January Grandparent Visit! Part 1

The sun may shine most of the time here, but January is still January. It brings its fair share of grey cold. So, having Jake's parents come to stay with us was a huge bright spot in what could have been a post holiday blah. Hooray to them! Grandma and Grandpa M finished their church mission at the beginning of December, so we hadn't any "in person" time with them in the last year and a half beyond our Nauvoo trip. We're so thankful they could come and play.

Tessa still had some days off of school when they came, and we really took it easy. It's hard not to take it easy when you still have kids who nap (one twice) --it slows the day down quite a bit.

One evening before dinner, the kids just needed to get out and move, so everyone took a walk while I worked on dinner --which was awesome. I never take a quiet dinner preparation for granted. It's amazing how much faster I can move.

So, on the walk:

 Maybe Cole's lips look like that because he's cold? I dunno. That kid has a million faces.

 Oooooh, Yo Gabba Gabba. When it was on, I thought, "Oh, no. This is such an obnoxious show." But then, they started singing a song about giving a baby some space and getting out of its face, and I realized it's brilliant. We sing "Try it, and you'll like it," from that show to Cole sometimes, and it works magic, so I am giving Yo Gabba Gabba some serious credit.

 We drove to McKinney one day for lunch. It's not like there aren't a ton of places closer by, but we decided we'd head to The Pantry because we felt like it.

 The new Science and Nature Museum in Dallas is called the Perot Museum. It's amazing. Because a year membership cost just a tad more than we were paying to get in that day, we got a membership. Hooray! We didn't even get to two floors before we had to leave, so we were very glad that we've got the year to really explore the place.
The Lobby (waiting to get the membership sorted out)...

 Those are water molecules on the ceiling that rise when you walk underneath them. Dancing water, they call it.

 Space exhibit:

 Dinosaur exhibit:

 These are only a few pictures of the exhibit, and they don't come close to doing it justice. It's gorgeous. The kids had watched Night at the Museum for family pizza night the week before, so they were super pumped to see the dinosaur bones, and they were not disappointed. When they turned the corner and saw the huge T-Rex and the Brontosaurus type o' dinosaur (I'm so scientific), eyes bulged, and mouths dropped open.

 A massive sea turtle hanging from the ceiling. Very cool.

 Mammoth:

My little dinos (watch out!): 

 Grandpa trying to get Paige to do more than stare at him:

 This was on the robotics level. The kids had a blast with all the stuff they had to do there. There
was simply not enough time, which was okay, because we've got a year, eh?!