Kansas City: Days 4 & 5

Well, Wednesday started off at about 8:00 for us. Not too shabby, I guess. Easton was being very nice and was saying, "I want to go see the dancing song. Yes, please, Mommy." So, with J in the shower the boys and I bolted for the animatronic forest friends. When we got there it wasn't playing--I don't think anyone had gone to see it (it should start at 8:00). So, I asked about it and the lovely staff turned it on just for us. Yay!

After all that we headed to breakfast at a place in The Legends area again called Hash House a Go Go. That's seriously what it was called. We had this idea to not eat at places we could go to back home...Krispy Kremes apparently excluded. Anyway, I wanted to let Dalton sit in a restaurant high chair for the first time. I just felt bad that he always seemed to be in his carseat...so in a highchair he sat:


And Easton was in one too playing with sprigs of "Christmas" trees a.k.a. rosemary.


After breakfast (which was only so-so) we headed into downtown K.C. to the Crown Center area. Hallmark is headquartered there hence the "crown" part...ya know, Gold Crown... Anyway, they have a little shopping center. The boys are ready to hit the shops:


They had a Christmas store where I bought my nutcracker for 2007...it's an M&M. It will remind me of this year and all the M&M bribes for napping and pottying and such. Good times. Anyway, next door there was a neat toy store. I kept tucking away Christmas ideas. Easton enjoyed their Thomas train table:


And D with the giant penguin:


Then we headed outside to the actual fountain area. City of fountains, you know. So we of course posed for some pics:




Not being able to get quality sleep is starting to catch up with a certain someone:


But he could hold it together pretty well:


This one made me laugh out loud when I saw it...the kicky foot was soooo unintentional:






The way life is sometimes:




Word on the street, well, on the sign, was that there would be a musical fountain show at noon. We had some time to kill so we headed back inside and posed for this picture:


And I think J snapped this one while Dalton waited for his turn at a diaper change:


But then it was back outside for the show:

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And our first attempt at a vacation pic of the 4 of us:


Watching the show:






After a milking:


I told you the kid was worn out:


After the show it was back inside the shopping center and we hit up the really cool Crayola store.




It had a lot of super cool products but also places to test them out:

We didn't buy anything.

And, as I mentioned, Hallmark is here so they have a visitor's center. We did not really want to go there but were trying to fill up the time till Jason would be hungry for lunch. So we went inside only to take my picture of me "holding" their Emmy:


Then it was lunchtime. We went to Fritz's Railroad Restaurant (a burger joint) where you call your order via a phone at your table. Then a small train that whizzes around the top of the restaurant actually delivers your food to your table! That part sounded so cool. It was only a little cool in reality. Easton liked it okay. He had a few fries and bits of burger bun for his lunch. Sad, really.


Dalton got to do his second high chair of the day:




Kids under 12 got a free engineer hat. Although their service was kinda crappy, no one would even look at Jason when he went up for a water refill. But, whatever. I asked if we could have a hat and they let us. Good thing I had some under twelvers with me, otherwise I would've had to cough up 25 cents for this bad boy:


We got back to the hotel and the plan was for Easton and Daddy to swim. I wanted to get some pictures with the regular camera though, so Dalton went for a Snugli ride and we did that briefly:






They have this gigantic bucket at the top of their "treehouse" that dumps, like, 1000 gallons of water over every 5 minutes:

I never was under for it but J and E did it once. I guess it kinda hurt. :)

Waiting to take some pics of J & E getting off the slides:


There they are!


Dalton had a nap while the other half of the family stayed in the waterpark. I had Jason pick a place for dinner and he came up with a nice Italian restaurant that was supposedly kid-friendly. We snapped a couple of pics on our way out the hotel door:




And then Easton fell asleep in the car. He didn't wake up. The restaurant was kid-friendly in that they offered us a booth so E could keep sleeping:

He never woke up...till almost 2:00 in the morning.

It would've been really nice if both the kids would've cooperated. It was almost like we were on a date, not having to tend to Easton at all. But, Dalton "spoke up" a bit and needed some Dad time:


Ugh, as I said, Easton woke up at nearly 2 a.m. and was up for almost 2 hours. It was a little rough but oh well. It was the worst of it, that's for sure.

