Earlier this year I bought a Groupon to Wonderscope, the local children's museum. Being raised in St. Louis, I'm totally spoiled as to what a children's museum could be like, and Kansas City is definitely lacking anything comparable to the Magic House. I had heard positive things about Wonderscope, so I figured a Groupon would be a good way to check it out without spending too much money. I didn't realize, however, that the 4 pack of admisions needed to be used all at the same time, and expired at the end of June. So when Linda mentioned they were going to be in town and looking for things to do during the work week while Jill was at work, I figured that a morning at the museum would be fun for everyone.
Friday we met up at Wonderscope after Benton's morning nap and breakfast for the boys. The museum is located in an old elementary school, and the first floor classrooms have been converted into individual play spaces focusing on different things. We spent the most time in the first room, where the boys could take golf balls and race them down ramps of various sizes and heights. They even had a few built in sections so we could put Benton down and not worry about him getting trampled by the bigger kids.
It took a little convincing, but the boys eventually figured out that playing in the water table in the water room was a lot of fun.
There was one room specifically for the under 2 crowd, so we made sure to spend some time there as well so Benton could explore. After a couple hours, it was definitely time for lunch, so we headed our separate ways for the rest of the day.
Later Friday night, Joe's cousin Robert, his wife Sara and their son, Bobby, drove up from Oklahoma City to KC for the weekend. They are living temporarily in OKC for the summer while Robert completes a summer internship, and it was great that we were able to plan a weekend so we could all get together and meet the newest cousins.
Saturday morning we hung out while trying to accomodate the variety of nap schedules, but managed to plan a trip to Fritz's, the famous train restaurant. I'm sure Ethan didn't remember being there when he was about Benton's age, but Joseph loves the restaurant, and we knew it would be a hit with Ethan as well. The littlest boys seemed to enjoy all of the distractions while we ate.
There he is! Such a happy camper, and a super eater. I'm pretty sure he ate more than Ethan or Joseph all weekend long.
We opted to just hang out Sunday morning and take it easy. While Bobby was napping and Joe was out for his long training run, Robert borrowed Joe's guitar and started playing for fun. Ethan and Joseph were pretty intrigued, so Robert tried to teach them the words to "This Little Light of Mine." Ethan caught on fairly quickly, and as usual, Joseph was just copying Ethan as much as possible.
Robert let the boys strum the guitar and play with the strings. Joseph really enjoyed hearing the music he was making!
After a long week of playdates and late naps, Linda and I opted to let the boys relax for a couple days and try to get back to a normal schedule. Mid week we got the news that Ashley was going to be headed to the hospital late Wednesday night to be induced, so we re-arranged our schedule so we could head to St. Louis after Joe's last Thursday morning appointment. Baby Mason finally arrived early Friday morning; more pictures and details of that new cousin visit coming next!
We stayed in St. Louis through Saturday morning, then headed down to Clinton to meet back up with Jill, Gary, Linda, Ethan and Benton, who all had been in Clinton since Wednesday evening for Old Glory Days, a 4th of July celebration. Not knowing when Mason was going to arrive, we had tentatively planned to spend the weekend with them, and figured we could at least spend most of Saturday together. We arrived just in time to eat lunch and watch the little dog races, which Ethan and Joseph seemed to enjoy. Joseph was definitely overdue for his nap, so we headed back to the house so he could sleep for a bit before the big event of the night - the carnival on the square.
After waking up and playing in the baby pool outside for an hour or so, we decided it was cool enough to head to the square for the carnival. Joseph saw all of the rides and quickly got very excited about all of the activities. Check out this face!
He's only recently started showing any emotion at all while going on rides, so it's really fun for us that he shows how happy he is now. At least we know he's having fun!
After a few rides on the cars, the boys headed over to the train. They don't look too excited in this picture, but if you blow up the next, you can see that Joseph once again has a big smile on his face.
Jill purchased "all you can ride" wristbands for Ethan and Joseph, which worked out great and probably saved us some money. They were quite content to ride the same rides over and over, and luckily some of the bigger rides that required an adult didn't seem to mind that we didn't have tickets for us.
After a scary ride on the big swings (Joseph thought they looked fun, but got freaked out when they flew higher and faster than he was expecting... and too be fair, they were definitely geared toward the older kids!), Nana figured an easy ride on the ponies would be fun. Joseph looked like he was getting into it, but after a half trip around the circle, he decided a pony was not fun to ride, and started crying and signing/saying all done. The gentleman working the ride gave Jill her money back and let Joseph back off his pony.
Toward the end of our evening, Joe bought a funnel cake and Jill bought a shaved ice, which they shared with the boys. Linda and I were hanging out, waiting for them both to come back, when we realized that Ethan had stopped, squatted down, and Joseph promptly copied him, down to the placement of his hands. These two were such good buds by the end of the visit!
Joe had scheduled a very early morning run with Scotty for Sunday morning, so we packed up and headed back home around 8:30pm. Joseph had lots of fun playing with both Ethan and Benton, and has been asking to play with them since they left, over a week ago! I know he's going to be so excited when we see them again at Thanksgiving, and maybe sooner if Linda is able to bring the boys back out in September for her high school reunion. It's too bad they don't live closer, but I'm really glad we were able to spend so much time together.
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