Introducing: Atlie Claire!

Atlie Claire

Born October 27, 2010 at 4:04 am

7 lbs 13 oz

21 inches

Big Fun in Small Places

Last week, I was 39 weeks pregnant and Branyon had to take a trip to Alabama. While Branyon was away, my family came in shifts to watch over us. While waiting for Branyon's return flight, we headed over to Callahan's, a small-ish general store in Southeast Austin. With live animals, fun western stuff and cute housewares, it's always a fun store to peruse, especially on Saturday's when they usually have some sort of live entertainment.

Branna Practicing in the Saddle (sorry about the belly)

This time, we had a super special treat since a group brought Ivory, the albino python, an African tortoise, and a blue tongued skink! The picture makes it look like Branna might have been a little intimidated, but she was anything but that. If she could have, I think she would have held the snake.

After getting her fill of reptiles, we headed inside to listen a Polka band. She loved doing the Polka with Ernie and wanted to go faster!

Diggin' Up Bones

Recently, our preschool mom's group had a play date the Austin Nature and Science Center's Dino Pit. It had been years since I'd been (I think Jess was Branna's age) so I didn't really remember much about it. I'm so glad that we got the opportunity to go back.

The before entering the Dino Pit, the Center has a small hands on activity area that the kids enjoyed playing in. The exhibit going on right now is called "A View From Space". (I really enjoyed the exhibit, too!)

I think the kids mostly enjoyed exploring the small indoor cave. But, they were relieved to know that that wasn't the Dino Pit. :)

The Dino Pit was really just a big sand box, but the kids had a blast! Before they got too dirty, I got a shot of Branna and her friend entering the Pit.

The Pit had all sorts of digging tools for the kids to uncover dinosaur "bones". (It was really just concrete replicas.) Here is Branna working on excavating a T-Rex:

When they got tired of digging for bones, there was plenty of sand to dig in for other things...