ArtBeast, New Friends and Spaghetti Factory, OH MY!!

Last Friday, a blogging buddy, Darlena, came up to Sacramento to meet some of us.  I've been following Darlena's blog for over a year.  She has a beautiful family, but we especially love reading about her darling son, Brayden.

Isn't he a cutie?!?!

We first met at the ever-cool ArtBeast for some music, art and creative play.  John Michael looked quite at home on the drums.

A John Michael masterpiece. 
We love his painting so much that Doug wants to make greeting cards out of it.  :-)

John Michael loves to give his friends hugs.  Miss Gabby doesn't seem to mind.  Isn't she precious?!?!

At Spaghetti Factory, John Michael and Brayden took over the waiting room inside the old train station.  If you look carefully, you can see the front door is cracked open.  John Michael and Brayden discovered that if they pushed a bit, they would be able to escape. 
Let's just say these two will not be left alone -- who knows what kind of trouble they'd get into!

I didn't get everyone's photo, but I did get this cute one of John Michael feeding Sofia.  Her brother, Joaquin was in the stroller and Sheridan came later to join us just for dinner.

Just the moms... me, Darlena, Debbie (she came to say hi), Sheree and Jennifer.

And finally, the evening ended with a nice bowl of ice cream.  Besides meeting up with his friends, this was for sure John Michael's favorite part!

Friday Fun at ArtBeast

After what turned out to be a busy week, it was nice to let John Michael and Greta relax at ArtBeast this morning. The Sacramento County Infant Program sponsored the morning and we decided to take advantage of some fun.

The last time we visited ArtBeast was in July when it was very hot outside and John Michael was only standing, not walking. His level of play has increased greatly since then and this morning he spent time in most areas of the studio. Sand play, water play, imaginative play, climbing up into a kid-sized 2 story loft, parachutes and tubes, coloring and glue, musical instruments and a mock space shuttle. It was all very fun, but they were very content playing with the Moon Sand and later the outdoor sand and water for quite a while.

It was a little chilly this morning, mid-5o's, but the sun came out just in time for some outdoor water and sand play. John Michael and Greta loved this station and could scoop water and sand for what seemed like an hour.

Here's the mock space shuttle. I should've taken a photo of the outside. It's so cool and only has room for 2 kids. There are lots of dials and knobs and the steering wheels turn as well as go in and out. My little astronauts literally had to be pulled out to go to lunch!

BLAST OFF!

ArtBeast!

We took the morning off from all chores and therapies and headed to midtown to check out ArtBeast Studio on the recommendations of three friends.

John Michael and Greta had a blast. Within seconds of letting John Michael try his hand at painting (I'm bummed I didn't get a photo), he grabbed the white paint loaded brush from my hand and put it in his mouth. If I didn't have to go wash out his white tongue and lips, I would've snapped a photo. He reminded me of some tribal boy or an old-fashioned black and white film actor.

Abandoning the art room for John Michael until he's a little older, we went out back to the shady courtyard. He quickly decided to (literally) try the sand and rocks. The next photo shows him trying to scrape sand off his tongue.

ArtBeast Studio is a dynamic, super-fun, new hands-on art exploratorium for children 6 and under. It is located in an old wooden house, maybe from the 1920's?, and boasts three stories of activities to encourage creativity, including music, pretend play, puppet theatre, a stage for the "actors", doll house loft and kitchen play area, art and craft tables with clay, paper, collage, paint, etc., upstairs dance studio with tumble mats for infants and a separate room for toddlers & preschoolers, and an outdoor courtyard for more water play to wash babies, scoop sand and gravel, and to bang these old pots and pans as loud as their heart's desire.

John Michael LOVED banging on the huge drum. I'm pretty sure he'll be a drummer some day! The metal structure behind him is made up of aluminum tubing, dryer hoses, large tomato sauce cans and other aluminum objects to make a cool hideout.

Greta loved playing the guitar and performing on the stage. I couldn't believe how much fun it was! We stayed 2 hours, left for lunch at a nearby restaurant, and returned for another round of play for Greta while John Michael napped in my arms.