Museum of Science and Industry

Kendall and I decided to celebrate our anniversary a week early so that we would be around when my brother flew in for a visit the following weekend. So my parents took the kiddos overnight and we went to dinner and a movie. First thing in the morning we drove up to Chicago and went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I had never been, and Kendall went once when he was like 12.

I knew Kendall would love it, but I wasn't sure I'd find a whole lot that interested me. But it was a blast! So interesting, and not having the kids made it even more fun because we could spend time where we wanted to. These pictures are more for my memories, since you really have to experience a museum. You really can't see how cool things are through a couple of pictures. But here were some of my favorites.

They had a chick hatchery. We sat there for a long time waiting for one of the many chicks to hatch. They were too cute.
Here are a few of the slightly older and much cuter ones!
They had this thing called a "Reactable" which is like a musical instrument type thing. It was really interesting. You put these different blocks and tiles on this big base thing and it would play different rhythms and sounds. You could speed them up and slow them down and change them just by twisting the blocks. Really new age stuff for music. I loved this quote.
One of the most fascinating (and slightly disturbing) exhibits that they have is about new life. They had these babies at all different ages of development. I was completely amazed by how each and every baby, even very very early on has distinctive facial features. This was a baby that was the exact age as my little nudger. You can't really tell from the picture, but Kendall's hand is right on the glass to try to show size. This was, however, like 6 or 7 weeks ago, so our little boy is much bigger now.
In the futuristic area they had this electric car that got something like 300 miles to the gallon. I don't think our family would fit in it, but I'd sure love those gas prices!
Thanks to my parents for giving us such a nice break so that we could spend a nice weekend together.

Wildlife

Besides the bunnies that we have been finding in our garden there are a few other animals as well. Kendall likes to make sure that the kids get to have experiences with these animals.

Here's a snake we found in one of the gardens.
Talmage (our little chicken boy) was the only one who would touch it long enough to get a picture. Sadie wanted to see it, but definitely NOT touch it.
But Talmage didn't really like when it wrapped it's body around his finger.
Then one night Kendall found a toad out in the yard. The kids were in bed, but he brought it in and put it on Talmage's head. This was his first reaction...
And then, he was fine with it!
We didn't get pictures of Avri's reaction (or Mom's for that matter) but they didn't end with quite this big of a smile. haha.

Randomness

Here's to cleaning up the random pictures that don't really constitute their own post. :) Enjoy.

Catching fireflies.
Grandpas are good at reading. Even on the bottom bunk.
Road rash on your face doesn't feel very good, especially when it gets infected.
Mercedes thought she would help me clean out the diaper bag. Guess it was time...
Eating at a table just the right size.
Swingin' times!
Sadie's first french braids.
Best friends, at least during the hour that this picture was taken. ;)
Playing at the park with friends.
Mercedes the chipmunk. She loves to keep her dinner in her cheek for later. She is going to have the most rotten teeth if I can't figure out how to stop her.
My content child.
Mr. Cheeser
Grandma and Grandpa love to spoil the kids at the movie theater.
If you can't fall asleep in bed, there is always the floor right outside your bedroom.
Who doesn't love an Oreo?

Avri's Own Vacation

Avri went on her very first vacation without her mom and dad! For Mother's Day this year my parents decided to drive up to Michigan to visit my Grandma. They took Avri with them. She was so excited to be able to do something so new and different! She got undivided attention from four grandparents! Who wouldn't love that?
On their way home they stopped in Holland Michigan and got to see the end of the tulip festival!
Say Cheese!
I missed having Avri around on Mother's Day. But Talmage and Sadie played really well together, which they hadn't really done before. They became little inseparable buddies. In fact, at church when the primary children went up on the stand to sing, Sadie followed Talmage right up there. You couldn't see anything but her little glasses peering over the side. It was pretty cute.

And Kendall and I took the opportunity to paint the girls' room, since we would only be displacing one child. But that is a post of its own, still to come.

Garden Galore

**WARNING: Lots of garden pictures. Read at your own risk!

I keep meaning to post about our garden (since it is taking up almost ALL of our time). So here it is, start to finish.

We planted our seeds back in March. By April, we had some good sized plants growing under the grow lights at my parents' house.
As soon as the ground was workable we were out working in the garden trying to get it ready. This picture was around the end of April and you can see the peas growing right up their little fence and in the background are our onions.
Talmage got to help Grandpa till up some of the ground around the planter boxes that have carrots and other root-type plants.
I think he enjoyed that.
In May when we finally started planting our plants in the ground, the garden looked like a bunch of hardware and little tiny green things at the bottom.
The kids begged all day long every day to be able to dig in the garden.
At the other garden we have our grapes starting to bloom.
And this year we planted rhubarb for the first time. Since I'm a rhubarbarian, I'm very excited for when we can start harvesting a little bit of it next year.
Here is the lettuce and spinach and the beginnings of our mulching process.
More mulching.
Mulching around the cabbage and broccoli.
A little closer to home my flower gardens were starting to look very pretty. They are a long way from done, but considering that last year all we had was dirt, it is looking a good deal better.
And we harvested some most delicious strawberries and raspberries from our beds this year. But we decided there aren't nearly enough!
We were so proud when our broccoli started to come on. It was delicious. Now it is all done and we have multiple gallon sized bags of frozen broccoli in the freezer.
Kendall has taken up a new hobby of catching rabbits that like to eat our garden produce. Here is one of many. Avri loves to name them.
Here is the beginning of cabbage. We thought it looked so good.
Only a couple of weeks later we had this...
And now it is the same size or bigger than Kendall's head!
When we came home from Utah this week we went to the garden. Here is a picture that shows proportion. That very small blue shirt is Kendall standing in our mammoth garden. It has gone CRAZY!! In just the week and a half that we were gone the beans, cucumbers and tomatoes all started ripening. The peas are already done and the pumpkins grew up and over the top of our tomatoes!
Here I am (almost 31 weeks preggo) standing next to one of our tomato plants. They are over 7 feet tall!!!
And bring on the fresh salsa (along with the Tums in my case).
Gardening has been really hard to keep up on this year since Kendall is employed and I am pregnant. I had no idea how hard the humidity would be on me, and I'm at the point where I can't haul things around and have a hard time bending. But we are really enjoying working with our hands and growing things. It is seriously addicting. Before this experience my memories of gardening consisted of having to weed 2 rows before I could do any playing. Who would have guessed that I would totally get into it and be hooked?