Maryland Science Center

This place was very cool. We spent about 5 hours there today and the boys loved it. If we hadn't all been getting so tired, we might have gone back to more of the exhibits.

It is located on the very busy area of Inner Harbor, in Baltimore, which was also a nice walk and the boys got to go out on "the deck" as Gavin calls it.

There was a very cool dinosaur exhibit, that even I thought was interesting and well planned, and I have been to several. The boys headed right over to dig for fossils, and do some detailed uncovering. A very energetic museum employee kept making his way around to show them the dig site plan to see how their progress was going.

 There was a replica of a nest of fossilized dino eggs that the boys crawled into and pretended to be baby dinosaurs.

 Here they are measuring the depth of the different footprints to see which dinosaurs weighed the most.

 Checking out the tornado.

 Gavin on the bed of nails. He did this twice, he was so amazed.

 Gavin and Henry headed into the "Wet Lab" with Caleb. It was supposed to be for 3rd graders and above, but the workers didn't ask Gavin's age and then didn't complain when Henry joined in, since Caleb was taking them through the experiments without much assistance. They loved this. They got to make membranes and do blood-typing (with fake blood). Gavin also did some pH testing.

 While to older boys were in the lab, Wyatt and I were hanging out looking at some of the human body exhibits. Wyatt was reviewing some virus slides with his microscope. This is how he decided to show me what he was looking at.

 Henry the astronaut.

 Both the boys thought it would be cool to pretend to be Han Solo when he is frozen in carbonite.

 Gavin even tried to get a distressed expression going.

 Gavin on the pulley chair.

 Even Caleb admitted that he thought this was a very cool museum, and there were quite a few things that we didn't expect to find. It was a fun day, and the boys may have even learned something.

Arriving in Maryland

Wednesday morning, we packed up our stuff and headed to Maryland. The boys were so excited to go on a trip and to come and visit the Petersens.

They waited very impatiently at the airport.

 Wyatt didn't seem to have any idea what was going on, but was super excited to see airplanes and get to watch plenty of Toy Story with headphones.

 All of my boys in their row of the plane. Of course, the flight was completely full, so our just less than two year old infant had to spend the 4 hour flight on someone's lap. His super pregnant mother couldn't manage to balance him very long, so he spent most of the flight being held by his great dad.

Gavin and Henry immediately busted out their in-flight magazines and the passenger info safety card to browse while we waited to take off.

 We arrived to find Maggie very excited to see us, and especially ready to play with Henry, who spent the first while pretty much ignoring her. Soon they were coloring and having fun though. She doesn't like to leave his side much, except to run around and play with Wyatt.

Gavin decided that Will needs to become his new best friend, and Will seems to agree. He enjoys all of Gavin's attention and affection... so far. And I enjoy Gavin picking up some skills with a new baby, so he will be ready to help me out in a couple of months.

the Solar Eclipse

Yesterday evening, we headed to the lawns of the State Capital to try and get a glimpse of the solar eclipse. Caleb had made a pin-hole shadow box for us to be able to see the progress, and had read a few other tips for being about to view the eclipse.

We obviously didn't have the needed filters to photograph it, but thought this was a cool image anyway.

 

One of the best ways we found was using a pair of binoculars to project the image. It worked well and was easy for everyone to see the progress.

 

There were a lot of people at the Capital for the same reason we were and a nice older man was walking around where we were sitting with a pair of "eclipse glasses" that allowed you to look directly at the sun and see the eclipse. It was pretty impressive. The boys enjoyed the chance to have permission to stare straight at the sun, something they kept insisting it was fine to do. Those glasses might be something we need to invest in to use 5 or 10 years from now.It was pretty funny how impressed several people were with Caleb's pinhole, shadow box. One man was very amazed when he asked Caleb if he made it... keeping in mind it was a granola bar box with a hole cut in the side and masking tape on it... I would have thought he would be more surprised if we had said we purchased it somewhere.

The boys also had a great time using up all of their energy running around and rolling down hills on the Capital lawn. Here are a few funny shots of them.

Wyatt refused to pose with his brothers. He wanted his own "Cheese."

Mother's Day

I have such good kids. The boys are so kind and get really excited about the chance to do something nice. Gavin is really the ring-leader and he even called a meeting with Henry and Caleb to set the plan for Mother's Day. He then got up at 6:30 to come and wake Caleb for help in the kitchen. They made me a great breakfast.

Both of the boys made Mother's Day gifts at school.

Gavin painted this portrait of me (Henry says I must have a ponytail in this, since it looks like I don't have much hair... we all know that is not true of me.)

 Henry made these very nice hand-print tulips at preschool.

Even though we had to speak in church on Mother's Day, which was not a treat, we had a really great and relaxing day. I am so blessed to be the Mom of such a great bunch of boys. And blessed to have a husband who is a good cook and always doing things that make my life easier and more happy.

A warm day in the front yard

 Can you tell Henry was very excited about it being warm enough to play in the water?

Wyatt was also very excited. I think this was the first time that he tried to run through the sprinklers... yes, he was wearing his clothes. He didn't get quite as wet as it looks like he wanted to.

 They had a great time and are really looking forward to summer now that they got a taste of it.

Beautiful Flowers and Cute Boys

A few weeks ago, the boys are I happened to be down at Temple Square on a beautiful day. We stopped to take a few photos.

I seriously love these guys, and most of the time they seem to love each other too.

(Wyatt was off climbing on something he wasn't supposed to during this shot.)

Wyatt seems to add a little extra goofiness to the bunch.

Spring Soccer

We just finished up the boys Spring Soccer season. They had a really great time this year and they both improved by leap and bounds, especially over last year. Nice to see some coordination and skills developing, it reminded me that I need to keep them involved in things even when life gets crazy.

Henry was amazing this year. Since a year ago, he never wanted to leave the sidelines and seldom did, we were amazed to see him jump up ready to play. He even seemed to know where the ball was a lot of the time. It was very fun for him.

Here he is in action, proof that he was actually running the field.

Ready for a kick off.

He didn't spend a lot of time watching Gavin's games when he wasn't playing, though he was off making friends with other little brothers on the sideline, and just generally being silly.

 Gavin's team was pretty amazing. There were a lot of kids from his school on the team and even several from first grade that were in his kindergarten class. He had a great time playing and practicing with them. This team was like night and day from their first game to their last. They all really seemed to learn a lot and become a lot more competitive. 

 Harder to get an action shot, since they played on the large field and were seldom close enough (good excuse to buy a nice zoom lens). He had some serious hustle and became a great defender. He loves to play goalie and volunteered for part of every game. He had quite a few stopped goals and nothing ever ended up getting past him. He even ended up figuring out the art of the drop-kick. He did score one goal this year as well. Hopefully we can keep him excited enough to practice outside of the scheduled games now.

 Here is his team shot. It was a really good group and a couple of great parents were his volunteer coaches.