Mason's belated birthday celebration at Port Discovery

Hannah's cousin, Mason, turned 1 earlier this month, and since we couldn't make it to Hagerstown to celebrate on the actual day, we bribed them with lunch and a trip to Port Discovery to get them to come to us the following week. Note to self: Saturday afternoon is not an ideal time to visit Port Discovery...the place was a madhouse. 

At Hannah's insistence, we headed straight to The Wizard of Oz traveling exhibit on the third floor first thing. Hannah has been obsessed with all things Emerald City since my mom and I went to see Wicked at the Hippodrome back in the fall (and she stayed home crying hysterically about being left out--sorry Kathryn!!). I picked up the original book the last time we were at the library, and we all read it together as a family in about a week. Now we're anxious to pick up the sequel when we trade in our current books for new ones.

Clay putting felt facial features on the scarecrow.

Mason walking around the spiral start of the yellow brick road (after knocking down the rainbow).

Hannah and Clay collecting eggs (presumably part of the farm where Uncle Henry and Aunt Em live??).

When Mason's running started to extend beyond the exhibit, my mom and Kim and I took him to Tot Trails where he was a bit more contained and us pregnant and overweight people (Kim excluded from both categories) could sit down and rest. While we did that, the daddies took the 3-year-olds to the Kid Works exhibit to run off their insanity.

Eventually, they all made it back to Tot Trails, and Hannah and Clay entertained themselves in the sand box for a while.

Clay was mesmerized by the falling sand...

When Hannah saw me snapping pics of Clay she tossed down her sand toy and cuddled up to her cousin, who remained mesmerized by the sand. She's really turned into quit the ham!

We ended our visit enjoying the plastic spaghetti-pork chop-cantalope sandwiches that the kiddos brought to us in the Tony's Diner exhibit.

Of all the kids I know, Mason makes the funniest faces. This one is not even a great example of some of the hysterical ways in which he contorts his cute little face, but it gives you a bit of an idea.

Soooo....if anybody ever wants to go to Port Discovery with us, we ended up upping our membership to get in 6 people (instead of 4) because it was cheaper to do that than it was to buy everyone individual day passes. If you want to get in our membership and help us take advantage of it, we always love company, especially if you, or your kid is willing to keep up with Hannah because I am moving slooooow these days.

Happy belated birthday to Mason!