Bam Bam loves his legos.  He has a corner in our living room dedicated to lego building.

Our hope chest that used to serve as a nifty window seat, is now Lego central.

Its the perfect height for his building activities.  There are usually either space stations that he built adorning our hope chest or cars with lego people driving around.

Today, I was treated to a long period of time in the kitchen without interruption, so I could focus on making dinner.

I would peek in on Bam Bam and see him busily building something.

At last, he runs into the kitchen saying , “Mommy, Mommy, look what I built”.  At that point, I was going to say, “What an incredible Empire State Building”.  But, right after I said incredible, Bam Bam said “Rocket ship taking off for the moon!!”  So, I immediately changed my words in my head to say “incredible rocket ship”.  🙂

I had to snap a photo of this one.  This is one of the taller of his lego projects.

I’ve mentioned my love for legos before, and I still think they are the coolest toys going.

I also love our storage method – a fisherman’s tackle box.  Lots of compartments and easy to open and close.  Highly recommend.

Here’s the Empire State Building, er, Rocket Ship to the Moon!!

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to take the family up north to Sacramento to visit the California State Railroad Museum.

This place is really quite amazing with original, real life trains bestowing the museum’s floors.  There is one train there that gives you the feeling that the train is moving as you’re walking through it with lighting changes and train whistle sounds.

We decided to take Amtrak up to the train museum as the station in Sacramento is easily walkable to the museum.  The train is so darn fun with little ones.  Its also something a lot of us do not consider nowadays, but if you have a young family, it really is a great way to travel.

For Christmas, I finally broke down and bought myself a DSLR camera.  I was tired of seeing lots of parents taking action shots with the greatest of ease at sporting events.  The pictures are just so much crisper.  So, I finally broke down and purchased a DSLR, the Canon Rebel T4i, to be exact.

I’ve been tipping my toes into the world of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed in this past week, and decided to dive right in and try out the DSLR with the trains and pictures of Old Sacramento.  I really think just adjusting the settings after you take each picture is the best way to learn what your settings should be in different lighting situations.

This was our train coming to the station.  The train was probably going 60 miles per hour when I took the photo, but  with fast shutter speeds, freezing a moving object becomes so easy, as you can see.

Below are some photos of the incredible trains we saw at the museum:

Trains used to have badges on their cabooses like these…..

There also used to be a different china place setting used depending on the destination…..

The American River runs along Old Sacramento.  Caught a few shots of boats on the river…..

 Love these boats.  They reminded me of the Mark Twain boat at Disneyland.  🙂

Beautiful golden bridge crossing the American River……

Pretty flowers we encountered on our walk along the river……

Love this photo of Bam Bam throwing up leaves……..made possible by my DSLR.  🙂

Check out a train museum near you soon with the kiddos.  Lots of interesting stuff to learn and the kids have a ball!