National Museum of Natural History

We took a trip down to the National Museum of Natural History to see the new Hall of Human Origins. It was a pretty cool exhibit.

Paige and I posing in front of the elephant in the center of the museum:

Paige in the Hall of Human Origins sharing a camp fire with this bronzed ancestor:
I set her down for that picture right as a group of girls were walking by. The girls oohed and aahed over Paige and asked to take her picture. What can I say? She is pretty darn cute.

Paige checking out skulls with Daddy:

After we went through the Hall of Human Origins we spent a couple of minutes looking at dinosaurs.

As you can see in this (really dark, sideways) video, Paige was more interested in the floor than she was in the dinosaurs.

Oh well. She'll get more into museums as she gets older.

Museum with the Meldrums

In January, our friend Jaren came out to Washington, DC for some medical school interviews. We went on a trip to the National Portrait gallery with Jaren and his brother Eric who lives out here (but who we don't see nearly enough). We wandered around a couple floors of the Portrait Gallery, but didn't stay for very long. The museums out here are just way to big to do in one shot.

Jaren's contemplation look:

Here is Jaren educating Paige on popular culture; specifically, LL Cool J:

Paige trying to taste Eric's gloves:

Paige riding around on Daddy's shoulders:

Paige riding in her stroller looking at all the pictures:

At one point I took Paige out of the stroller and let her walk around on multi-colored tile ground. She loved it. She let out an excited little squeal and took of running. She loves walking through wide open spaces.

Thanks for the fun trip, Jaren and Eric. Let's do it more!

Birthday Party

Paige and I celebrated our birthdays together with a party. We had some friends over, ate tacos, cake, and ice cream.

Here is Paige all dressed up for her party:

Lots of friends came to party with us:

Josh and Christen (Henry was running around somewhere):

Eve and Baby Girl Fowles (Adam and Alex were there too):

Hugh and Tammy:

Chelsey, Tristen, and Harrison (Clay and Hyrum were there too):

Cohen:

We had two separate cakes. Christen made me a delightful pineapple/pudding cake, and I made Paige's cake from scratch. It looked funny, but it tasted ok. Paige had a 1 shaped candle, and I had delightful sparkler candles (that I couldn't blow out by myself).


After we blew out our candles we gave Paige her first piece of cake. She was unsure of it and didn't grab at it (which is weird because she usually grabs at everything).

"Why are all of these people staring at me?!"
We took her out of the highchair and I sat on the floor with her and the cake. She got right into it and then loved it.

She kept grabbing pieces of cake and running off with them.

We had such a fun party. Thanks for celebrating with us everyone!