Another Baby Shower

(August 8th)
My cute sister is pregnant with her 6th child--her 1st boy. Since she owns more pink, girly things than anyone I've ever met, we decided to throw her a baby shower to celebrate the new man of the house. We went with the classic theme:

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dogs Tails, 

That's what little boys are made of. 

And here's what we came up with:

We played a few indoor games while the guests arrived. 

Then ate lots of good food and enjoyed the lovely evening outside:  

We played obligatory awkward shower games like

Diapering the balloon:

 And drinking bottles of apple juice:

 And Alicia received a ton of adorable little boy presents. She should be all set for her new little guy:

Space Needle and Children's Museum

(June 8, 2012)

Autumn reading the princess books she got from Powell's:

The beautiful flowers in the front yard of our rental:

Andy worked the first few hours of the day, and then we took off to see some of the city. Every time the kids see the Space Needle, they point it out excitedly and beg to go. Today was the day we fulfilled that dream. The needle was crowded, so we had to wait for a while, but the kids were well-behaved and excited about going up.

Once we made it inside, they took cheesy shots that look like we're fifty miles away from the tower:

And then we got to ride up the glass elevators. Me and heights do not get along, so I was nervous about a glass elevator packed with strangers that shoots 500 feet into the air in 43 seconds, but it was actually pretty neat. The kids loved watching as we rose higher and higher.

The view from the top of the Space Needle:

After all of the exhausting work of standing in lines and riding an elevator, the kids kept insisting that they were hungry. I think they were just intrigued by all of the small cafe tables around the glass walls overlooking the city.

We paid something like $20 to get two packs of crackers and fake cheese, a hot chocolate, and a bag of swedish fish, but the kids thought they were living the dream:

Calvin likes to try weird combinations--like fake cheese spread on swedish fish--and say, "Try my recipe! It's so delicious!" And he's completely offended if you don't try or like his concoctions.

 

Future Chef:

 The view from outside:

After we left, we were walking around while Andy took forever on a work call. Finally we got tired of waiting for him and wandered into a weird mall. In the center of the mall on the basement level atrium-type thing (so you could see down into it from anywhere in the building) was the Children's Museum we had read/heard about. I ran back to steal Andy's wallet, and we ditched him to wander in much happier terrain.

I think that Seattle's museum is nowhere near as nice as Salt Lake's children's museum, but what it lacks in class, it makes up for in a ton of different things to do. The kids could have spent all day in just one of the rooms, but there were at least a dozen of them. It was like coming to Wonderland.

The princess themed story time room:

The bird watching tower:

Sliding down a glacier in the mountain/camping area:

Water themed areas:

 Swallowed by a gigantic whale

 The storybook/gigantic fruit/insect/playground area:

 The grocery store:

Autumn dumping all of the onions in the place into her cart. She would come to the checkout counter with a cart bulging with fruits and vegetables and nothing else. We would ring her up, put them all back again, and then she would steal everything in the produce aisle all over again.

 Cogs and pipes and balls:

 Forced air and a floating beach ball. All a boy needs to be happy!

Lego room. Again, boy heaven:

 This was my favorite part. It was a global village that starts with a ride in this fancy, luggage-loaded car:

 Tribal tunes play in the background while Calvin finds his rhythm.

 An Asian supermarket.

 The boy selling fresh sushi.

 A small Asian apartment. Autumn loved playing house in this area.

A street corner. Andy finally joined us to cheapen the corners of some small Asian town. 

(Sorry, I do not know the difference between the Asian villages. I'm sure many cultures were represented, and I apologize for lumping them all together.)

 In the African village were seamstress and barber shops.

We stayed there until it closed, and then dragged the kids out kicking and screaming. We promised them we'd go back.

A cool metal sculpture beside the needle (I thought it was stained glass at first, but it wasn't):

Then during our evening walk we found another great park with fun toys and bright colors. Seattle has the best parks ever:

Playing Mario on any available surface:

 Playing in the leaves:

And then ending up at the water park by our house:

 And more Mario action:

 Then a nice man stopped and let us play with his adorable little puppy:

 And we went home and ate ice cream and were grateful for another perfect day in Seattle.