Solomon has been up to many tricks the last couple of weeks.  He played CandyLand with a couple of friends from the boys beds.  They scattered the cards all over the place.

The night before Gavin's birthday party he nibbled on one of Gavin's birthday cupcakes while drinking molasses through a straw and eating Oreos.

Here is Gavin's blue robot cake.

Unfortunately, Gavin forgot how to skate.  In all fairness, he has only roller skated one time before and it was two years ago, but he had trouble getting the hang of it again.  Here he is with his friend Sophia helping him.

Finally, he was up and skating but it took a few tears first.

The kids and I took a last minute trip to Ithaca, New York.  We had a great time!  The first day we were there we discovered downtown.  Austin stayed 'home' with his Nana but Gavin had fun and did a little Christmas shopping.

The next day we went to a children's science museum called the Sciencecenter.  The boys had an awesome time!  They loved the triceratops skull in the lobby.

Do you like Austin's smile?

They nicely supply the pennies for this thing and the boys played with it for quite a while.  You could change the direction the pennies rolled so we had a bunch of pennies rolling every which way.

Then they worked together to build a dam and watch the effects on the water.  Gavin was a little frustrated he couldn't stop the 'leaking' between the bricks.

Then it was time to play with light plastic balls in a vacuum. 

They had another duck racing water activity that was really neat.  It would take a while to explain it so I'm not going to get into it but the boys stayed here a long time.

Gavin felt the effects of magnets.

Then played with molecules.

Then drove to the moon.

They even had a little tide pool exhibit which was perfect since we have been learning about tide pools.  The boys got to touch and see hermit crabs and a starfish.

Austin found a friend in the gift shop.  His name is Charlie Jacob Old McDonald.

All in all we had a great time at the Sciencecenter and will definitely go again, hopefully in the summer because they have an amazing playground.

The next day we went to Stewart Park and saw dozens of geese and seagulls.

The boys rode on a merry-go-round.

The fun continued the next day with a trip to The Museum of the Earth, a geology museum that has a ton of fossils.

The boys had to smoosh pennies before we got to do anything else.  Gavin's penny has a mastodon and Austin's has a little dinosaur.

They had two containers full of rocks with fossils in them.  The kids put the rocks under a microscope to get a better look at the fossils, then they got to take one home.  Gavin probably looked at two dozen rocks before he found the perfect one.  Within five minutes he dropped it and it shattered...It's not easy to be six.

The focal point of the museum is the almost complete mastodon skeleton.  Or as Austin calls it, 'the gigantic elephant'.  I guess it's only missing a couple bones.  Some family near Ithaca went to put in a pool in their backyard and this is what they dug up.  Crazy. Never found out if they ever got the pool...

Then the boys practiced digging up fossils.

On our final day we walk up to Taughannock Falls.  It's up a 3/4 mile trail through a gorge and is gorgeous!  The walk is as great as the waterfall.  Here we are at the beginning of the trail.  This is the last little waterfall before the river flows into the lake.

In the summer you can walk up the river rather than on the trail but it was a little cold for that when we were there.  The water in the puddles was covered in ice thick enough for me to stand on.

Here were are at the end of the trail.  The boys were super impressed!

The spray from the waterfall had turned the viewing area into ice as well.

They were so impressed the willingly posed for a picture together!

Since we figured we had burned a lot of calories on that journey, we stopped at my favorite restaurant, Friendly's.  The boys got coneheads (just like I did when I was a kid).  Gavin's was an alien because he got pistachio ice cream.

Austin wouldn't stop eating long enough for a picture.

Solomon was up to his silly tricks even in our hotel.  He left the boys a gingerbread house kit and then some magic seeds.  Per instructions we planted the magic seeds (red and white tic tacs) in a bowl of sugar and we had candy canes in the morning!  Then we found him sleeping in a box of Kleenex in the tub.

Today it was back to our normal routine.  Gavin and I were going to take this week off but since we missed last week we are finishing up some stuff this week.  He finished his Language book and will finish his Letters and Sounds book tomorrow.  We read a couple more Civil War books.

The boys painted birdhouses to give to the neighbor for Christmas.

We had a crazy week and we are all tired but it's been fun!  Now it is a mad scramble to get ready for Christmas only a week away!