First Half of the Trip

The beginning of the week found us trying to settle in to a short term routine while away from home. We have become accustomed to all four of us sharing a bedroom-hey I'm just happy that our hotel actually has a separate bedroom (not to mention a full kitchen!). Also, since Spencer's checkup last Friday, we were given the go ahead to start him on some rice cereal. After a stop at Target to get the cereal, I gave it a try on Monday. He wasn't sure what to do with it at first, but I think he's getting the hang of it. He still much prefers his bottle at the moment. We are only giving it to him once a day just to see how his bowels react to it. We are taking things slow and Spencer will actually be on cereal for the next 2 months before starting any other solid foods just so his intestines have a real chance to mature...such a different situation than with Avery! She was well on her way with cereal, fruits and veggies by six months. But, I'm not willing to take any chances and it's not like Spencer needs the fruits and veggies at this point! I'm a nervous wreck, though, and every time I feed him some cereal, I give his belly a little talk and tell it to make sure and digest the way it should:) For now, he's doing pretty well with it! Here's the little man taking his first bite:)

On Tuesday, Artie was anxious to get at some lobster-which is what they're pretty famous for up here. So I did some research and found a great little family place in Maine-and I even found a pretty good coupon for lobster! So we packed the kiddos up and made the short drive up to Maine.
Artie couldn't wait to dig in! He even managed to get in a cup of New England clam chowder:) Since I don't eat lobster (or any seafood, or any animal for that matter) I had to make sure the place had plenty for me to eat too. Luckily, this place had a huge salad bar-right up my alley! So Avery and I enjoyed some yummy salads-and really good pumpkin bread...and Artie got his Maine lobster (and chowder).
Avery normally is a handful when going to restaurants, but here she barely made a peep-it was a very much enjoyed time. Here she's playing with the sugar packs...she also had her own "big girl" glass of water which she dug ice cubes out of and washed her spoon in. She even managed to eat a lot off of her salad plate!
This is where we ate, Warren's Lobster House in Kittery, Maine.
This is total random pic, but I was pretty proud that Avery sat long enough for me to give her a double french braid! Mom, I hope you approve-she looked adorable:)

On Wednesday, Artie got off work a little early and we headed to the Children's Museum of New Hampshire. Avery has spent a lot of time in the hotel (since we only have one vehicle out here and our hotel is in walking distance of nothing!) so we decided to get her out to run and play! She has never been to any kind of museum so this was exciting. She threw two major screaming fits right of the bat-and this place isn't that big-sigh. But after that, she was pretty darn good!
Avery's driving the submarine...it was hard to get her away from this because she loves to drive anything!
This was a really cool part of the museum. They had a dinosaur dig where kids could actually pretend to be archeologists with shovels and brushes to find bones.
Check out those swings she's taking!
HIttin' the drums was a lot of fun!
This was one of the coolest exhibits. The different color panels played different music notes when you touched them-it was a hit with little kids...and big kids alike (ahem, Artie!)!
There was even a cute little place just for newborns to hang out!
Spencer was very entertained in front of the mirrors...and eventually he grabbed ahold of that purple spider in front of him:)
Me and my little guy:)
Avery very much enjoying the train table...and making new friends!
They had such a cool toddler area-this was probably one of Avery's favorite things. You just put the ball in the top and watch is wind it's way to the bottom!

After the museum, we headed back up to Maine to do a little shopping and have some dinner. We needed to find Mr. Spencer a winter coat since it got so freezing cold and all the poor guy had was a sweatshirt-mission accomplished! Then as we're driving back to the hotel we got pulled over twice-yes 2 times-within five minutes! The first time was in Maine and the second time was right as we crossed back to NH...it was to let us know that we had a headlight out-phew. Since we're driving a company car, we weren't really aware of it. The car is getting fixed as we speak so as to not get pulled over for that anymore!

The second half of our trip to come!