Cousins!

Last weekend after our surprise news we were actually on our way to Seattle to hang out with my cousin Jenny and her family.  I don't really have any cousins close in age or that lived near me (Jenny is 5 years older, but grew up in Michigan) so I'm super happy that she and her family have moved to Seattle and her son Jackson is right in between Cory and Noah.  She also has a daughter that's almost a year old.  Yay for cousins!!!

On Saturday we headed to the Pacific Science Center.  I hadn't been there since high school and didn't know how preschooler friendly it would be, but I was pleasantly surprised.

In the first room were all these physical tests.  In this one you were supposed to test your center of gravity by kneeling on the black plate (on the right) and then putting your hands behind your back and bending over.  The object was to touch the red button with your nose.  This was Noah's version...

Generally girls have a lower center of gravity (hello hips) so it's easier for us to do it.  Brian couldn't do it and of course my center of gravity is considerably lower these days so it was easy for me.

This one is of course to see how far you can bend.  I can still reach my toes (for now!).  Cory's chest ran into the end of the orange platform before he ran out of flexibility.

And they didn't make the platform long enough for people like Brian so he couldn't hold himself up and bend at the same time very easily!

My photobombing son

In the next room they had a lot more kid friendly activities.  There was a mirror wall where you stand with one person at each end hiding half your body behind the wall.  Then you lift the leg that is visible and it looks like you're floating.  Cory didn't understand what I was doing so he tried to lift both legs (which looked like squatting) and I had to try not to laugh while explaining it to him!  Fun optical illusions!

The water table was a super hit with the toddlers!

 Noah and Jackson 

(who is a year and a half older, but they are the same size!)

We got to watch some boa constrictor snakes being fed (yes, I took pictures, no I won't post them - you're welcome) which was cool and disgusting to watch at the same time.

We touched starfish and sea anemones in the salt water tank and then checked out the large plastic dinosaur models.

Eventually we made our way to the butterfly house, yay!

 Cousins!

There were the beautiful blue morpho butterflies that I remember seeing in Costa Rica and I tried to take some pictures, but when they rest they flap their wings so fast it's hard to get a picture with them open.  There were a couple that decided to fly back and forth right in front of me and I thought one might land on me, but no luck.

After that we all went back to Jenny's house and just chilled out (with an amazing steak dinner).  The boys had so much fun together all weekend and I hope we'll get to see more of them.  Jackson and Noah actually spent half the time in the Science Center walking around holding hands!

On Sunday when we were getting ready to leave these boys climbed into the drawer under the train table and Noah said "nigh nigh" with his blankie.

It was a perfect weekend of hanging out (and distraction from freaking out about getting 2 more babies!) although at one point I had Noah and Jackson both on my lap reading stories and since they are so close in size I was thinking, hmmm, this will be reality in another little while!

On Friday night the boys didn't sleep real well and every time I got up with them it took me a good half an hour to fall back asleep because I laid there thinking about all the implications of having twins... oy!