A BONUS Monday

Monday, December 17:  I picked Aidan up at the usual time this morning and headed off to Meijer to pick up a few extras I had forgotten to purchase last week. Baby Aidan makes an ordinary trip to the grocery store ...

 ... VERY entertaining ...

 He delighted each and every shopper that passed by ...

 ... AND his grandma's heart too! We shopped around, picked out our items, visited the fishies, and then we were out of there!

 Aidan slept on the way to my house, so we took a little detour and I took a pretty drive around Rockford and Cannonsburg and beyond to give our little dear some extra snooze time. He did NOT want to wake up even after 30 minutes of this ... but ... I took him to my house anyway.

 Aidan slowly got his bearings ... some yummy food was helpful ... and then he was off and busy for the rest of our time. This kiddo LOVES to play and explore. Isn't it fun to watch little ones at work in their play?

 Aidan found where I had hidden the train container, so we did trains for quite awhile. He is very enthusiastic about trains!

 Before I knew it, our time was all used up here at my house and TODAY WE got to pick Brendan up from school! Dylan and Kelly had a Christmas party to attend ... so I got to have the boys together for awhile.

 We went downtown to the public museum. I wanted to show Brendan the children's train that Dylan used to ride when it was suspended on a monorail from the ceiling of the basement over at Herpolsheimer's. It was a favorite thing to do at Christmastime and it actually started out as a holiday only kind of event. Anyway, Herpolsheimer's is no more and this little "train" has been restored and is now "displayed" (although not working) at the museum. Brendan looks absolutely exhausted in this picture. School days are LONG days for him.

We enjoyed the LEGO model of downtown Grand Rapids again this year ... 

 And we put our quarter into the Coinola piano ...

 THEN we went up to the second floor TOY exhibit and played for quite awhile. It was a little bit tricky because Brendan found a place where he could BUILD--and he is quite an intense builder--but Aidan was naturally not interested in waiting for the building project to be complete ...

 ... so he and I wandered around while I kept my eye on Brendan ...

 This is a very fun exhibit ... so child friendly, and it was not at all crowded!

 Both boys enjoyed this race-car set-up ... Aidan LOVES cars.

 Brendan played surgeon and did a very good job getting this guy's bones removed. He was especially humored by the names of the bones and the corresponding bone model--i.e. knee cap is shaped like a baseball cap, Adam's apple is shaped like an Apple, etc.

 Naturally, we rode the carousel ...

 Aidan still will have NO part in riding any of the horses ... he stays buckled in his stroller the entire time.

After the museum closed, I asked Brendan if he wanted to get something to eat over at Chik-fil-A but he said he would rather eat at CULVER'S! I didn't even offer that as an option--YES! I would 10x rather eat at Culver's ... so we did. Aidan ate my fries and helped me drink my tea. We had a rip roaring time in the restaurant laughing and playing together, eliciting Aidan's little belly laugh. Ah, THIS is life.