Thanksgiving Adventures

We were all so excited for the week of Thanksgiving to come along because it meant that my parents were coming out for a visit!!!  We had a lot of fun things planned and we were super excited to about them and of course then spending Thanksgiving and then an early Christmas together.  :)  When we get to combine the family we love with our new home that we love...life is fantastic!!! :D

 One of the first planned events was taking Grandma and Pa to the Science Museum!  This is one of the new stops that the kids love and they really wanted to show it off to their Grandma and Pa!

 Jake riding a Segway for the first time

 Now this is a decent sized kitchen table!

When we all went into the space area I turned the corner and no Jake.  My dad pointed to a monitor where I could see Jake's face and then at this vehicle which Jake had climbed into :) 

 Jake had a blast simulating a trip and mission into space!!!

Our successful astronaut 

 Then of course AJ had to do it....even though he was not sure what it was :)

 Cute little face looking on...he was a little surprised when the entire thing tipped back but aside from that he had a good time!

 Pa trying to dock with the space station...with copilots of course :)

Jet Pilot AJ 

 Pilot Jake

 Calmest looking kid about to punch out :)

 We got lucky again to be in the perfect area when the Science Museum mascot Otto came out!  Jake got a great picture with him!

 AJ did not want to take a picture with him (mascot) but he was brave enough to give him a big high 5 :)

 This was one of AJ's favorite parts!  A great big sand area that has big bones underneath, he was SO excited to "find his first bone!"  :)

Is that a second hand on the giant clock?  No its AJ on a really cool swing :) 

 Jake and Pa were super proud of what they built here.  It was a cool mixture of hoses and track on a magnetic board that was all hooked up to a vacuum.  They were able to set it up so that when the dropped a ball into their little course it went around forever and did not stop.  Not sure which one of them had more fun :)

Showing it off to the family 

 The boys had a lot of fun building these little cars and then racing them around on this cool ramp.

 Grandma reading AJ one of his favorite books "Pout Pout Fish Learns to Read."

After Thanksgiving we were super lucky to score one of those big boxes of Legos for a really good deal.  So of course they had to dive into it right away.

 Grandma and AJ built this really cute gecko!

 Pa and Jake built this amazing tractor!

Then there was the morning that we woke up to no power and lots of ice!  :)  Luckily we got our power back on a couple of hours after the kids woke up (after about 8 hours of it off) and so we got to get our house nice and warm again.

Which meant it was time to get the tree up and decorated!!!!  The boys had been wanting to do this for weeks!!!

Decorating the tree :)

Last year the boys really wanted to have a tree of their own, so after Christmas we bought a super deal tree and put it away for this year.  They were super excited to have their own tree in the playroom to decorate with their own ornaments!

Great looking tree and some really cute elves!

Gotta love cuddle time with Pa and a movie!  The boys were super excited to introduce Grandma and Pa to The Ninja Turtles and Home movies while they were here.

One of the days Jake was in school and we went out to run some errands.  As something special we decided to get holiday drinks at Starbucks.  AJ had never been and so we bought him a special Vanilla Drink (pretty much a shake) that he loved!  Although I will mention that those things have a LOT of sugar...you can guess what happened next.  :)

Pa thought the sugar high AJ was pretty funny

Twins!

We all had a wonderful visit with my parents and the boys will always treasure their little Otto buddies that my parents bought them at the Science Museum.  Just like we will treasure all of the wonderful memories!!!