Reese and Julie: A Second Birthday Party and Other Fun

The birthday boy - isn't he cute?

While Saturday was certainly great, we did have a lot of fun on the other days of our visit to Cincinnati. Friday we went to my dad's and ate an amazing dinner of grilled shrimp and steak. My dad not only got to use his new grill for the first time, but also got to water each and every flower and plant in his spacious yard with Therese. He patiently walked with her from one flower to the faucet (to refill her watering can) to the next flower and back to the faucet. She had a blast.

On Sunday we celebrated the girls' cousin Joey's second birthday. Therese loved playing with all of his toys :-). Julie slept a lot of the time in her carseat which we placed out of the way in the living room. For the first hour or so of the party Joey was still napping and we'd find groups of women (ok, and sometimes men) hovering around the carseat, chatting and sneaking peaks at Julie. There's nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby :-). Poor Joey was a little thrown off by waking up to a house full of people, but the cousins entertained him outside and he perked up. I think he enjoyed himself. We certainly enjoyed ourselves between the bourbon slushies, fried chicken, and arms waiting to hold Julie.

On Monday my dad took us and Kristin and Joey to the Children's Museum which was AMAZING. Reese and Todd could have happily set up a tent and lived there for the next year (Reese playing with the various toys and Todd explaining to her the science behind each item). When we first walked in, there was a climbing area to the right with a big slide and a netted-in room with little balls everywhere to the right. Reese could have spent all day putting balls into a tube that came down from near the ceiling that had a vaccuum (like at the bank) that sent the balls up and over to a big holding pen that would fill up and dump balls on top of children waiting below. Well, she tried to spend most of the day there anyhow. We also explored a large water table section that had a real working dam and lock (I think this was Todd's favorite feature), the climbing area, and a special section for children under the age of 4. This part is gated and protected by a museum worker so that the kids can run around while their parents stay in one spot. Therese really like the large sandbox in this section. There was also pretend fishing, a small slide, pretend food, and all sorts of great things for the little ones to play with. We were so impressed by the whole thing. We eventually left the museum to grab a bite to eat at Dewey's before giving Therese her nap. As I put her down for her nap she asked if we could go back to the museum when she woke up. I told her that we were all done with the museum and she said shook her head enthusiastically and said, "Yeah, but maybe we'll go back tomorrow." Now her little eyes light up everytime she hears the word museum on the radio. Hopefully this feeling lasts well into her adulthood.

Tuesday was our last full day in Cincinnati. We visited my grandma one last time, I ate lunch and shopped with my mom, and then Reese went swimming one last time at Aunt Robin's before everyone came to my mom's for a final pizza party. On Wednesday we met Todd's parents on our way out of town for lunch and visited his eye doctors' in Indianapolis making the ride home seem very long. As always, we were sad to leave our families but happy to get home to our own house. It's hard to imagine that we might be living too far away to drive to Cincy by this time next year. But who knows, we might be living even closer. We'll just have to wait and see.