The next morning was our last time at Great Wolf's waterpark before we had to check out. We wanted to make the most of our time so we had Krispy Kremes from the hotel again. Easton yakked after 2 bites. Lovely. But he's clearly known for that. Not sick. So, we brought the digital camera with us and we all went swimming:




Climbing the stairs to get to the top of the slides:


Me and D would just wait at the bottom:




Easton can only float with the life jacket (or with help!):

They're in the hot tub. We're looking on:


A montage of Easton at the waterpark:

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Time to go!


We checked out of Great Wolf and headed over to the Truman Sports Complex to see the Royals and Chiefs stadiums. J is in all of these, you might have to look pretty hard though:






On our way to Crown Center again we noticed a bunch of stairs leading somewhere. We didn't know where exactly but we got out of the car and hiked up 'em anyway:


Turns out we were at the Libery Memorial and Museum...don't know how we missed that! See how tall it is!?!? We didn't do the museum at all (a WWI museum) but we did explore the memorial a bit and the views it offered of downtown Kansas City:










Easton picked out some leaves while I nursed Dalton atop the memorial:


Jason took this one to make it look like a little guy all alone in a big city:


After that we were SO HOT and we headed back to Crown Center to go to the Crayola Cafe. It sounded fun but it was poo. K.C. must not be known for their waiters and waitresses. Oh well. Easton wouldn't touch his mac and cheese. It was pretty icky. I ended up eating it because my own food was too spicy for mild little me. See this is how much fun we didn't have there:


But Dizzle did fine...he can make anywhere work for him:




Well, that's not entirely true...we did end up putting D in a high chair to keep him happier. "What's the hi sign?"


At that point I had to get Dalton to sleep. We headed to a deserted part of the shopping center and I nursed him under his blanket till he fell asleep. Then I kept him covered in the blanket in hopes of keeping him asleep:


It worked for a little bit while we headed to the coolest place for kids in K.C. and it's free: Kaleidoscope. We soooo would've paid to do something like this. It is seriously so awesome. Hallmark hosts/sponsors it and you go into this Dr. Seuss-esque place that just has all these art stations and you just go to town creating things. Easton colored something and then had it made into a puzzle! There was so much cool stuff! Even a room with blacklights with glow in the dark paints and markers. You can't just go whenever you feel like it. They have organized sessions for the 5 and up crowd but they have 40 minute family sessions for the young'uns. We were so impressed with the place. Here is video of J panning the scene, plus the blacklight stuff...it's short...don't be scared

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And some still shots...
Jason and Easton practicing cutting at a large bug being ridden by a cowboy:


Just look how much fun they're having:


The "picnic" table (notice the condiment and chip bag themed marker holders) where they made the puzzle:


This was a cool booth where the kids could go in and press buttons kinda like a DJ...different musical sounds and beats and such. Too cool!


And Baby D woke up:


That Diddlebug has always got the happiest stroller feet:


Putting a bunch of Halloween stickers on some fancy paper:


Seriously, poor Easton was so exhausted afterwards...all that swimming and no napping:


And here is just one small example of his snoring:

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He can be worse. Much worse. He's not even doing a whistley exhale there.

The other night after he puked I went in to check on him before I went to bed and I briefly freaked out because he wasn't snoring! I had to hold my hand right in front of his face to feel his breath and make sure he was still alive. Scary. Anyway...

We left crown center again and headed to our new hotel for the rest of our stay. An Embassy Suites in Overland Park. A suburb of K.C. Dalton was happy:


But, really, when isn't he happy?


Returning the baggage cart with Easton inspecting for any loose carry-on:


And a fun game with Dalton in our heavily mirrored 80s style suite:

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Then it was time for bed. Easton slept on the sofa bed in the "living room" part of the suite. He did great. Dalton started out out there so we could watch TV and stay up a little later than the kids. Our plan was to move him in with us (he had a Pack & Play again) once he woke to nurse. So we did. It went well.

That is the end of Wednesday and Thursday. Just a few more days and 500 more pictures to go :)