JumpstART at the Irving Arts Center

We visited the Irving Arts Center this morning to participate in their free JumpstART program. JumpstART is a joint partnership with the Irving Arts Center and Irving Public Library and it combines stories and fun art projects with a new theme each month.



Today's JumpstART event celebrated the birthday of AA Milne who wrote the classic stories of Winnie the Pooh. Rachel loves Winnie the Pooh and all of his friends.



There was a big table set up with lots of Winnie the Pooh story books, stuffed animals, and toys. Our hostess read each and every Pooh book while taking several breaks to let the kids sing and dance or watch her toy Tigger bounce across the table.



Nicholas was a little grumpy about having to sit in on such a little kid event. However, he paid attention to all of the stories being read and even called out some answers when the reader asked questions. (smile) He's still a little guy.

Rachel was a squirmy two year old. She sat in my lap for the most part but she enjoyed reaching over and playing with another mom's jacket and toddling over to talk with another little girl and general little kid squirminess.



After the storytime was over, Rachel spent some time coloring pictures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends. I loved it that they worked together on a coloring page.



One of several finished coloring pages. You know, it's just fascinating to me how different Rachel and Nicholas are. Nicholas has never liked coloring pages. He would either refuse to color them or else he would make a couple of big swoops around the page with one crayon and called it done. Rachel seems to love coloring pages. She spends a lot of time on them using multiple colors and for the most part she seems to try to color within the lines. So different.



Later we spent some time wandering around the art center. Both kids were intrigued by the glass block.



Rachel had to lick it...ewww!



Say cheese!



I talked to the kids aboout some of the art work we looked at. Nicholas had fun taking pictures of tons of art, including lots of pictures of me looking at art.



I had to get a picture of Nicholas with this piece from the book Ox Cart Man. His grandmother gave him this book years ago and he still enjoys it.



This next one is artwork about Jonah and The Big Fish. Rachel liked the fish a lot.



The wee ones were starting to get wiggly and restless and kept trying to run in the building so we headed outdoors where they could be a little more free to run and play. There is a small but nice sculpture garden in front of the Arts Center and Nicholas remembered it even though it has been quite a while since we've been there. He was proud to show it all to Rachel for the first time.



Nicholas and Rachel both love the water columns. They are just big columns with steady streams of water flowing down all sides.



Nicholas happily danced between the columns.



Then he met some new friends and they played hide and seek around the columns. Rachel just enjoyed getting wet!





Notice how she positions her hands so that the water flows down her arms. She loved it!





We spent some more time walking (and hiding) around the sculptures. I found you!



Now where's Rachel?



I love this video of Rachel pretending to read one of the signs by a sculpture!



It was about lunch time so I took the kids to La Madeleine for a bite to eat. I like their food but I must say it was not a kid-friendly experience. Anything involving going through a line and holding a tray while fruitlessly trying to keep hold of a squirmy 2 year old is just not fun. Once some major feats were accomplished and I gave up wishing for more than one arm, we finally all made it to our table.

Aaah, my reward. Chicken crepes. Yum!



Nicholas will sometimes skip the kid's meal menu in search of better food choices. I was proud of him for choosing the turkey bistro sandwich over the PB&J on the kid's menu. It looked pretty good.



But there was an unforeseen problem. The sandwich was great for an adult but really big for a kid's mouth.



Nicholas' solution: Squish it with your hand to make it fit!



The Irving Arts Center is located at 3333 N MacArthur in Irving and offers great programs throughout the year for children and adults.

Nothing Sweeter

There's nothing sweeter than a baby asleep in a mama's arms.

My "baby" isn't much of a baby anymore but fortunately she will still fall asleep in my arms or while lying on my chest.

I was putting Rachel down for a nap recently and she was so tired that she didn't even want me to read to her. When she gets sleepy, she gets clingy and she will usually say, "Mommy. I want you." and that's my que that some I'm about to get some snuggle time with my little girl. If I snuggle up with her in the glider and she falls asleep, I have been known to fall asleep right there with her. I did on this day but woke up enough to motion to Stuart to get a picture of Rachel's sweet face as she slept.







There's nothing sweeter.

Sad to Say Good-bye

With Christmas behind us, south Louisiana gets in high gear making final preparations for Mardi Gras. And with that comes the King Cake. I drool on the blog about these every year so suffice it to say that I was excited when Stuart's dad brought a king cake home from the bakery for us to enjoy before we have to leave.



Oh, I'm going to miss that good Louisiana cookin'!

Speaking of Louisiana cooking, I just have to share this sign we saw outside of a church in Baton Rouge. Only in Louisiana would you get free gumbo for going to church!



Of course, we're going to miss our family and friends too.







But I doubt that Grandmother will miss having to clean the walls after Rachel decorated them for her!



Thank goodness Grandmother had washable markers so the ink came right off!

We stayed in Baton Rouge for a week and although I'm ready to be back home, I'm always sad when it's time to leave. I had a great time with friends and family and it's hard to say good-bye.

At least we have new Pillow Pet friends to keep us company on the trip back home. Nicholas loves his and he named it Rocko :)

Reliving Old Memories with My Children

Beware that anytime I go to Baton Rouge I may experience moments of nostalgia and you'll find me taking my kids to see all the neat things that I remember as special from my childhood.

For Christmas, Dad got us a family membership to the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History because we go there all the time. I was excited to find out that our membership is good for free admission to lots of other museums across the country, including the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum in Baton Rouge.

I remember Dad taking my brother and me to this museum when we were little. I love that they still have this giant totem pole. It was one of my favorite things there. Apparently, Rachel really likes it too.



