Life & Science Museum!

One of our favorite fall things to do is to take a trip to Boone to see the beautiful fall leaves and enjoy the colder weather. This year time and budget didn't quite permit, so we settled instead on a trip to the Life & Science Museum in Durham, thinking Kenna would enjoy the butterflies! (They have a greenhouse-type room where you can walk around and let them land on you).

Ready to leave for the museum- patiently waiting? Let's go already!
Finn, as usual, had the best seat in the house...
although Kenna's was pretty good too.
One of the major highlights for Kenna (as we thought it might be) were the hanging noisemakers outside. Give a kid a stick and tell her to go bang noisy stuff all she wants and let me tell you, that's a winner.
Inside the museum there were lots of interesting installations including a full crash test dummy example of what happens in a car crash without your seatbelt. We spent most of our time outside considering that between the museum itself and the butterfly house was a playground, a sand pit, the barnyard animals, and a train ride (and the noisemakers!).

My favorite was the train ride. It was not super fancy, but they had made cool and fun little decorations in the trees and along the train tracks... just enough for the kids to have something to look for almost like a scavenger hunt. And the weather was perfect so it was surprisingly relaxing. I loved sitting behind Matt and Kenna and watching baby girl snuggle up against her daddy:
Precious.
Looking at all the scenery!
Me and my boy.

The cutest part was that the man driving the train was this tiny little old man with a big white beard. He stepped away from the train for just a few minutes before loading the next group and Kenna asked (very loudly), "where Tanta go?" (Santa). Too funny.

The butterflies were cool but Kenna was a little more freaked out by them than I expected. It's always a little sad to see some of them have injured little wings. Matt and I both "held" one, but Kenna was not interested in coming too near.
We went by the barnyard animals just as the museum was closing, so most of them were heading inside for their dinner. The first thing we saw was this adorable friendly little duck that came right out to see us, wagging its tail like a puppy! It was the cutest thing. Kenna and I were both ready to take him right home with us.
We quickly saw the "sheepyhoos" as they were munching on their hay. Three of them shared a barn with a donkey, and they were all so cute!
It was a full, fun day and we had a bit of a meltdown when it was time to leave after no naps all day... both kids were totally conked out just a few miles down the road.

Little Visitor!

A few days ago, I was putting the kids down for a nap and just as Matt was headed out the door to class, he told me there was a little green frog near our front porch, and that I should show it to Kenna when she woke up. Well, I forgot all about it and when we let the dog out this morning, the little frog was back!
This time, Kenna got to see it, and spent all morning checking on the "turtle" (we kept reminding her it was a frog and eventually she remembered to call it the "fwog"). She was equal parts fascinated and terrified by this cute little bright green tree frog, asking us over and over if we wanted to go see the "yittle fwog."
When Daddy got home and decided to touch/hold the frog (after Mommy spent all morning trying to teach the difference between animals you touch (pets) and animals you do not touch (wild) hah!) Kenna was so excited. She did not want to be too close to the frog, and did NOT want to touch it herself, but she didn't want to leave it on its own, either.

Excited.

Freaked.

(And those two pictures are within about 10 seconds of each other.)

The frog was nice enough to sit on the window for a little while so that we could observe him from indoors, and even check out his little belly and cool little 'hands'!
Here's a quick video of Kenna and her little friend- don't miss the part where she calls him "berry yucky" at the beginning. Hilarious.

(PS- sorry it's sideways, I always forget that you have to film it the other way in the camera or else it's stuck like that forever. Grrr. Let me know if anyone knows how to change the orientation!)

Pumpkin Patch 2010.

Last weekend, we took Kenna on our annual trip to go find some pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. We took her to Hillridge just like last year, thinking that at this age, she would enjoy all the fun extras they have.

We started the morning in perfect fall weather by feeding the barnyard animals. Kenna has a book she loves that has helped her learn several animal sounds, and she was so proud of herself to be able to identify the animals she was seeing! The only one she had a hard time with were the goats, which she kept alternating with "neigh" and "ruff ruff"... apparently she thought they were some sort of horse/dog combination.
She loved watching the feed slide down the tube to the goats and chickens!
She made particularly good friends with this sweet little white pony. She kept leaning closer and closer until it sneezed and she jumped back about 4 feet.
And yes, I did dress her like a tiny girl farmer on purpose.
I think she could have just seen the animals for awhile and gone home, and it would have been a very successful day in her book! But there was more to see...

Like a huge plastic tube slide. Here we are waiting in line:
Next, we headed for the giant "sandbox" of corn kernels. We thought she would like this the best, but Matt plopped Kenna right inside the door and she didn't seem to thrilled to try to move. I finally climbed in to help her and figured out why: the kernels were actually about 3 feet deep and almost impossible to move in! Matt almost had to come dig us both out. (We are still finding corn kernels in funny places- like our laundry basket and dryer vent!)
Then she was getting a little on the cranky side, so we headed for the main event: the hayride out to the pumpkins. We asked an unsuspecting fellow hayrider to take a quick family picture:
and arrived at the pumpkin patch. It was so funny to see Kenna's amazement at the vast amount of pumpkins, just like last year, although she was big enough to react totally different to them this year. First, she ran around trying to sit on all the pumpkins.
Then, she started licking all the pumpkins and saying "mine."
When I told her she could pick out a pumpkin to take home, she started bringing me every single one she could lift enough to carry it. Luckily, there weren't many she could actually lift, and she was careful to inspect the bigger ones Daddy picked out.
And littlest pumpkin was also along for the ride:
Now all three pumpkins are living on our porch where she points to each one and says "my pumpum" every time she sees them. We are so happy to have our fall pumpkins!