Terre Haute Children's Museum

While in Indiana to celebrate Christmas with our families, we were also able to squeeze in some time with friends--we so dearly miss the friends we left behind in Indiana and our visits never seem long enough to get adequate time with all of those that we love in the state.
One joy on our last visit though was getting to hit the brand new Terre Haute Children's Museum with the McGranahan's. It's such a fabulous new place--North loved getting to explore the space and also get some time with his pal Lincoln.

Giant bubbles that you can stand in! Lincoln and Sam demonstrate.

North following Linc through the honeycomb

Farmers

Alan liked the air-zooka

Racing cars

And of course the water table. Always a favorite.

the ghost of christmas past

I have finally managed to download the few photos that we snapped from our trip back to Indiana for Christmas. North loved Christmas this year and was a really big fan of celebrating it multiple times. He, in fact, continues to ask when we will next be celebrating it.
At home we celebrated prior to our departure. Santa appeased us by making a stop over at our house while we were away at work and daycare on his "practice run" for the big night. He brought North a Buzz Lightyear (which North had been asking for for months). Buzz was a big hit for a few weeks and then one morning North woke up insisting that Buzz had growled at him during the night--suspicious given that evening North was sleeping with a dino shaped flashlight that actually DOES growl when turned on--but North insists no, it was not the flashlight, it was Buzz--their relationship has never been the same since. He also got lots of Star Wars guys and a couple of spaceships from Alan and me.
Then we headed to grandma and grandpa's for Christmas day. Santa brought North an Alphie while there and he also got a junior tag reader with books, which he uses all of the time, and a sounds and lights firetruck.

Despite the appearance of his "smile", he REALLY did enjoy opening presents

Buzz Lightyear gloves and hat (North loves these)
Putting in some puppy time with his favorite dogs

After that we celebrated at grandma Milner's where North got a favorite book and Anakin's lightsaber--which he used to battle everyone else in attendance.
Finally, we headed to Nana and Grandad's where North got to spend time with cousins. He got a Playmobil RV which he has really enjoyed.

Madi was so sweet to let North play with her and her princess castle playmobil set

Connor showing North his new DS
Playing with Nana's nativity set

Hibernation

In these winter months it would seem the Milners have been in a state of hibernation--at least my blog posting has been in suspended animation for bit. But I'll try harder--or at least try to try harder-- to update the post as North is changing so much each and every day and I hate the thought of having none of it documented.
Before I dive into downloading and compressing and then uploading to the blog all of the photos from the past couple months scattered across our cameras and phones, I wanted to at least make one quick effort to have a short post about North and all his current quirks and cuteness of the moment.
His current OBSESSIONS are Tron and Star Wars. And I do mean obsessions. We have a lot of North initiated conversations these days about Sam and Kevin Flynn, Tron, Clu, Quorra, Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Yoda, and even Ki-Adi Mundi or Kit Fisto (North loves even the minor characters--sometimes I think more than the stars). He sometimes randomly yells little nerdy Tron things like "I'm not a program, I'm a user!" which is quite hilarious.
He can count to 15 and recite the alphabet and begins to be able to recognize letters.
He sleeps by himself all night long and has become great about going to sleep at a reasonable weeknight bedtime in his toddler bed. He loves to stay up late and sleep in late just like mommy and daddy, which is handy on the weekends.
He uses the potty often (multiple times daily) but cannot be counted on to not go in his pull-up (or underwear) if anything even remotely more interesting than sitting stationary on a potty is going on.
He's chatty and funny and willful and stubborn. He's also pretty shy and gets embarrassed easily. He likes to jump off anything and everything and is utterly fearless about it--seriously he will jump off ANYTHING--if any sort of elevated heights are available, you've got to watch him like a hawk. We've already had a few bloody noses thanks to the arms of the couch and their inexplicable draw as a diving board for North.
He says most things quite well, with proper word choice and adherence to syntax rules, but when unable to do something he says "I cannot how to!," which is really cute because it's one of the only things he says incorrectly. I don't think either Alan or me have the heart to correct him out of fear he will start saying "I don't know how to" appropriately and we'll lose his cute little expression forever.
He has a great memory for the most random of things (did i mention obscure star wars characters?!) which is handy because he often remembers the names of people or things that Alan and I forget.
He likes for all of his pants to have pockets so that he always has somewhere to put his makeshift lightsaber of the moment. there are A LOT of makeshift lightsabers in our daily lives. and he really likes to wear light-up shoes. for the longest time he didn't have a pair that fit and he had major shoe envy at daycare. we eventually bought him a new pair of his own and life is easier.
He loves pizza (really just the crust), peas, corn, rice, Chipotle quesadillas, ice-cream, cookies, and every type of fruit. Because of this the above list is pretty much all we eat anymore.
He really enjoys kicking snow piles. He could spend hours just kicking snow I think. Our snow is mostly melted so this is becoming a more difficult hobby to sustain.
His current best pal is Zoe, a little girl who goes to the same daycare as him. She's also 2 and a total princess, which he likes.
He currently has an unfortunate haircut which is entirely my fault (I'm an awful barber).

