Genius.

Genius = museums with lots of hands on, kid friendly displays. Genius = Leonardo da Vinci. Genius = combining the two. Once again the Springs Preserve delivered on the awesomeness front with their new exhibit: “Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion.” We went today for the first time and I’m already planning two more trips (one to take good pictures, not crappy ones from my phone, to enter a contest; and the other to bring sketch books, because of course!) Oh and it’s pretty great when you are prepping your kids on the way to the place even though you should have done a whole unit study on said place and you quickly are informed by your 7 year old that the Magic Tree House book about said place already taught him all he needed to know. Well everything you wanted him to know at this point. Not sure how I feel about Magic Tree House books picking up my slack…

  

  

You know, from one inventor to another. He was in heaven.

  

Love that look. And she liked playing with the big wooden toys models as much as her brother. When he would let her and not steal every new one she found. Gosh.

  

Drinking in the knowledge. The docents thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread and there were several times I turned around to see where she was and they were holding her, helping her work a display or just talking to her about everything. It made my day, a lot.

  

So in addition to the 40 or so models of his various machines that you could play with, they also had life sized models of his flying machines, his tank, and some other things. It was SOOOO COOOL!!!!

  

Gratuitous fat baby pictures. We always have to play at the park and since she was on my hip in the exhibit (never again will I forget the stroller…Littlest girl is heavy!) this was my first chance to take a picture of her. Oh and yeah…she sits up now. I’ll be posting a 6-month update on all that soon.

 

It is kind of rare that these two play very well together so it was photo worthy. And really the reason for the huge butterfly picture is because Naomi informed me that not only was its name “Redyellowpinkblacky” but her pet dog was riding on it. Never a dull moment at the park for us.

Christmas in the desert…

Random events leading up to Christmas have made me realize a few things:

Grandpas are awesome! knew this already but nothing like a major holiday to highlight it again.

you actually can have amazingly cool holiday pictures that are un-scripted and un-posed. It’s true, I swear!

Saguaro Cactuses decked out in Christmas lights make me grin like an idiot. I love living in the desert. Oh and a side note tangential corollary to this is that I love that my babies can all go out in hoodies and flip-flops this time of year and not freeze. I love living in the desert!

This girl (and every other baby on the planet) has a major crush on Christmas lights.

 sorry for the dark picture…

My kids love ponies! fake antlers and Christmas lights make them even cooler.

Free sugar cookies and gynormous bouncy slides that require socks but I’m a bad mom and didn’t insist that Garyn wear them and so he had to borrow Neil’s since he was the only one wearing any and they came up to Garyns knees but who cares he got to go down twice. Need I say more?

More Christmas fun to come…and yes I’ll be posting well into Janurary to catch up on all the Christmas awesomeness that we have had at our house this year!

preserving spring

Kirsten is one of my favorite people. Just having some things in common with her, I know that I am cooler and more sophisticated than I would otherwise be. Cooler / sophisticated by association? thats right. Thank you Kirsten for having that effect on people. One thing we both love is the Springs Preserve. I was so excited to get an annual pass for 50% off and today was the first of many “Springs Preserve Days.” If you haven’t been you should go. Even if you don’t live here. Even if you hate everything about the desert. Ok maybe not if you hate the desert. I’m a freak and I love the desert and so this is one of my favorite places. Btw, I discovered that Joshua trees are my favorite kind of tree. Moment of self-discovery…check. Babies covered in sand passed out in cribs…check. 5-year-old having achieved new records in climbing height…check. Today was a very good day.

I love baby feet. especially bare and sandy.