John likes to stuff his cheeks full!

I thought this was too cute not to share.  See how his cheeks puff out in the last picture?  That is all fruit.  The worst part is he doesn't seem to like actually swallowing the food part, just sucking the juices out then he spits the 'meat' of whatever fruit back out on the tray.  UGH!

Midwest Trip - The end!

From St Louis we drove directly to Dan's brother's house in Germantown, IN.  The kids stayed up late hanging with their cousins and then we went to the oldest cousin's (Daly) baseball game the next day.  

That afternoon we drove on to Dan's sister's house and spent the next day with the other set of cousins - Reid and Boyd.  It was a nice relaxing day before the big trip back.  The longest leg of the trip was the 12 hours from Louisville to DC.  But the kids were great.  

The next post will return to 'normal' life!

Midwest Trip - St Louis

 It was kind of rainy and overcast when we pulled into St Louis, so we decided to go see the Arch since most of the museum is underground.

 We ended up not going up to the observation deck, but it was still pretty cool to look at.  Especially all the different angles.

 There is the coolest kids place I have ever seen in downtown St Louis.  It is called The City Museum.  You'd think, history of St Louis blah blah.  But you'd be wrong!  It has to be the BIGGEST indoor (some outdoor) playground.  There are no rules as to what you can and cannot climb on in this place.  

 See the spiral thing? That is a way into the ceiling area, which was covered with thousands of hanging silver feathers.  

 This is looking up into some climbing area, the kids didn't want to go by themselves though, so I don't know what is up there.

 Somehow, I got a shot of this without any kids on it...everyone was just climbing on it and under it and behind it there is an entrance to the caves.  

 This was the beginning of what I'd call the treehouse.  And below is a tunnel that goes under the tree.  Apparently you could also go under the marble floor you saw in the pic with the feather ceiling...the bigger kids were telling me all about it.

 Then upstairs we found the 'little kid' section.  You could tell Rose was almost too big for it, but too small to go it alone in the other section.  

 I so definitely need a ball pit with big balls in it.  They had so much more fun in here than they do in the kind with small balls.  

 They even had some smaller slides for the younger crowd, done in the same fashion as the bigger kind.

 But here is the slide the kids liked the most....

 ...yes, it is down two flights of stairs to get to the bottom...great fun with the baby and I running up and down.

This hollowed out firetruck is actually overhanging the parking area.  The outside area was pretty crazy too, but I didn't get many pictures because John was down and out of the stroller at this point.

Midwest Trip - Caterpillar Visitors Center

Well, I didn't get any pictures from when we were visiting with my friends the Marcinaks (James' godparents), but we did go to the Caterpillar Visitors Center in Peoria.  It was full of crazy big machines (and a history of the industry which the kids were totally not interested in).  

 This wheel and machine are just a replica because if they put a real one in it would have crashed into the basement.  It is what they use to haul stones in big mining excavations.  

 There was a fun simulator that the kids messed around with, but that I actually used.  It was really hard to move ALL the levers and joysticks and pedals in the right order at the right time.  

 They thought it was funny to take pictures of them inside all the scoops.  

Ever since this day, every time we see a CAT machine, they yell "LOOK A CATERPILLAR!!"  

Midwest Trip - Route 66

So if you know my kids, you know they like the movie Cars/Cars 2.  And one of the things in the first movie is the rejuvenation of an old Route 66 town.  Well, part of our trip involved the beginning of the original Route 66, so I HAD to take them on it.  And I found this cool museum dedicated to Rte 66 paraphernalia.  

 These were signs that had been along a strip of the road, once upon a time.

 This is the bus the character Fillmore (in the movie) was based on.

 For some reason, it was also connected to this military history place, so we wondered around there for a while. It was neat to see all the different uniforms.  

 We saw a sign on this road that indicated it was actually part of the original road. So I chanced it and took a little video (clearly it was so crowded on this road....).

We then went on to my friend's house in Peoria, and oddly, I have no pictures of those two days.