Marbles Madness and a weekend of fun

Lots of fun was had by all in this one-hour-short weekend. Let's recap:

Saturday - Eli & I went to Marbles Museum with Ryan & Carol while Daddy & Cole pal'd around. Eli & Ryan loved checking out all the exhibits. We barely got out of downtown before the St.Patty's Day parade started - shows how much I know, I didn't even know it was going on! Marbles is best described through pictures.

They had a cool area where you could build your own "car" and race them pinewood derby style down the ramp.

This was the Monster Truck that I made for Eli.

There was a sports area with a variety of sports. Here Eli & Ryan give hockey a go.

I managed to get a hockey helmet on Eli briefly. If it's not a bike helmet, he doesn't usually want anything on his head.

Future cyclist

Mommy & Eli riding in the Tour de France.

The boys tried the stationary bikes that, when you pedaled them, made the tops move.

Building a fort with the big blocks.

Eli can reach quite high.

Tool area - they had goggles, hard hats and working tools to use on wood pieces.

My little pirate in the lookout.

Eli enjoyed the pirate ship since one of his new favorite shows is 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates'.

Mommy & Eli in the ship.

Eli & Ryan firemen in the ambulance on their way to an emergency.

Cute little fire fighter

We worked some in the "garden" - planting and harvesting foods.

A basket full of veggies.

We played soccer for a bit with another little girl. I love Eli's sweet face here.

Jump, jump, jump on the trampoline. The sports / exercise area was great for burning off energy!

Jumping high.

Trying to be Surfer Boy

and getting wiped out.

The Eli $100 bill

This money area was great. The kids collected green balls (money) and took them to different stations to load them into the huge piggy bank.

When the piggy bank got full, it would dump the balls on the kids.

Eli had fun going to the teller up the stairs and sending his balls to the piggy bank. He must have gone up there 30 or 40 times.

Then we found this great "gun" that used air to shoot the balls into a net. I love his wind blown hair and funny face.

Jumping on the coins.

C-h-e-e-s-e!

Cole took a nap before we got home so we managed to get Eli to take one and then it was outside for some play time. A trip to the grocery store and we called it a day.

Cole had fun pushing Eli on top of the little car.

Sunday morning we played lazy for a bit, hanging around the house, reading the paper and doing some baking. We ran errands in the morning and tried to get the boys to nap after lunch. They were having none of it. I went for a walk with a neighbor and then we took them to Umstead to hike. We thought that if we wore them out, they would take a nap. Well they did but not until 5pm! Tim & I needed the break and quiet so much that we let them sleep a little too long (and we needed to get some things done). We got them up at 6:30 so of course, they gave us a hard time going to bed. It must have been 10pm before we got them to sleep. UGH! This is the first time that we've had issues with any time change. So even though the day was technically only 23 hours long, it felt more like 29! We survived and here's hoping for a restful night.