High Five for Friday

Hi there! I'm linking up with Jennie today to share some fun stuff from the past week.

1) Friday evening, since we had no homework to do, Grant and I made some candy cane bead ornaments to get a jump start on Christmas stuff. The best part is that my mom taught me how to make these when I was kid (crafty, she was not but we had fun) and now I get to make them with Grant.

2) Saturday was my birthday. As soon as I woke up, Grant handed me an envelope that said "Mom" (he calls me Mama). Then he told me "I wrote 'mom' by myself! It's a sight word!" How cute is that? I'm not one to make a big deal out of my birthday but Husband wanted to take me out to breakfast and do a little shopping before we took Grant to a birthday party for one of his friends. Later on we had a movie night and Grant got to see Jurassic World for the first time.

Brunch at Briggs! I love starting the day with a dish the
size of a row boat filled with grits :)

We took Grant to a birthday party at this neat gymnastics
place (that's him on a trampoline about to dive into a foam pit).
What a fun place! He had a great time and I dont' think
he's ever been that tired after a birthday party!

Testing out my birthday present on Sunday!

3) Also over the weekend, my little kitchen helper and I made some chicken & rice soup.

4) I had a dinner date with Grant on Monday! Usually he picks Cracker Barrel for our dates. I guess he's tired of it because it was Moe's this time. He loves when they yell "Welcome to Moe's!"

5) Since I was off work on Wednesday and Grant was off school, Husband took the day off and we went to the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. It's one of our usual places on days off but they recently opened some new tree houses so we were excited to check those out. We had a really great day together!

Up in a tree house!

Even with the new tree houses, "Into the Mist"
is still one of his favorites!

6) Yesterday when I got home from work there was a package from my sister waiting for me. Along with a cute new bag, she also sent me three boxes of my favorite store bought cookies! I love packages with treats from home :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

Grant & Mama Day

A couple weeks ago I took a random day off so Grant and I could spend the day together. With his first day of school fast approaching, I knew I wanted to do a Grant & Mama day soon. So I just picked a day and told Grant to pick a place. He always picks the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. Dinosaurs, a train, and you're allowed to touch almost everything...it's like a dream come true. I was pretty excited about going back too. I read about a new play ground they put in and that some new tree houses were going up.

Funny thing about planning this trip...I forgot that it was June. It was HOT (although, I think this keeps the crowd low). Of course, Grant didn't notice. As soon as the doors opened to the outside exhibits, he was ready to go play. First stop being the new play ground.

Husband always calls him a monkey and this monkey
was more than happy to climb all over that stuff!

After the climbing we moved on to their barnyard animals. This exhibit was really smelly that day, especially with the heat. I don't typically pay too much attention to animal smells but it was hard not to. Even Grant felt the need to announce "Yuck! Something POOPED!" But while in the barnyard exhibit, Grant found some saddles to play cowboy with. He asked me to take his picture for Daddy.

Yeehaw!

We moved on to the "bug house" after that. Grant loves all the creepy-crawlies in there. On our way in I saw a bunch of black-eyed susans. They were my mom's favorite flower, it always brightens my day when I see them!

Bees!

Huge cockroaches (or "coproaches")

Some fish in a little pond that's inside the butterfly room

We still had some time to kill before our train ride so we wandered up to the dinosaur trail. This was all Grant talked about on our drive to the museum!

Telling this Albertosaurus that he needs to be nice

ROAR!!!!!

Can you tell he's sticking his tongue out at me?

And then we wandered down to the wetlands are to hunt for turtles.

And we found some! A lot, actually.

Grant & Mama Day selfie! (I hate that word)
I don't think we'd ever been this sweaty but
we were enjoying our day together!

The bears and wolves exhibits are down near the wetlands so we tried to get a peek a them but they were all hiding. It was too hot for them too! So we circled back to wait for the train.

Train happy!

