Discovery Science Place

This weekend we took Ella Kate to the Discovery Science Place, our local children's museum and we had a great time! It wasn't crowded at all so she basically had free reign of the whole building.

She checked out the globe with Daddy

watched on intently as Daddy made the ball roll down the maze

Did a little grocery shopping

helped the sick animals and the Vet

And even practiced being a future CEO!

Crystal Bridges Museum

While we were visiting my brother and family in Fayetteville we took a trip to visit the new Crystal Bridges Museum. If you have not heard about this museum, you should definitely visit the website and check it out. It is an American Art Museum funded by the Walton's who founded Walmart.

The museum building itself was really neat and the surrounding landscape was just awesome. I really enjoyed the sculptures and modern art portion of the museum and took a few pictures of some of my favorites.

This sculpture was made completely out of old TV's and their parts. It was really neat to see how they used the TVs.

This is a depiction of the Last Supper made completely out of thread bobbins. If you look through the glass ball seen on the right side of the picture, the whole scene flips back the right way. So cool!

This guy was made completely out of vintage toys! The is a jack n the box on there and lots of tops and jacks and all kinds of cool stuff!

This was a huge red disk and when you looked through it distorted your image of the door and lobby on the other side.

I loved this glass dress. It just amazes me that people can make such neat things out of glass!

I only got one picture of the landscape around the museum. Soon almost the whole landscape will look like it is floating. Where this picture is will soon be a waterfall and the water will then flow completely under the building.

This was a great museum to visit and I highly recommend it if you are every visiting the Fayetteville/Bentonville, AR area.

Fun With Our Phones Monday!

I finally did a picture dump from my Iphone - 700 pictures that needed to be backed up, so I decided to link up with Savannah and Erin for Fun with our Phones Monday!

Our new Tervis Tumblers we got for Christmas! Right in time for the BCS Championship!

Our big girl drinking out of a big kid cup!

Someone's room is no longer a baby room anymore!

Yes she looks innocent, but don't let her fool you!

Just picking up a few groceries at the store

Our future CEO!

What pictures are you taking this week?

Underwood Family Christmas

The day after we got back from my brother's it was time for us spend celebrate Christmas with the other set of grandparents! Nona and Papa showed up with plenty more loot for the little one!

Ella worked really hard to open up all of her gifts from the Underwood/Dicke side of the family! She was even more into tearing the paper this time than on Christmas Day!

Ella got some great things including this kitty that she has to try to catch. Papa looked on intently while she was checking it out!

Luckily the weather was really nice while nona and Papa were in town, so we got to spend lots of time outside!

Ella Kate and Nona had a great time blowing bubbles

and checking out the flowers that suddenly went into bloom in the middle of winter!

Nona and Papa stayed through New Years Day and were able to enjoy our big NYD feast of brined Pork Tenderloin, black eyed peas, cabbage, homemade mac and cheese, and red velvet cake! It was a true day of southern food at this house! We had some friends from church and my boss and her husband join us and it was a wonderful afternoon. Can't wait to do it again next year with hopefully even more of our friends!

Adams Family Christmas

I know I am pretty behind with posting Christmas but things have been busy since the 23rd when we packed up the car and headed to visit my brother and family in Fayetteville, AR.  My parents left the day before us and joined us for our first full Adams Family Christmas in about 6 years.  Unfortunately within 30 minutes of us getting out of the car (after Ella did fabulous for all 6 hours) she started running a 102 fever and was MISERABLE!  We pumped her as full of Motrin as we could and somehow we survived, but she missed out on all of our activities on Christmas Eve.  Luckily Keith was great and stayed with her while we all went to the Crystal Bridges Museum, Christmas Eve Service and dinner.

Though after we got back from those activties, someone had perked up a bit and things started to get crazy!

 Austin loves the Toy Story triology so Woody (Austin) and Jessie (Ella) had to take a ride on Bullseye (Shawn).  They were having a great time.  Granny had bought them matching PJs and this was the best picture we got of them.

Shortly after the ride on Bullseye it was time for everyone to get some sleep so Santa could come... he left quite the loot for the little ones!

All of Ella Kate's Santa loot!

Austin must have been REALLY good this year!

Ella wasn't really sure what was going on Christmas morning, but luckily her fever had broken during the night so she was in a much better mood when she woke up.  She loved playing with her new toys and even got into opening presents too!  It was so neat to have her trying to rip off the paper this year.

 Austin and Ella Kate had a great time playing with Ella's new Rock N Roll Elmo together!

 They loved playing with her new pots and pans from Granny and Papi too!

 Everyone enjoyed playing with Austin's new Toy Story Connect 4!

 And the games got really intense at times!

When we went to Hot Springs over Memorial Day weekend, Ella had such a great time riding around on the back of Austin's John Deer tractor, so of course we had to take a few rides around yard on Christmas Day!  She loved it just as much this time around as last.  Well except for when Austin took a sharp turn and flipped the cart!

 We even switched roles around for a little bit!  Ok Ella never really drove, but she sure wanted to!

 We even played a little King of the Mountain with Granny!

 We didn't let Granny have all of the fun with the grandkids though!  Papi got in on a pretty intense game of Connect 4!

Each year, the city of Fayetteville lights up their entire town square and has pony rides, carriage rides, and other fun activities.  We wanted to make a trip out there before Christmas, but with Ella getting sick, we had to wait until Tuesday night to take a stroll down there.

 Ella got to take a ride on her first ever pony and even though she wasn't sure about it at first, she really warmed up to it after a few times around.

 Austin of course absolutely loved it!

 Her little face just cracks me up!  Can't you tell she really isn't sure what is going on!

 Austin, my brother, and SIL.  Such a cute little family!  As usual we did not get one family picture the whole 5 days we were there!

This is what happens when you try to get a picture of the grandparents and their grandkids!  

Take two wasn't much better!

We had a great time with the family and have our fingers crossed that everyone will join us in Tyler for Thanksgiving next year!