Out and About

We have been busy getting out and about playing tourist while dad, Michael and Sara have been here.  It has been fun showing them around town!  We took them to Cosi Science Center and dad was kind enough to buy us a family membership for an entire year for Noah’s birthday!  Thanks dad!!!  We went to our little town’s "downtown Friday night" and enjoyed some yummy hotdogs and ice cream.  We also went to our local outdoor mall and let Noah play in the fountains.  He loves water but gets a little scared since the fountains are considerably larger than him! We have been swimming at our neighborhood pool.  Yesterday dad went with Noah and I to library reading time and then dad took us out to lunch.  It has been so much fun having them all here!!  Here are some pictures from all our activities!

 

Here are some pics from Downtown Friday night in our town:

 

While downtown we visited the Amish furniture store and tried out the comfy gliders!

 

Noah and I did a little dancing!

 

YUM!  French Fries!

 

Here we all are after a fun night!

 

Here we are headed down to he pool in our neighborhood….

 

Look at this sexy guy!  Hey Michael, I think it’s time for a haircut!

 

Fountain play at the outdoor mall!

 

NO KIDDING…this was not planned!  Dad went up and got dressed and I dressed Noah…and they both emerged in these shirts!!!  They were the talk of the library time!

 

I’ll help grandpa!  Thank goodness dad was here when our sink disposal died.  He was kind enough to replace it for us!!  Thanks dad.  Noah was there to help!

Family Photos

Gary and I have been wanting to get professional family pictures done for quite some time.  We decided to wait until my brother came out to visit and have him take the pictures for us!  He did a FANTASTIC job and we just love them!  We are posting all the pictures that were taken…some here and the others in the photo album.  We have orderded some wallet size to give to friends and family.  Thank you so much Uncle Michael!!

 

Here are some of our favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

Mommy, Sara, and Noah day!

Today Uncle Michael and Grandpa went on a day trip so mommy, Sara and Noah hung out and did some fun things.  We went to our town’s "Touch a Truck" event…unfortunately we made it just as the event was ending so we were only able to see a few big trucks and a police car.  Noah loves big engines and was happy to be parked in his stroller next to the big semi truck engine that was roaring!

 

The engine was roaring and you can see Noah looking at back at it and loving it!

 

We did a little swining at the park…mommy loves pushing Noah really high!

 

Sara and Noah had fun crawling in the tunnel!

 

Noah was brave and crawled through all by himself!

 

We also went to the mall and let Noah play on the indoor soft kid’s toys.  I don’t have any pictures because I was too busy chasing him around and trying to keep him from getting trampled by big kids!

 

We found a kid’s toy store in the mall that had a huge jumping castle set up!  I thought Noah would love it but he seemed to be a bit scared once inside.  I think if Sara and I would have gotten inside with him he might of had more fun.  He didn’t seem to like being confined with the netting….the story of his little life!  He hates the pack-and-play just for this reason.

Mommy and Noah

Usually I am the one behind the camera but since Uncle Micheal has been here with his fancy camera he has been the one behind the camera! He took some great pictures of Noah and I at the zoo.  It is so nice to have some special pictures of Noah and mommy  Thanks Uncle Mike for the great pics!

 

Inside on of the exhibits looking at the lights

 

Sweet kisses from mommy

 

On the carosel

 

Mommy and Noah playing the "stick your tongue out" game

First Morning with Grandpa!

Noah was excited to see Grandpa coming down the stairs this morning!  They had a fun time playing with tools, eating cookies (yes cookies in the morning, that’s what you get when Grandpa feeds Noah breakfast), and just hanging out on the living room floor!

 

Playing with tools

Noah and Grandpa playing around

Grandpa gave Noah cookies for breakfast!

 

Uncle Michael and Sarah are HERE!

My brother, Michael, and his girlfriend, Sarah, arrived Monday night.  They will be staying with us for a little over 2 weeks and we are so excited to have them!  Noah has really warmed up quickly to both of them and loves to play with Uncle Michael.  We all went to the Zoo yesterday and had such a fun time seeing all the animals, riding the carosel,  eating funnel cake, and watching Noah play in the kids area. 

