Chuck E. Cheese. 'Nuff Said.

Nana Cindy had the greatest idea: take the kids on their first Chuck E Cheese adventure! I have been asking Theo for awhile now, but he doesn't love crowds too much. I have not visited the big mouse since I lived in LA when the place consisited of a dark scary ball pit, and a stuffed animal stage show. I was a rotund little girl, and I could not get out of the ball pit. I cried. Screamed really. I had to be rescued by my dad. Hmm. An actual memory of him. Those sneak up on my once in awhile. Never went back into one of those ball pits.

My how things have improved at the old Mouse House! This trip was fantastic! Ben ran rampant from game to game, up and down the slide. He rode some of the rides (for a second before running onto the next thing), and loved getting on stage with Chuck. Nana Cindy chased him all around. THANK YOU! I took him over to the skee ball ramps and he tossed the balls in every lane but his own. Later he ran back over the skee ball area and stole a ball from a kid and chucked it across the whole game. He climbed into the basketball game and got a hold of the basketballs, too? How? Wild kid. I found him helping two cute little girls and their mom pick up their tickets, and he was gleefully saying, "MONEY!!!" He just had the grestest afternoon full of overstimulation one little 2 year old could imagine.

Hunter sits back and waits for the good stuff: pizza. He went on to eat madarin oranges, pineapple, crackers, and one and half slices of pepperoni pizza. He's 11 months old, people? What the heck? We watch Ben fearlessly run off...

Hunter says, "Mom, what the hell are these crackers? Where is the PIZZA?" Actually, he doesn't say anything at all. But he's darn cute, isn't he?

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Ben excitedly stated, "I go see Chuck E." and ran off. He climbed aboard the stage and just stood a little proud, and little self-conscious. He reminds me so much of myself here. He loved being up high, in front of everyone. He had this great mischieviousness to him, as if he knew he probably wasn't supposed to be up, and he LOVED that everyone could see he wasn't supposed to be up there. He also seemed to think it made him part of some kind of show. And he seemed to like that. (My mom is thinking in her head right now: Ben is Elvis re-incarnated, so of course he likes the stage. Why? When I was pregnant my mom had a preminision that I gave birth to the next Elvis, but he was a blonde-haired blue-eyed country singer. When Ben was born blonde and blue that meant my mom's prediction was right, of course. Dork, mom!)

I love the amount of joy in Hunter's face here!

At one point I glanced over to find Ben had climbed into this Atari game. He actually just climbed in and straddled the boy already seated. Isn't it funny how he just does whatever he wants? As his mommy, it sometimes breaks my heart because right now his innocense is so deep that he really thinks the world is just like Sesame Street where every one gets along and plays together. I hope to maintain that happiness for him as long as I can. Everyone seemed not to mind when Ben popped his little head into their games. Thank goodness.

Hunter dancing for the crowd. They have a projector that puts the kids' images up on the movie screen. Hunter was still too short, but he danced anyway.

Hunter fell in love with the big mouse. I was surprised by how much he enjoyed the dancing, music, and lights. He tried to pull Chuck's pants off, and wanted to get a hold of his little mouse hands, too. Or paws, or whatever little mice have.

Nana Cindy got Ben to go in this train up in the slide tower thing and look down at us.

Oh, and Ben made friends with this little girl, too.

It doesn't get more OUT than this. The ride home. Two very tired boys. Check out the Chuck E. doll in his lap. Yup. You guessed it. The Chuck E. doll joined Clue "all the people" in bed with Ben tonight.