Darth Vader!

Christmas Tree!

A couple of weeks ago we put our tree at home up for the holidays.
North loves it beyond reason and can often be found kissing the ornaments and recounting (to no one in particular) the stories associated with each ornament that we've shared with him.
His favorite is the glass ornament that puppy Ender took a big bite out of when she was 6 months old--at the time we feared such calamity as internal bleeding and the need for veterinary intervention--all before we came to the realization that our dog is more goat than dog and has a digestive system which can seemingly process anything.
He also loves the bell that once belonged to his great-great grandmother (who passed away while I was pregnant with him), and the ornament that we bought the year we purchased our first home, and the one commemorating the year I was pregnant with him, and of course he loves the one signifying his first Christmas.

Hmm..I wonder where North gets his killer smile?

Milner family photos!

While celebrating Thanksgiving with the Milners, Nana invited the incredible Sam of the Roxy Studio over to capture some family portraits.

Sam (as always) got some amazing and funny and sweet photos that perfectly capture our little guy at this fun age of 2. And some great photos of the Milner family.

For whatever reason, North thought this a perfect opportunity to try out his new "smile" (I use the phrase a bit lightly--you'll see what I mean). It is the cutest/funniest thing ever. So glad Sam was there to get him on film.

In all her awesomeness, Sam shared lots of links to our session including:

a sneak peak of the blog

a slideshow

a link to the full session for ordering

Enjoy!

Indiana Thanksgiving!

Last Wednesday, I got an early release from work and Alan took a half day at which point we loaded up the car and headed to Indiana! We expected a 10 hour trip but, after 2 hours sitting in DC traffic, we realized our plans were maybe a bit overly optimistic.
Nonetheless, the traffic did not deter us and we eventually DID make it out of the Washington Metro Area and back "home" to Indiana.
We had a wonderful, wonderful trip and got to spend time with some of those near and dear to our hearts -- Thursday with the Harsh's and our beloved Ender; Friday catching up with friends and eating a great tapas dinner in Indy at BARcelona; and Saturday with the Milner's before we headed back home on Sunday! Whew!

North enjoyed some downtime at grandma and grandpa's while catching up with his old friend the rocking horse that we left with them during our move

he's quite the ham for the camera!

then he participated in the Harsh family tradition of decorating gingerbread houses on Thanksgiving!

frosting nose

carefully placing candies--he's a pretty great little helper

family picture!

Pretty sure North and Ender were exploring the floor for dropped candies

The finished products! far left=Alan; 2nd=grandpa; 3rd=Bridgett; far right (and totally undecorated as she spent the evening drinking a glass of wine and hamming it up with North at the table rather than spreading icing and placing candies)=grandma

After gingerbread, we finished decorating the tree

Then got a group photo

That night we watched a movie and loved cuddling on the couch with End just like we always have

North really enjoyed getting to visit with her while we were at grandma and grandpa's -- here he is sneaking her a kiss

and here they are hanging out, watching the neighborhood

Saturday we spent at Nana and Grandad's where North got to catch up with his cousins.
They started the visit with ping-pong

North, Alan, and Connor played one side while Clay and Adam played the other

Later in the evening we got to see Katie!