 

 Last night we took Michael and Sarah to The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Micheal’s 20th birthday (it was back in April).  We had a great dinner and of course fantastic dessert.  After dinner we walked around the outdoor mall area and let Noah play in the fountains!  He was a little scared of the fountains and kept a good grip on daddy!  

 

  My dad arrived last night and I haven’t seen him yet! Gary and I had to put Noah to bed (and ourselves) before he arrived so I am excited to see him when he wakes up!

 

Here are some pictures from our zoo trip!

 

Michael and Sarah and an excited Noah!

 

Playing around with Uncle Michael and Sarah

 

Yummy Funnel Cake!!

 

Rocking chairs at the Carosel area…and where we had lunch

 

A tired out Noah after our zoo day

 

Cheesecake Factory…..Uncle Michael, did Noah teach you to growl?

 

Walking around the outdoor mall after dinner….making wishes at the indoor fountain

 

Noah playing in the outdoor fountain!  He was a little scared so he had a good strong hold on daddy!

 

All done with the fountain and ready to go home!

Kitchen Tid Bits

I just love when I get a great idea to use in my own home from someone else’s blog!  I espeically love time saving ideas!  For all of you out there who love salads but hate the prep work I have a tip to share!  I buy all the salad fixings…bell pepper, mushrooms, radishes, spinach, snap peas…etc. and on a weekend day (when Gary can watch Noah) I wash and cut everything up all at once.  I put all the cut up veggies in freezer quart bags and then place them inside a shoe box size plastic bin in the fridge.  Then during the week when we are in a hurry all I have to do is take out the bin (then you don’t have to take out a bunch of bags, they are all in one place) and take the veggies I want for each salad…already washed, diced, and FAST!  I took a picture for you to see what I’m talking about…

 

 

This is just funny and I had to share.  I was at our neighbors house and they were cleaning out their basement.  I asked if they had a 12 cup coffee pot to spare.  All I have is a 4-cupper and my family is always complaining when they visit that I need a bigger coffee pot.  Our dear neighbor had just the coffee pot for me!  Look at the dinosour she dug up and gave to me!  The funny thing is that I ran a pot through the other night and it works really well, even better than the newer pot I have!  I just love the old school look!

 

 

 

Big day of FUN!!!

  Noah, Mommy and Daddy had a really busy FUN day today!  We first went to COSI.  It is a big science museum in downtown Columbus.  We had heard that it had a wonderful little kids play area and wanted to check it out.  We were thrilled with the kids space once inside and Noah had a blast!  It is a fully enclosed, gated, safe, soft, play area for small kids (only Kindergarten age and below are allowed).  It is a HUGE space full of water toys, push cars, soft stairs, lots of toys everywhere, pretend stations (grocery, doctors office, helicopter, pretend park, big legos, soft building blocks,) and lots of room to just run and be wild!  The best part is that even though it was busy there is plenty of room and toys for kids to just run around and find things to do without being crowded.  Noah loved crawling around the pretent park area and was really good at using the push cars to get around quickly.  He especially loved the water room and even got to wear a water poncho (although it didn’t stop him from emptying a huge bucket of water down the inside of the jacket)!  The kids space that we stayed in the majority of the time at COSI was only a small part of the huge museum!  We didn’t have enough time to visit it all, but we did make it to a few other sections of the museum before we had to leave.

 

After a lot of fun at COSI we visited the Ohio State campus and walked around a little.  We toured the bookstore, saw mirror lake (on campus), and ate dinner at a special place daddy had been wanting to go (Eddie George’s Grill).

 

The entrance….we were getting excited!!

 

The kids play area.  Here is Noah playing on the pretend park area:

 

More pics of the kid space.  Noah and the push car, giant legos, and the other play stations:

 

The WATER Room!! This is the small kids water table.  It has seats just for little ones!

