The Charleston Children's Museum

Despite the fact that January has been cold and somewhat sickly for our family, we have managed to have some fun by "being tourists in our own town." Brian has had an easier month and has had some weekday mornings and afternoons off, so we have taken advantage of this and of this tourist pass, which allows you free admission to many Charleston attractions and great discounts on local restaurants during the month of January. One of our first stops was the Charleston Children's Museum, which has turned out to be one of Abby Grace and Caleb's favorite places. See pictures below. The setup was perfect for both of them because they had activities that both of them could do and enjoy at the same time, despite the differences in their ages. Since visiting, I think Abby Grace has asked about every other day if we could go back. They loved it!

These two picks are from the "ship" section, where the kids could play captain, pirate, fish, etc.!

You guessed it--water play! I think this was one of Caleb's favorites!

Plus, he loved splashing and painting the wall with water.


Another part included a Publix grocery store, where they could shop for their own groceries. Why wasn't there stuff like this when I was a kid? :)

This is the section for kids under 3--it included lots of mats and ladders/slides that were perfect for Caleb (and Abby Grace still liked it too).

And then there was the art room, where you could create all kinds of masterpieces. Imagine Abby Grace liking that! :)

Santa Claus Came to Town!

Abby Grace and Caleb must have been good this year because they had a big Christmas morning! Or maybe Santa just sometimes gets a little carried away (at least that's what their daddy says)! Anyway, they had a fun morning with their new train table, Abby Grace's new bike, and Caleb's ride-on train. After unwrapping our presents and having breakfast, we finished loading the car and headed to Birmingham for the fun 7+ hour trip. We arrived in Birmingham around 6 p.m. and had dinner with Brian's parents, Clay, and Jennifer. Then on Saturday, we headed to Joy's parents' house for Christmas brunch followed by dinner with the Brunson side of the family and then dinner on Sunday with the Reynolds side of the family. We had some time on Monday to see some friends and headed back to Charleston on Tuesday. Definitely a busy couple of days of driving, eating, unwrapping presents, more eating, and of course, more driving!

Happy 30th Birthday, Brian!

Well, I am still trying to catch up on all my posts... Brian actually turned 30 December 11! We had some sweet friends that were nice enough to watch the kids while we had dinner at High Cotton downtown... Afterwards, we celebrated with the kids.

Also, it may or may not be noticeable, but in a lot of these pictures, Abby Grace has a black eye. She fell on the couch and hit the side of her face on the armrest. I didn't think much of it at the time, but 3 days later, her whole eye turned black! So many of our Christmas pictures include it.

A Few Holiday Events

We took these two pictures after visiting Santa in the Citadel Mall... They wouldn't let you take pictures with your own camera of Santa (we had to buy those, of course). Abby Grace wasn't that interested in taking any more pictures, so I only have one of Caleb.






We went shopping (really just walking around) in Mt. Pleasant after going to church the Sunday before Christmas. Abby Grace and Caleb liked the reindeer decorations.

Abby Grace is performing in her Christmas program at her mother's day out school. She did a great job singing all the songs. In fact, I enjoyed her singing this entire Christmas season! It's amazing how quickly she learned many of the songs this year.

This is a pic from Abby Grace's party at school. I was one of the moms in charge of the party and spent an hour making snowman pretzel sticks... I enjoyed every minute of it! Plus, I did the party favors and tableware. The reindeer antlers were a big hit!

We don't really have too many pictures from our trip to the James Island Festival of Lights, but we had a great time! This is a pic of AGB with a M&M character that greeted us after our train ride (I think it was a M&M anyway; regardless, she liked him!).