The Children's Museum

Our first trip the Children's Museum was a success thanks to Aunt Jennifer. She had free tickets thanks to her company and invited us to go with her. It was a quick trip for me as I had to leave early and go to a soccer game in Lafayette. But, the time we got to spend together was priceless. The Children's Museum is one of those places that is always changing but is so comfortable that you never want to leave. You could go every day for a month and still not see everything. Really it shouldn't even be called the Children's Museum because there is so much to learn and see that you enjoy as an adult. We just barely scratched the surface with our visit, but it was perfect because Ella is getting closer to the age where she can really enjoy what she is seeing and begin to interact with the things around her.

Our first stop was the water clock. Something we will go to time and time again I am sure. Someday we will explain just how it works, but for now it was just to admire its beauty, its stature, the cool colors and lights it displayed. Of course we had to show her the fireworks glass structure as well and talk about all the colors that we saw. We went downstairs to see the bottom of the structure and to build our own glass works. We also visited the train station and Ella crawled underneath the trains and looked into the city above with me. I had to persuade her to come under with me but once she was under there she was fine.

Next it was time to go to the Dinosphere. Ella was not too keen on all the noises and lights going on down there. She let us put the little costume on her but she would not let go of Jennifer. She barely even looked at the stuffed dinosaur eggs. We looked at some of the big dinosaur skeletons and then she was ready to get outta there! 

After that we were bound for the playscape area. I knew she would like all the things she could get into there. When we first went in there was a guy with a bear puppet and Ella would have nothing to do with it. On our way back out though she just wanted to cuddle with it! Ella enjoyed the play mats, the water part, although she is a little short still for that part. She LOVED the sand. She kept running it through her fingers and scooping it up in this little red cup. She had been doing this for several minutes when I thought to myself, hmmm I wonder why she hasn't tried to eat it yet, right on cue, in the mouth the sand went...yum crunchy!

She especially loved the garden and picking the flowers. She was quite proud of herself for doing that. Mamaw also had to get a picture of Ella sitting on a chair under her name made with magnetic letters. Mamaw spelled it... :)

We of course had to catch a ride in the race car and pose with the polar bear. Ella was not a big fan of the polar bear and tried to climb up Daddy's shoulder to get away from it!

 Before it was time for me to leave and run off to soccer, we had to stop at the carrousel. She really liked watching it go around and listening to the music. James and I scoped out just the perfect horse to ride and were thoroughly disappointed when we heard the conductor say children had to be 2 years old to ride moving animals. Man! So we chose a giraffe, imagine that, that stood still to ride. She was not extremely excited about sitting on it, but once we got moving and distracted her a little bit she was fine.

Ella had a lot of fun with Mamaw, Great Aunt Jennifer and us. Here is another picture of them after I had to leave. What a great time we all had! Can't wait until we can go again!!

After soccer, later that night we got some really cute shots. I love my little girl!