After our train ride and some lunch, we headed toward the "Catch the Wind" stuff. Grant vaguely remembered this from last year. He had so much fun in it, I don't know how he forgot. But when we got closer to the exhibit, it came back to him.  Before changing into his water clothes, we played with this seed dropper thing (I don't remember what it's called) since no one was there. It's like a big crane that drops oversized seeds so you can see how the wind takes them. Grant loved running around trying to catch the "seeds" as they fell.

So then he got changed and hit The Mist!

You wouldn't think that it will get you as wet as it does
(especially if you get down on your hands and knees like
Grant did and stick your face right in a mist sprayer).

(This one seemed a little dangerous to me...those
stones/steps were a little slippery!)

We spent a while in the mist. Besides the all the places that has mist coming out of  the ground, there are neat tunnels for the kids to explore (and get dirty, since now they're wet). It's such a fun part of the museum! 

Across from the mist, there is a spot tucked back in the woods with these mounted drum type things. You use them to shoot air at this shiny thing (for lack of a better word) and watch how it moves. We had a lot of fun there too (especially when Grant figured out where to aim and how hard to hit the drum)!

Next to the mist they've got a little pond with sailboats, so Grant tried that out (it didn't work out well).

After all that...I was ready to go. We stopped by the lemur habitat:

And then headed back toward the main part of the museum (and the exit). But Grant couldn't resist some more play time on the now empty playground.

We wandered around a little inside the main building.

Fun interactive wall

They have some animals inside, too, so we checked those out and then played with some of the hands-on stuff they've got going on in there. After some time inside, it was time to head home. I feel like he and I go to this museum a lot but he never gets tired of it. The new tree houses that will be opening some time this year. With Grant going to kindergarten this year, I told him that we'll try to go back to see the tree houses this fall when we both have a day off. We always have so much fun, I'm looking forward to going back!

Grant loves the "rocket ship" at the entrance.

Slip-n-Slide Fun

So...I love fall and winter. Summer heat...not such a fan. I've told people - and I really think it's true - if I had visited North Carolina in the summer, I probably wouldn't have moved here. Before Grant, I could just hide away inside moving from one air conditioned space to another. But not anymore. Also, the kid seems oblivious to the heat. I'm getting better though. More tolerant (or tolerable?). 

I usually try to come up with at least one water activity in the summer that I can participate in that will be fun for Grant and cool us both off. Last year for his birthday, my mother-in-law got him an Iron Man slip-n-slide that my hectic schedule didn't let us make use of. But it's definitely been hot enough lately so I got it out a couple weeks ago. Grant had no idea what to do with it, so I tried to explain it. But it was easier for me to just demonstrate.

Grant asked if he could take a picture of me doing the
slip-n-slide. I take so many of him, it was only fair.

I learned three things after my first turn on the slide: a) slip-n-slides are fun no matter how old you are; b) it's a bit terrifying as an adult to throw yourself on the ground and hope it's going to work correctly but you can't chicken out when your kid is watching; and c) don't land too hard on your chest or your knees - trust me.

He didn't actually go anywhere, he just threw himself on the slide.

Even after my enthusiastic demonstration, Grant refused to slide on his belly. His knees, yes (which looked painful to me!), but not his belly. I even had him lay on the slide and I pushed him along, to show him how fun it is. Nothing.

Ouch!

But he was having fun so I tried to stop coaxing him into sliding on his belly.

But day two of the slip-n-slide, I noticed him sliding forward, so I told him to just go all the way down and try to go on his belly.

Hooray! Kinda.

Very excited about his belly slide!

After that, he was unstoppable. And by the third time we used the slide (the following weekend), Grant was a sliding pro and my knees were so bruised up I can't believe I was still walking.

He got going a bit fast on this one!

My personal injuries aside, this has been a pretty wonderful way to ward off the heat!

And Grant has been having a blast! A few days after we first used the slide, Grant had to stay home sick and by the afternoon he was begging to go out on the slip-n-slide (Um...no). We're definitely going to have to keep one of these around at all times for the summer!

Seriously with the face! He's so happy...who cares if I'm
without knee caps by the end of summer :)