bunch of different play areas with different themes and the kids are at the perfect age to explore them all. Let me take you on a tour...

We started by the pretend cow you could milk, the tractor you could sit on and the shopping area. The shopping area was the big hit in this section. The kids got mini shopping carts and got to go through a mini store, picking food off the shelves and then check out. We were amazed at how much they loved pretend shopping. Angie and I considered sitting in their pretend carts and then pulling each other's hair and poking each other after ten minutes of shopping to see if they still enjoyed it, but we figured they'll have that fun when they have kids someday :)

The next play area was a little magnetic fishing pond with some tunnels and bridges to play on. Maddy, of course, loved putting her hands in the water then patting her face like she's washing up. Patrick was happy he got to wear a fireman rain coat and had a very interesting fishing style. He basically just picked the fish up with his hand, stuck on the magnet fishing pole then said "Got it!". And Carson looked SO CUTE in her little green rain coat!

Then we got to be goalies in virtual soccer. Ok, I played goalie in virtual soccer. But, here's the thing, when I placed first (not bragging, just saying, I'm pretty good at virtual soccer. All I'm saying is, you roll a virtual ball at me, I'm gonna block it. No big deal.) and they showed the leader board of the top ten scores, ALL OF THEM were adults. NO kids are playing this. Or, if they are, they're terrible at it and need to step up their goalie game.

I get my own picture because it's Father's Day

Aaaanyway, the next stop was the sand table. The little girls LOVED this table. Carson and Maddy probably would have spent the day there if we let them. Carson was so fun to watch. If you know Carson, you know she's very careful and clean. Getting messy is not at the top of her list of things to do. For a while, she would only touch the sand with the various sand tools they had but was loving it. Eventually she put her whole hand in though and was SO proud of herself. She had the sweetest smile as she looked around to see if everybody saw. After that, she was game for getting some sand on her, which is good because I'm pretty sure Madelyn covered half the people at the table in sand as she threw it around and dug through it. 

While the girls were playing in the sand table, Patrick discovered heaven on earth. He discovered an area that was completely dedicated to a gigantic train set. We probably could have gone home, taken a nap and come back a few hours later and he wouldn't have even noticed. As soon as a train was in his hand, he was in the zone. He started making up involved stories about the trains and using every train he could find to be in his story.

The last stop was this giant ball moving contraption. It's hard to explain. Just think of it like a big version of the game Mouse Trap but without the mice. This area also just had some smaller spaces within it to play around.

When we left the museum it was lunch time so we headed to Johnny Rockets across the street. Patrick had his very first chocolate shake and mini juke box experience. He was a little more excited about the shake though :)

It was a great weekend. Times together like this remind me how lucky I am to be a Dad. Here's a slideshow with some more pictures of the day. There were a ton of cute ones of the three kids but I obviously couldn't put them all in here. So if you like cute pictures of kids you should definitely check them all out.

Just in Case...

...you ever wondered how Patrick got so fast, here you go. (And, of course he's in his diaper because he's "even even faster" when he's not wearing clothes.)



I'll hand it to him; the kid's got an imagination.

A Rainbow of (Cast) Colors

Madelyn's cast is finally off! We took her last Thursday to see the surgeon and have him assess the finger healing situation. I can tell you without hesitation that the finger healing situation is great! Maddy's finger looks amazing considering the damage that was done. The surgeon was really happy with the results and we were all glad they decided to keep her casted another ten days for healing. Getting to see that finger was not the most fun doctor's trip though. Luckily this (hopefully) final procedure was quick but it seemed extra painful for Madelyn since there was no anesthetic given. Maddy handled it like a champ though even though Ang and I were close to passing out watching the surgeon pull Madelyn's finger nail off with a set of small pliers. But after all that was over, Maddy snapped right back to her happy little self and was excited to run around the doctor's office and play hide and seek.

With having to go to the doctor every week and have Madelyn re-cast, we thought we'd do a little compilation of all the cast colors we got to try. Without further adieu*...

We started with pink (of course)

Then we went to purple...

Asleep in the stroller after the aquarium

Playing dress up and being silly

Then we went back to pink...

Then we got crazy and tried neon green...

Maddy showing us The Face after putting sidewalk chalk all over it

And last but not least, blue...

And now, here's our sweet girl playing at the pool for the first time this summer now that she's allowed to get wet...

We're so happy Madelyn doesn't have to wear a cast anymore and her finger is healed enough that she can pretty much do whatever she wants. We go back to the surgeon in a month to have another follow-up just to make sure the healing is still going well, not too much scar tissue has built up, etc. But for now, we're enjoying playing outside and eating meals without having to put a sock on Maddy's cast to keep the dirt and food out, taking baths without 15 plastic bags around her arm so it doesn't get wet, going to the pool (daily so far) and letting the kids play as long as they want and, especially, not having to flinch every time we pick Madelyn up or she gives us a hug because she might hit us in the face with her arm (Angie has a cut above her eye and I had a bruised nose to prove this really was a problem).

Thanks to Katie and Carson for hanging out with Patrick while we went to the doctor. Patrick had a blast and it was great knowing he was having a good time while we were away. And thank you to Megan for bringing us dinner that night. The lasagna was wonderful - we're still eating it! And thank you to everybody that's called or texted or emailed to check on Maddy and how she's been doing. It's so nice to have some good news :)

*adieu = rambling

It's Burning My Cheeks

Last weekend we went to the Suskay Cabin to have our very first camp out with Patrick. We originally thought Madelyn could camp out too; but as the night wore on and bed times became a thing of the past, it became evident that only one of our children would be awake long enough to sleep in the tent. Here are a few of the highlights of the evening...

We played with bugs

We setup the tent

(The last person on earth that should be holding a hammer. Where is her mother?!)

Performed a few stress tests on the tent

Played peek-a-boo while Patrick caught fireflies

(Sock on her hand to keep dirt out of her cast. Not because she was trying to do a sock puppet.)

We roasted marshmallows

We said goodnight to Madelyn

Then we headed out to the tent for our night outdoors

We weren't really sure how Patrick would like sleeping on the ground, outside, with lots of animal noises and damp sleeping bags but he did awesome. He was SUPER excited from the second we put the tent up. He walked in like it was his second home, put his sleeping bag on the ground and yelled "Good ol' sleeping bag!" as if they were long lost friends.

We slept in the tent up till almost 5am, at which time we had a bit of a tent malfunction and it came crashing down on us (as much as a tent can "crash down"). At that point we went back inside and Patrick and I snuggled in a bunk bed till morning. Being with him when he fell asleep and when he woke up reinforced what we already knew: Patrick talks from the second he wakes up to the second he goes to sleep. He woke up the next morning and, before his eyes were even open, started telling me about a dream he had. He said, "Dad, I was in the meadow this time...and I was flossing my gums...so they'd be so sparkling white."

Here's a video of some of the day in which you'll see that the only thing Patrick could think was CAMP FIRE. My favorite parts are Patrick at around the one minute mark and Madelyn physically showing her disapproval for having walked all the way to the tent just to turn back around.



And here's a slideshow with some more pictures or you can see the whole gallery here.