Playing

Trying out his new pillow and blanket I made

Bounce U

I first saw Bounce U on Jon & Kate Plus 8 and I never realized that there is one about 15 minutes from our house. We took Aiden on Wednesday to Family Bounce Night and he loved it! They have a huge inflatable slide (seen below), a couple bouncy houses and 2 inflatable obstacle courses. It was quite a workout for Brian and I since Aiden couldn't climb everything himself, but it was a lot of fun.

Aiden and his trains

Mom-mom introduced Aiden to the Thomas Take-a-long trains a few months ago and he has loved them ever since! I swore I would never get into Thomas, but Aiden is fascinated by trains and Thomas is the most popular one around. Secretly, Brian and I have gotten excited when we are shopping somewhere and find a new train. Playing with these trains is by far one of the cutest things that Aiden does. He usually plays with them on the coffee table in the family room. He sits on his knees and pulls them around saying "choo-choo".

This is what I saw when I finished breakfast one morning

Goofball

Play & Lunch

Last week Aiden and I went to the mall to do a little shopping, but didn't have much luck finding anything. We needed to kill some time before lunch, so I took Aiden to the play place in the food court. He loved climbing on everything and watching all the other kids. After playing for awhile, we got lunch and ate at the "big boy" table instead of using a highchair. I can't believe he is getting so big!

Adventure Aquarium

On Saturday we went to the Adventure Aquarium in NJ. We left the house around 8:30 and had breakfast in the car so we could get there for when it opened. There wasn't much traffic so we made it to the aquarium by 10am. Aiden really loves fish, so we were hoping this would be a hit and it was. He was unsure at first about going near the glass, but when he saw other kids doing it, I guess he figured it was ok. I would say the shark tunnel was his favorite part, especially one little orange fish that seemed to stay in one place. Aiden would kneel down in front of it saying "ish" over and over. He also really enjoyed watching the sharks swim over top of us. However, I think the thing he enjoyed the most was being able to walk all around by himself. It wasn't super full when we got there, so we kind of lucked out and he was able to be "free" in a lot of the areas. It did get much more crowded around lunch time, but we ate and then left for Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's house for the afternoon. After a long morning at the aquarium and a lot more walking then he is used to, Aiden took a nice 3 hour nap. It was a wonderful day, and since he enjoyed it so much I think we are going to try Baltimore in the spring!

**The lighting was very dim in the aquarium, so it was tough to get real good pictures

Checking out the map

Self-portrait in the shark tunnel

Watching the sharks swim over our heads

His "ish" friend

The hippo

Touching a starfish

Waiting for dad to bring lunch to the table

Gift shop
(Grama & Grampa gave him spending money)

One Classy Kid

This is what Aiden was wearing the other day......classy, I know! He cried until I put the slippers over his footed PJ's, he wanted the chip clips attached to his shirt and then to top it off, he put on the beads that he got at our friend's house on New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year

Sledding

We got a little bit of snow last week, so while Brian was shoveling I decided to bundle Aiden up and try the snow again. This time he loved it! We went sledding in the front yard and then he would crash into a big pile of snow and laugh. He enjoyed everything about being outside and was very upset when it was time to go inside. Hopefully we will get at least one more big snow this winter so we can sled again!