We spent a lot of time in the children's science museum which is full of hands-on interactive activities for kids.

Rachel played with electricity.



Nicholas found some neat pictures of animals that when you put them up to the light box, you can suddenly see their skeletons. Cool surprise!



Nicholas and Rachel both had fun with mirrors.



We ran across another museum item that I recall from when I was little. This scary mummy of a young man that I didn't really like at the time but now I find fascinating.



It was brought to the museum in 1964. In the past, it was considered acceptable to unwrap mummies to learn more about them. Now we use radiology and CT scans to
discern age, sex, and medical history. In 2007, professor Mary Manheim of the FACES laboratory at LSU took over an investigation to learn more about the mummy.

Stuart and I are proud to say that we took an anthropology class together taught by the one and only, world renown Professor Manheim. She is an incredibly passionate teacher and made learning so much fun. We've enjoyed hearing about her in the news over the years.

Anyway, Professor Manheim corrected the erroneous belief that this mummy was a female. I recall learning that this mummy was a female back in the 1970/80's. An examination of the bones and teeth determined that he died between the ages of 25 and 32 years old. The FACES lab used bone structure and other evidence to recreate a conceptual drawing of the mummy's face seen next to the xray.



It was also discovered that the brain was still intact and several ribs were fractured indicating that there had been a crushing blow to his chest. Further CT imaging in 2007 determined that this mummy was not mummified in the typical sense. The mummy's organs had not been removed by embalmers and instead were still intact. The body appears to have dried out naturally in the dry, hot Egyptian sun rather than through embalming methods so all that was needed when it reached the embalmer was the simple wrappings. The final conclusion is that the mummy is from the Ptolemic Period (305-30 B.C) in Thebes.

Yes, I go on and on about the mummy. I know. It's just so exciting to see something that was so memorable to me as a child and then to learn all that's been discovered about it since then. Mary Manheim made anthropology so exciting for me that I really wanted to be Indiana Jones out there in the desert digging up bones and ancient treasure. Of course, you can just add that to the list of many other things I thought I would be when I grew up...professional ballerina, Chinese (I can't explain that one), concert pianist, manager at Wendy's (Dad likes to remind me of this one!), pediatrician, surgeon, world traveler, Nobel Prize winner, author, psychiatrist, microbiologist, and finally, a therapist in private practice. Yep, I'm none of these. I'm a married stay-at-home mom with a wonderful husband and two beautiful kids that I homeschool and run around town to karate and Gymboree class. I think God's plan for me couldn't have turned out better.

Boy, did I digress!

We spent a lot of time in the space section of the museum.

I like this cool display of star constellations using pictures of the characters and little lights to represent the stars. I think I could make something like this for Nicholas using some graphics from the Internet and old white Christmas light strings. Sounds like a neat project but I'll never find time for that one.



Rachel learned about planets revolving around the sun.



The museum has a great hands-on children's play area. I don't remember such cool interactive stuff here when I was little.



Here's a random picture of my hubby as he learned up next to a light box in the children's area of the museum. I like the way the light just softly highlights his face. He would have all kinds of fancy photographer names for the lighting and how to make the lighting even better. I don't bother with all that. I just see a shot I like and I take it.



I just love being in downtown Baton Rouge. There's lots of things to take the kids to see and it always brings back memories of hanging out down here when I was a kid. I will always love the sight of the Mississippi River bridge because it's our landmark on our trip to say we've finally arrived. But to me, it's also very symbolic of being home again.



Of course, Nicholas loved seeing the old state capitol building. He said, "Look! They have a Medieval Times restaurant here too!"



My Daddy...or Pops or Papa O.



I love that he always took us to see cool stuff like this in our town as we were growing up. I have such fond memories of all of our outings. Maybe this is why I take my kids to see so many places around here. Hopefully some if it will stick and make a difference for them someday.

Ok, on to the next nostalgic memory. I didn't ask anyone if they wanted a treat but decided I would surprise them with a trip to Frostop for some old-fashioned root beer floats.



I remember coming here many times with my parents but also with my grandmother. We may have eaten real food here on occasion but what I really remember are those floats. I just love the old diner feel!



We each got a root beer float in a frosted mug. I decided to just let Rachel share mine with me instead of getting one for her since they are so big.



Big mistake! She let me have a few sips but pretty much finished off that whole mug by herself. Note to self, get the girl her own float next time.



Double time!



Of course, a trip to Baton Rouge just isn't complete without a quick run through my old stomping grounds of LSU. I just wanted to drop by and let the kids say "Hi" to Mike the Tiger. We took tons of pictures of the kids with Mike in his cage in the background but none of them came out well. Either the camera just focused on the fenced and blurred the rest or Mike was looking away or (imagine!) one of my children was looking elsewhere.

So instead here is a picture of Rachel as she watched Mike stroll around while I talked to her about tigers. Yep, that's all I have of Mike.



Unless you count the kids on the statue of Mike. Say cheese!



Just to wrap up this really long post, here's a video of my Dad and Rachel being silly together as we drove to LSU. Rachel has picked up saying "huh?" instead of "what?" when she doesn't understand what someone says. I hate to hear "huh", probably because my mom used to correct me all the time when I said it, so naturally I've started correctly my kids when they say it. I tell Rachel, "Don't say HUH. Say WHAT if you don't understand." So she decided to explain all of this to Granddad and the two of them just turn it into the silliest conversation ever.



Thanks for being like my kids and just putting up with me as I relive a few of my childhood memories!