Showing posts with label Milwaukee Public Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milwaukee Public Museum. Show all posts

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Birthday Boy!

It's been another crazy couple of weeks and I've gotten behind with the blogging. Ben was traveling for work and I was pretty wiped from dealing with an intensely opinionated 2-year old (who might that be?) so didn't have the energy to start a blog post at 9:30 in the evening. Hopefully we can catch up a bit again this week before I'm the one who turns the table and heads out of town for a few days.

Jonah started his birthday day off by opening a few presents from us. We knew he would have plenty of them to open at his party on Saturday and that would be a lot for him to get through and focus on. Plus, it just seemed like he ought to have at least something to open on his actual birthday.  He'd received his main gift - an Imaginarium train table - a few weeks prior, as we'd found it at a garage sale and there really was no way to hide it from him. But we still had a few things for him to open, and boy did it take some convincing to get him to take any interest!

You mean I pull on the paper, like this??
He had some Little Mr. and Little Miss books to open, as well as a Lorax quilt that I made from some panels available from Robert Kaufman Fabrics. He passed over the books pretty quickly (but has since given them a fair amount of interest), but took great interest in the Lorax quilt, even climbing on the table to get up close and personal with it (we indulged the birthday boy):

Whoa - what is this - Lorax?????
It's soft and cuddly!
Cool - there's more on the front of the quilt!!!
I'm going to play on this right away!
I had to leave for a quick appointment with the eye doctor, but Grammy Sweets took Jonah to see the construction equipment and work going on over on 67th Street. We'd stopped by to check it out the day prior, but nothing much was going on that day. On Jonah's birthday, there was plenty of activity and he was thrilled to have seen it all. 

From there, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Museum to see the butterfly exhibit, some of the other displays, and a movie about the sun and moon in the Planetarium. Jonah did really well during the movie and the presentation before it that talked about the stars that are visible in the Wisconsin sky this time of year. It was really funny when he realized that there was an "E" on one wall (to indicate East) and yelled out "M" (he tends to get them confused). Moments later, he realized there was a "W" on the opposite wall and had to yell that out too ("W" is his favorite letter, other than perhaps "J").
Look at that butterfly on Grammy's purse! (It later landed on my arm and didn't want to leave.)
The remainder of the day included a nap, reading, painting with his watercolors, and video chatting with his cousins, amongst other activities.
Video chatting with Alex and Grant!
The day concluded by watching the Dr. Seuss video Gerald McBoing Boing (or has he says, Bang Bang) until Grandma and Grandpa Gregg arrived from Ohio. We don't watch it often, so it was a real treat, and it always gets some laughs from Jonah.


Grandma Gregg got the honors of reading and putting him to bed! Happy second birthday, my precious little bear!


Sunday, March 4, 2012

A Fun Winter Day

Today truly was a day of ups and downs, but my hope is that the good memories are the ones that last. In an effort to preserve them and the reasons they were highlights over the rest of the day, I wanted to do this quick post.

We were going through a bit of cabin fever yesterday, especially after swim lessons were canceled. Michelle suggested that we go to see the butterflies at the Milwaukee Public Museum to make sure we got some time outside the house. It was a particularly good suggestion, because we've been talking about doing it for a while. Jonah loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and this book Butterfly, Butterfly that we discovered at the library (and later picked up a copy), and he always gets excited when he sees butterflies in books and pictures.

So we headed to the museum and made our way right to the Butterfly Garden. Jonah does what he usually does when he is very excited about something: He was stunned silent. At first, anyway.

The first butterfly Jonah found when we set him free to walk.
Checking out some butterflies on the floor with Mommy.
"These butterflies are so cool!"
"Look but don't touch, Jonah!"
After our visit to the Butterfly Garden, we started to wander the museum. Jonah's favorite part wasn't any particular exhibit. He just liked the stools that they have in various places around the museum. The first ones were in the bug room next to the butterflies. He walked around them, climbed them, spun them around...

No, he isn't into planking. He's just short and climbs this way.
He had an uncanny knack for finding them, too. At one point he ran down a hallway, seemingly with purpose, and turned into a room that had a bunch of the stools, as if he knew they were there.

He also enjoyed finding any place he could practice going up and down ramps and steps. in one room, there was a ramp up and then four short steps down that he could handle pretty well on his own. He did a few passes on that loop. There was another room with a wooden floor that required you to step up to get in. He liked going around in circles there, too.

This spot was a particular favorite to walk in circles going up and down the step.
Jonah did really well handling stairs today.
Jonah fell asleep on the way home, and the transfer to his crib is not usually a problem when he falls asleep in the car, but I managed to wake him this time, and the past few days have been Go the **** to Sleep days.

Michelle had already planned to do a little shopping with a friend this afternoon, so she left and I read to Jonah to calm him. He nearly fell asleep again, but I couldn't get him into the crib without waking him. He stood right up bawling. I'd rather focus on the good stuff for the day, but he never did go back to sleep, even though he did later calm down. He just started talking and playing with the window blinds.

Later we went for a little walk outside and then the three of us went grocery shopping. Jonah seemed to have a great time. He was happy and smiling.

After dinner, we put on a Pandora station based on Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Jonah and I had it on earlier in the day and had some fun marching and dancing around to it, but it was even more fun with Mommy there, too! Jonah was having such a good time, he decided to give Mommy some "kisses." You'll see what this in quotes in the pictures below. We kept "cutting in" and switching, and Jonah would get upset each time because he didn't really want to switch, but we were all having such a good time, it didn't take him too long to get over it.

Who's leading?
Jonah's future dates beware: you can't tell if he is going to kiss you or eat you...
"You step on my toes much more than Mommy does..."
One of Jonah's favorite parts. Though, what kid doesn't like hanging upside down?
We wore him out good, because he went down for bed better than he has in the past few days.

More pictures from the day can be found on our family photo site.