Family Fun Day

We randomly declared today Family Fun Day. It was pretty cold this morning when we all got up (around 26 degrees!) so after we had pumpkin pecan pancakes and sausage we packed some snacks and headed out the The Museum of Science. As we were heading to the exhibit we all wanted to check out we passed by a competition that anyone could enter. It was a trophy stand building contest. You decided if you wanted to support a tennis ball, baseball, soccer ball, basketball or bowling ball and chose from among just a few possible building materials that included popsicle sticks of two different sizes, newspaper, rubber bands and tiny dowel rods. Each person also got a small cardboard cone. There was a minimum height for each category to even be considered. Mia chose to go with the tennis ball. The current winner had built a structure that was 69 inches tall. She decided after about 5 minutes of working that she did not want to try to win, she just wanted to build something that was at least 21 inches tall, which was the minimum for the ball she chose.

Her final trophy stand was about 29 inches tall and she came up with everything on her own. She had a little bit of help with assembly, but overall did it all herself. When she went up to test it the person behind the counter complemented her on it. She said she had seen so many of those today and that even though it wasn't that tall it was the most unique one she had seen all day. She was very impressed with Mia's creativity which really excited us. The structure did support the tennis ball as hoped and it also worked with the heavier baseball. We tried a soccer ball as well, but it was not strong enough to hold that much weight. Mia was really happy with her final project and we were so proud of her we were probably glowing.

When we finally pulled ourselves away from the Identity exhibit we realized it was already past Lennon's nap time so we just resigned to skip it today and all shared a big plate of spaghetti for lunch before having a couple more hours of fun at the museum.

After leaving we headed straight to the Red Box to rent The Princess and The Frog for our Family Slumber Party. Once dinner was done we popped some popcorn and the kids made the living room floor into one giant bed where we all snuggled up and watched the newest Disney movie. Everyone enjoyed the movie although Lennon barely stopped talking and asking questions throughout the whole show. As he and Mia were gathering up materials for the giant bed he was shouting "Geronimo!" Not sure where he heard that.

We unfortunately didn't take any pictures today so as Shelby says "we'll just have to remember what a great day we had." It was just the day I needed after a pretty frustrating week with Lennon. After such a great day out and about I wonder if Lennon has simply been going stir crazy all cooped up in the house during these last few wintery days of spring.