Adventures in Babysitting

A couple of weeks ago Reece and I got to tend Reece's sister's kids while she and her husband went to education week down at BYU. We would tend from the time we picked them up from school till they went to bed at night. I wanted to do things Karin style (karin my active and amazing sister) and take the kids on fun activities to keep 'em busy and to wear them out. So I planned three fun filled days where I would pick them up from school, feed them a snack in the car while we drove to our activities, and then tried to eat somewhere fun for dinner every night as well.

Day 1: We took the kids to the Children's Museum at the Gateway. We shopped, played, pretended, and learned for a couple of hours until the place closed. We were kinda sad that we didnt make it to the upstairs and explore the activities up there as we were busy with the downstairs. Guess there will have to be a next time. We did make it to the helicopter on the roof though, there was a control station and a radio so that you could communicate with whoever was pretending to flying the helicopter and the control room. The kids loved it....so did Reece. After, that we took them to run through the fountains down at the end of the mall. We had brought their swimsuits and towels. Elliott had a blast screaming and running through the water....Audrey was more timid and would only go in when Reece went with her. The anticipation of when and where the water would come up killed her. But after getting thoroughly soaked we changed into dry clothes and had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. There the kids got Italian sodas and little pizzas, but they seemed to eat all of MY salad instead of their meals. But I couldn't complain....when do kids get that excited over salad? ever?

Day 2: we went to the Natural History Museum at the U of U. We saw the glow in the dark rock exhibit that my geologist grandpa helped put together, and then learned how crystals are made. I still need to make sugar crystals with the kids like I promised (we just were too busy having fun to do everything) we will do it dont worry. We also learned about the wildlife in Utah, what the earth is made of, and about the life and evolution of Dinosaurs. Kate brought Nora, who she was tending, so we had a play date. Nora kept looking for the "Shark" but she was meaning the shark she sees when she goes to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. But we found her something she liked just as much.... the dinosaur eggs and babies. We also loved all the kids reactions when we fed the allosaurus nickels. When you feed the dinosaur he growls and talks in a kinda creepy voice. The older kids thought it was hilarious but Nora did a full body shake of terror the first time she heard it. But she got used to it and wanted to do it over and over....I must have donated like 20 bucks entertaining those kids!

     But after that we went to liberty park and fed the geese. Nora kept wanting to hug the geese and we had to keep chasing after her to keep her from doing it. She just had a lot of love to share I guess. After all the bread was gone we played catch with frisbees and balls. We then went to the Myan for dinner. It was the first time for all of us and it was pretty fun. The atmosphere is really elaborate and the divers that would perform for you every half hour were cool. The kids loved it. 

Day 3: We went to the zoo! I was sooo excited as I havent been for so long and I am totally obsessed with animals. I made all the kids bags full of goodies. They each had a book I make with a pictures of an animal on top of each page and then some space to answer the questions "what am I?", "where am I from?", "what do I eat?" ,"what do you like about me?" ,"what do you not like about me?", a cool animal print mechanical pencil, snacks and a water bottle, and the best part....... a disposable camera. I told the kids that they could take pictures of whatever they wanted and to take ALL the pictures on the camera before we left the zoo. I took a pictures of each kid on thier own cameras so when we got them developed we could tell whose was whose. They were so excited and were taking pictures left and right. It was fun to see what they were choosing to take pictures of. Half way through we had to have a talk about saving the pictures for things that we would see later on as well as not using the flash when there is a glass cage. 

    We got to see the bird show, ride on the carousel, and finish with a train ride. The kids were really great about stopping and filling out their books. The animals were awesome. I adored all the little monkeys, I want one for christmas for anyone who was wondering. haha. I was so determined to see all the animals in all the kids' books that I really wore everybody out. After, we went to Costco where we ate hotdogs while our pictures were getting developed in 1 hour photo. The kids loved looking through their pictures in the car on the way home. I saw a lot of flashes reflected in glass and some fingers that made it in the shots but I loved them all all the same. It was a great day.

This was probably my second favorite animal that I saw. It was hilarious with its buck teeth and flab hangin over its rock as it was surveying its domain.

This was my favorite animal. It was ironic that as I was telling the kids that I wanted one of these for christmas, Taylor was reading out loud the facts on the cage where it mentaioned why these wouldnt make a good pet. Dang it. Thats ok, Reece got me a stuffed animal version from the japanese zoo where I first fell in love with red pandas.

proof that our activities were effective. Thanks Meffords for a fun week.