 

More of the water room.  This table is for bigger kids but Noah was just the right size to splash!

 

Noah doing some grocery shopping in the kitchen section of the kids space:

 

Visiting another section of COSI, the "Ocean" room.  It is awesome!!  Full of roaring waterfalls and lots of water to play in!

 

After COSI we visited the Ohio State campus: Here is Mirror Lake….

 

We ate dinner at Eddie George’s Grill 27 (one of daddy’s favorite former Ohio State and pro football players).  Noah liked the many TV’s to watch!

 

We admit it, we are bad parents….we took a glass from the restaurant to remember our visit.  Don’t worry grandparents, Noah didn’t see us! 

 

Then we visited the Ohio State Barnes and Noble:

 

 

Good burgers, good fun, good trash….

Friday night we headed over to Dawn and John’s apartment (they are staying here until they move into their new house) for a nice family picnic.   We love spending time with Uncle John, Aunt Dawn and Alan and Emily.  The apartment is located on the Methodist Theological School campus that Dawn attends and the grounds are just beautiful.  Dawn and John were kind enough to invite us over for a wonderful picnic.  We feasted on burgers, veggies, salad, and awesome cheesecake that Dawn made.  We went on a nice nature walk around the school grounds and we all did a little (well, almost all of us…Noah and daddy were just onlookers) dumpster diving!   

 

There is a HUGE dumpster located on the campus near all the apartments and Alan, who had already been staking out the the dumpster,  took us over to see what we could find.  Of course I (Aubre) was the first one to actually get INSIDE the big dumpster…I have to admit that I FELL once I was inside all the way to tbe bottom and cut my legs and ankle up pretty good.  BUT it was worth it!!  I found an awesome tool workbench for Noah in great condition complete with TONS of little tools!  I had to fish many of the tools out of the various nooks and crannies of the dumpster…but managed to recover quite a lot of cute tools to make the work bench complete (now they just need a little cleaning and steralizing)!  Alan found a TV that did actually work and a basketball!  THEN we talked John into retrieving a perfectly good Futon frame!!  GOOD JOB UNCLE JOHN and welcome to the dumpster diving club!

 

Picnic time! Uncle John cooking up some awesome burgers!

Noah had fun playing!

Dumpster Diving finds!! Look at all those tools I found for the workbench!

A walk around the grounds:

Welcome to the club Uncle John!! Nice find!

 

 

Take me out to the ballgame….

A guy at Gary’s work was nice enough to give us free tickets to a baseball game.  It was our first time attending a baseball game here in Columbus…and after driving around lost for a short bit we found the stadium!   I was a little nervous how Noah would do at the game.  He isn’t into sitting still these days and baseball does involve quite a bit of sitting.  Luckily for us Noah is just like him mommy and LOVES to people watch.  The baseball stadium was just the place for lots of interesting (and sometimes a bit rowdy) people watching.  We went to dinner first at the ballpark.  The restaurant was great for two reasons….

 

It had great "rolly" chairs that Noah loved to push around with daddy:

 

AND ceiling to floor windows looking onto the field:

 

Then of course we did the baseball game essentials….

 

We met the mascot chicken:

 

Posed our child next to cotton candy (he wasn’t allowed to actually have any…mean mommy)

 

Did a little stretching with daddy…

 

Flashed our cheesiest grins…(it looks like Noah has had one too many pre-game drinks!)

 

and settled into our seats..

 

 

Noah did so well, in fact he hardly made a peep during the several innings that we watched!  We ended up leaving around 9:00 from the ballpark hoping to make it home before the "it is way past my bedtime" meltdown occured and believe it or not Noah laughed and played with mommy all the way home!  The best part is that he slept almost all night (only getting up ONCE) for the first time since March!  For those of you that know our sleeping trials you know this was very exciting for mommy and daddy!  It was a great family fun night!!  We left the game stuffed full of burgers, fries, nachos, and diet Pepsi.  Gotta love baseball.