Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Emma's Birthday


For Emma's Birthday the Dillon's went to Giovanni's  ( http://www.jhgiovannis.com/ ), Emma's favorite place to eat her favorite food Calamari. We had a beautiful time with an excellent cake!  Afterwards we all went to see Annie at the Center for the Arts ( http://www.jhcenterforthearts.org/ ).  Top Presents,  Ears Pierced, Turtles, Earrings, Sewing Machine, Watch. Excellent birthday for an Excellent 7 year old!


The Children's Museum

Ahhhhh!!! It has finally arrived a place for kids in Jackson. An amazingly affordable, creative, fun, engrossing, fantastic place for kids to be kids. There are exhibits that range form science to creativity to imaginative play to fine and gross motor skills. In all honesty it is EPIC! I love it, just utterly adore it, and can not begin to praise it enough. For a mom of three very different children, all very different ages, with very different ideas of fun;  all  facing moths of snow and cold and winter, here came a haven. Catered to the interest of all of my kids, and even  some teaching going on hidden there behind the fun.  I don't want to give too much away because I want each and every person to experience it for them selves. Even as an adult I enjoyed both times I went and discovered new things myself. here is the link http://www.jhchildrensmuseum.org/about.shtml

The first time we went to the museum was a private party for St. Johns Church. My Mother was visiting from Cheyenne for Emma's birthday and we decided it would be a fun little adventure. This first time they had these blue building blocks and cylinders that were life size for most of the kids in there. The project of the day was making hands for The Clubhouse hand tree. We all made one and put them up on the wall. The other project was making fires by blowing paint. The shadow room was perhaps my favorite, until of course we found the reading nook and the bullfrog.  We spent about 2 hours exploring and just getting the basic run around of the place. Afterwards we went to Dairy Queen for a treat and then headed home.


Building Area, now it is an indoor playground.

Sensory Tables, dig for fossils or play with rice. 

Creativity Lab Grandma Cutting out our hands for the tree.

ooooooo....

Forest Fire Fighter Jack.

ToT Spot.

BullFrog!!!

Book Nook

This place is CRAZY!

I Love it!!

Welcome to Winter

Here in Jackson Fall is a fleeting thing. It lasts at most a month. This year we were blessed to have a long and beautiful autumn but as all good things, it faded far too quickly. The warmth stretched into the first weeks of October, but as soon as November rolled around the snow came flying. The first weekend of November Jack had the good fortune to have a quick side trip to Ohio to visit Granny and Papa accompanied by the amazing and spectacular Grammy. So with the remaining two we went out for a short hike on the Taggart Lake Loop. This is a repetitive hike for us, having done portions of the loop twice before. Alas it is where the road into the park closes for the season so its an easily accessible hike. We didn't make it too far in, to be completely honest we didn't really have it in us to let go of the easy, bright warm hikes of summer and settle into the cold, windy, frigid temperatures that will plague us for the next 5 months.  We trudged through the first mile and then the girls spotted an off trail boulder and decided this would be an excellent place to play. They spent the next 15 minutes trying to climb the snow painted rock in boots and mittens, needless to say that didn't go over so well so the settled for making snow angels. Then we headed on a bit, but couldn't find the motivation to make the loop so we turned and headed back to the car.




We had afternoon plans as it was,  FREE FIRST SUNDAY'S at the National Museum of Wildlife Art!! So we went home changed into more museum friendly attire and headed back north. The theme of this month was Penguins and Fall Harvest. There was a penguin painting craft project, and on display was a beautiful photographic study of penguins in the antarctic. Also the museum played two movies about penguins we only stayed through the first one. All an All the girls enjoyed their 'girl day' and we had a fun way to avoid the winter that loomed out of doors.