crown center

we only had one rainy day during our visit and we decided to use that day to go indoors at crown center in downtown kansas city. i really should have taken a picture of everyone piled into the mini-van, not that we were cramped but because we all fit.

once we arrived we spent some time in the crayola store (think disney store, but with art supplies). they had every crayola product i had ever heard of and then some. not to mention so neat displays of all the crayon colors available.


there was a clifford the big red dog exhibit at crown center that madelyn and mason both really enjoyed. it wasn't very big, but very interactive and we let mason have some freedom to explore. his favorite thing to do was to try and peek into the mailboxes on all the different play areas. he was so cute on his tip-toes. he would open and close each one over and over as if he was hoping that doing so would help him see inside. the other picture shows him playing at a 'sand' box that didn't have any real sand and was, thankfully, mess-free.

after just observing for a few minutes, madelyn jumped right in to the action. she held her own with some older boys working the conveyor belt to bring foam bones into clifford's over sized food bowl. she would race them to get the bones falling into the bowl and bring them back to the bottom of the belt. they were having so much fun we had a difficult time getting madelyn to leave so that we could go see what else there was to see at crown center.

we walked next door to the hallmark building and took a tour covering the history of the company. madelyn was given a 'passport' to stamp at each of the displays which she thought was really exciting. and then they have a machine where she could push a button to watch a ribbon bow made and even got to take it home with her. she was disappointed that the bow was red and not green.

for lunch we went to fritz' which is a really neat train restaurant. matt and i had been there several times when we lived in kansas and i was really looking forward to taking madelyn and mason. besides model trains running around the restaurant and other train decor, the food is delivered to your table by an overhead 'train'. the food is stopped above your table and is carried down by a little elevator of sorts. madelyn enjoyed watching and reporting who was getting there food as the 'train' went around the restaurant. again, i didn't take any pictures!

after lunch we let madelyn get her first gumball from a large gumball machine. we had told her that when she stopped swallowing her toothpaste she could have gum because you don't swallow that either. she has been spitting out her toothpaste for several months now, but hasn't asked for gum. i thought that this was a great opportunity for her first piece. here is video of her trying to chew it up and answer my questions. i was going to bite it in half for her because it was so big, but she just popped it in her mouth. she hasn't asked for gum since. love.

deanna rose children's farmstead

when matt and i lived in kansas we heard about deanna rose often, but having no children we never went. while talking with my boss about taking madelyn to the zoo after she had turned one, she recommended that the next time we came down we take her to deanna rose. we finally followed through on the recommendation.

not only did we take papa and nana (in the swing with madelyn) with us but we met two friends from our first bible study and their six boys (two families). i highly recommend the deanna rose children's farmstead if you ever find yourself in overland park, kansas. and it is free monday through thursday! (they charge $2 on weekends, so still very reasonable.) i have never seen a public place so clean or animals so healthy - beautiful.

there is a lot to see and do. after petting some calves, madelyn got to try her hand at milking a cow (pretend), bottle fed a goat, rode a play tractor, rode a pony, pumped water into a bucket, heard an native american story about the creation of night and day told in a traditional structure, fed goats and sheep, and saw lots of farm equipment. and those are just the things she did. you can also fish with provided poles, mine, and go into a traditional school house, bank, and barn.

here are some pictures of madelyn from our outing:

mason was there too, but he had to spend the trip in the stroller. poor guy doesn't get to do a lot of exploring yet. i keep telling him that if he would just start walking he wouldn't have to be strapped in all the time! he did have a lot of fun seeing all the animals and other sights. he is actually pointing at a goat in this picture.

the advantage to the stroller ride is that he can eat as much as he wants without slowing us down too much.

we use an alcohol-free hand sanitizer spray, and have been for over a year, but madelyn has recently become our dispensing expert. she sprayed any hand she could get close enough to turn over and find a palm. she would go up to people and ask, "do you want some spray?" i told her that she needed to also tell them that it was hand sanitizer. let's just say that we were all pretty germ free.

another great day in our kansas visit! love.

topeka

after our late night at the ballpark, we got up and headed to topeka to visit my uncle rob and aunt blake (one of my cousins, bekah, and her friend darren joined us at the end of our visit). it was on this trip that we discovered that the navigation system was avoiding toll roads and resolved that. thankfully, we still made it there in time to meet them at the topeka zoo.

if you are ever in topeka, you really should visit the topeka zoo. not only is it an enjoyable and scenic zoo, but it is part of a large complex (gage park) with lots of other things to see and do - as you will see in the rest of this post.