North enjoyed the legos at Nana and Grandad's -- particularly those of the Star Wars variety (his current obsession)--here he is threatening me with a 2 inch light saber.

He liked snuggling up with Madi and Clay

And the bigger boys kept at the ping-pong

while the little boys listened from below

North and Clay played pretty well together--they are just about the same height now with North being so tiny and Clay being so tall!

North had a great time on his visit!

Autumn fun in Baltimore!

We've had a lot of fun the past couple of weeks, which have included both a day trip to Baltimore and a weekend trip home to Indiana (which I'll get to in a later post)!
Here in Virginia, the weather has remained pretty temperate with a long, fairly warm autumn lingering around, allowing us the opportunity for lots of fall activities.
Not the least of which is stomping around in piles of leaves--an absolute favorite activity of North's. In fact, if so much as a single leaf is anywhere in his sight, it's nearly impossible to prevent him from running over to it for a good jump on it's crackly surface. He can't seem to get enough.

Here's North--totally in his element enjoying the deciduous tree in front of our townhouse.

The weekend before Thanksgiving we spent a lovely warm autumn day hanging out in Baltimore enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures on the inner harbor--despite being only about an hour away from us now we haven't yet spent much time exploring the fun city--a fact we are determined to remedy.
We began our day trip with a visit to the Maryland Science Center which we got to explore for free thanks to our Bloomington Wonderlab membership (which has reciprocity at many of the nations other science museums)! It was Harry Potter weekend in the museum, as the newest movie had just premiered and was playing in 3d at their IMAX. We opted not to catch the movie but did enjoy seeing the Harry Potter themed activities occurring throughout the museum space--things like potions classes and hunts for Horcruxes (we even discovered a Horcrux ourselves while exploring the space exhibits).
North LOVED all of the exhibits--Maryland Science Center proved to be a fabulous place to spend several hours--we'll definitely be going back.

Exploring the dinosaurs!

where North stumbled onto a dino nest!

From there we headed to the climate exhibit where Alan got to see what it might feel like to be an Arctic explorer and North tamed tornadoes

Then we explored sensations with a laser beam harp and a spinning wonder that North found mesmerizing

And then learned about the human body by putting together a puzzle! (North really liked the liver!)

Our puzzle friend with some see-through skin

Then we realized North is tiny enough to actually be the same size as our puzzle friend and so instead decided to put the organ pieces together on him

North particularly loved this hallway of projected words whirling around--we couldn't adequately capture it in a picture but we must have spent a good 15 minutes with him running around amidst the swirling projection

Scanning our fingerprints!

Exploring information on the astronauts, space shuttles, space stations and our solar system. North really enjoyed climbing on a shuttle tire.

Learning about boats and sea caves

Enjoying the view of the harbor!

Playing with a green screen!

After the Science Center we stopped by Ben & Jerry's then rented a dragon shaped paddle boat to explore the harbor up close.

Somewhat difficult to take a family photo of ourselves-- would seem I need a longer arm

North really loved seeing the big boats up close from the water--in particular the submarine (USS Torsk) in front of the aquarium which he dubbed the "shark boat" and the historic wooden ship (USS Constellation) that he dubbed the "pirate ship"--it shot its cannon during our paddle session which was great to see

After our paddling we decided to use our aquarium membership and spend the evening visiting the fish of the National Aquarium.

North was excited for the dolphin show--since it was the last of the day it was pretty deserted, giving us our pick of seats.

Saying hello to some toothy crocodiles--for whatever reason, North was particularly interested in the predators of the aquarium on this visit.
As with the dolphin show, since we arrived for the evening rather than during peak daytime hours, the aquarium floors were pretty sparse, letting us enjoy having exhibits all to ourselves.

North's favorite by far this visit was the shark floor. We spent quite a long time watching the sharks circle the basement level.

Final attempt of the day at a family photo.