the zoo was not huge, but a nice size for walking with kids. the animals were beautiful and quite active. madelyn was pretty impressed that one of the orangutans was making kiss-y faces at her and that there was a tiger and a bear playing high up in trees (in separate exhibits of course). there was a topical/rain forest building that was just a large open exhibit where you had to watch for animals in the trees and flying over head. madelyn liked getting close to the flamingos since they are fenced off at our zoo.

after checking out the zoo we went out to the park outside the gate to eat lunch. and uncle rob and aunt blake had prepared an impressive spread for a picnic lunch if you ask me! i couldn't believe that they had gone through so much trouble (thanks, again). mason woke up from his nap some time during lunch and got to have a little snuggle time with rob and blake. over lunch we caught up and shared family memories. madelyn was pretty surprised to learn that uncle rob was big pop's big brother. uncle rob showed her a picture of big pop on his phone and asked madelyn if she knew who it was - she just mouthed "big pop" with a smile. it was as if she recognized him but didn't understand why uncle rob would have his picture. that was when uncle rob explained that big pop was his little brother just like mason was her little brother.

right across the street from the zoo is a little train station offering train rides around the complex. matt and i had ridden the train around 8 years ago on another visit to topeka and when uncle rob sent me a picture from that trip matt didn't even recognize us! we knew that this was something madelyn would enjoy; there is even a little tunnel to go through.

while handing over her token for the ride to the conductor/engineer it fell on the ground and he bumped her head when he bent down to pick it up. to make up for the bump, he offered to let her pull the whistle after our ride and that more than made up for any suffering on her part.

as a final stop on our topeka tour, madelyn got to ride the carousel (you might notice that madelyn rides a lot of carousels on this trip). she was starting to stare off with exhaustion, but perked right up when she saw where we were headed.

as an extra bonus there were wizard of oz characters 'cut-outs' (i really don't know what you call the things you stick your head through for photos) in front of the carousel.

we had a great visit and were really happy that we were able to find a time that worked for everyone. love.

royals game

friday morning i met my boss for breakfast to discuss my return from maternity leave and just to catch up because i really like her. after breakfast i went back to papa and nana's house to get the rest of the family to bring them up to the office to say "hi" before meeting papa and nana for lunch at matt's favorite restaurant - oklahoma joe's. unfortunately, the kids weren't quite as crazy about the bar-b-que as the rest of us were. madelyn was quite taken with a man's hot pink socks and was actually brave enough to walk over and tell him so. turns out his socks had squirrels on them.

friday night we all loaded into the minivan and headed to kaufman stadium to watch the royals game. after her stellar experience at miller park, madelyn was really excited to be going to another baseball game.

it was a fairly warm evening and definitely on the humid side, but at least there was a breeze. we took a family picture in front of the outfield fountains (that you can't see at all behind us).

we were all pretty sweaty and madelyn refused to let me put her hair up at all. mason get pretty squirmy which just made me sweat more from wrestling with him. by the end of the game i was letting him crawl on the sidewalk because he did not want to be held one more second and i was too tired to fight him any longer.

papa and nana had gotten us really great seats. and lucky enough most of our row was empty so the kids could wander a little bit. mason really enjoyed the freedom but it was a little too dirty for him to be crawling. as long as he held on to the seats i was fine with letting him wander a little. he really liked the stadium music and would jam every time the song changed (that is what he is so happy about in the picture).

i didn't get to sit in our seats very much because madelyn wasn't feeling well and was very whiny. to help her out we went to walk around a few times. lucky for us there was a great kids area at the park. unfortunately, it was on the opposite side of the stadium.

in the kids area madelyn rode the merry-go-round, was clocked running to first base, played on a play set, and played in the water fountains. and that is where she got her first black eye. she was running through the fountains and ran head first into another little boy who was a few inches shorter. he shook it off and ran off but madelyn turned to find us crying. the second i saw her i knew that she was going to have a black eye. she already had a marble sized knot under her left eye with a purple center. after she stopped crying that was the last she acknowledged it - even when asked about it. the picture shows her enjoying her 'dirt' ice cream treat after her injury.

we tried to stay until the 10pm fireworks, but they had a magician first and we just couldn't wait any longer and packed it in. we had some very tired kids (and parents). it was fun to get to a game and we must have been good luck because the royals actually won. love.

lots of new

mason had lots of firsts on the trip that i don't want to forget in my recap posts so here they are...

- pointing his finger at everything. he would gesture his hand at things but now he holds his pointer finger out straight and tucks all the other fingers away.

- first balloon. we went to pick up supplies at whole foods and mason was really, really happy to have a balloon (madelyn was excited about hers too). i should have taken some video. he was rubbing the balloon to make that rubbery 'squeak' and pulling the ribbon to bring the balloon closer (it actually impressed me how quick he figured out to go hand over hand pulling the ribbon in).

- bending over to peek through his legs. i mentioned with madelyn that this is one of my favorite things 'toddlers' do (even though mason isn't truly toddling yet) and it was a fun game to play with mason. he would do it in a standing posture, but he also tried to do it while kneeling.

- first juice. it didn't occur to me that it was his first until he made a face when he tasted it.

- first fever. he had a fever for about three days ranging from 100-103.

i think that is the bulk of them. love.

on the road

thursday morning we hit the road at 6:30am. we put the kids into the car still in their pajamas in the hope that they would go back to sleep. when we put mason in the car he was so confused because we had turned him around to be forward facing for the first time. mason dosed off and on (he was still struggling with his fever). and i think madelyn might have dosed a little too.

we stopped for breakfast after a few hours of driving and got the kids out of their pajamas. breakfast wasn't the priority because they were both so happy to be out of the car and mason just wasn't feeling well at all. madelyn enjoyed some play in the 'playplace' but poor mason just had to watch from the table.

i think we stopped four or five times and it took us almost 12 hours to get to kansas. we only realized after we arrived that the navigation system was set up to avoid toll roads. we saw a lot of farm land and not much in the way of food options. but it really wasn't a bad drive.

we finally let madelyn in on the secret that our new van had a dvd player. it was kind of funny because it took her a little while to realize that she was watching our movies. she kept saying, "hey, i have that movie!" she watched movies most of the way there and mason watched more than i thought he would. love.

getting ready to go

in case you were missing us, we are back home now. we have been in kansas for a week and then had some friends visit for a few days when we got back. obviously, i have a lot to post and will be working on that the next few days. but i need to tell you about our excitement just trying to leave home...

i already posted about the water troubles we were having over memorial day weekend, but tuesday morning brought doctor office calls and appointments. first i called the pediatrician to ask about madelyn's continuing symptoms and then i called the dentist to see about getting my missing filling replaced.

i was starting to get worried that madelyn's symptoms might be something more than a bug after she had been complaining about stomach pains for a week, complained about a sore throat, and then started running a 102-103 degree fever. and since we were leaving town very early on thrusday morning the clock was ticking. the pediatrician is always super booked, but given the variety and length of her symptoms they wanted me to see the doctor; we got an appointment for 6:45pm tuesday night.

now for me. i was able to get an appointment around lunch time so that matt could come home and watch the kids for me. i ran errands with the kids for our trip in the morning, came home for a quick lunch, left the kids with matt, and ran over to the dentist's office. turns out that i was lucky the filling fell out because it exposed some decay that was hidden by the 'seal' put on my molar some time after i turned 12. it didn't show up on x-rays from 8 months ago. the point of this explanation is that it took longer than i (or the dentist) had planned. i raced home so matt could go back to work and i could get to work before taking madelyn to her appointment.

the doctor was pretty perplexed by madelyn's symptoms and physical exam so she ordered urine and stool samples, blood tests, and an abdominal x-ray. madelyn did outstanding! in the lab they had me pin her down but she didn't even flinch when they took her blood. the tech couldn't believe it. really, he was shocked and gave her three stickers instead of one. i could even hear them still talking about her as we walked over to get the x-rays. madelyn isn't afraid of needles. we have always talked about it frankly and never indicated that there was any reason to be afraid. she actually watched them put the needle in, draw the blood, and fill the vials. she told me it hurt a little but just for a second. then we went for the x-ray. because i am pregnant i couldn't stay in the room with her but they had a little window so she could see me. it is a good thing that i was taller than the tech because she wouldn't have been able to see me otherwise. madelyn did a great job laying still on the table and when the tech told her to hold her breath she put her hand to her mouth to try and literally 'hold' her breath. thankfully, the x-ray was clear on the first try (madelyn pulled her hand at the exact time they were taking the x-ray).

after all the testing the doctor felt that madelyn had just caught two different viruses. thankfully, it was just bad luck and not something more serious. she also assured me that madelyn was no longer contagious and should be fine to travel.

and of course mason came down with the diarrhea on wednesday and started running the high fever on wednesday night. thankfully, his run with all this only lasted a week instead of the two to three weeks madelyn's illness was lasting.

the good news was that we were all okay overall and matt and i did get to bed at a decent time on wednesday night and completed almost all the things on our to-do list. love.