Saturday, July 25, 2009

Tacoma Children's Museum Fun

For something new and different, we decided to check out the Tacoma Children's Museum today. We had a little trouble finding it though because for some reason I thought it was on the main drag with all the other museums downtown, but in fact it was up the hill a bit on Broadway tucked away as a shop amongst other shops. Needless to say, we found it though and parked a bit of a distance away and walked down to the museum. They had various little areas to explore and Josiah and Daddy made a robot man in the art room with magnets. Josiah was very proud of his creation! He said that the "hands had to be square " for whatever reason, and so they are.

They also had this exhibit around a story from Indian heritage about a coyote and raven, which we incidentally didn't read, but saw pieces of the story around the exhibit that were interactive. They had little costumes also for the kids to wear and Caleb really took to wearing this raven costume around for a bit. We put it on him for the picture and thought he would want it off right away but gave his little "AHHH" sound indicating he wanted it back on! He trudged around in it and then eventually took it off himself.

Daniel on the other hand did not really like to wear the coyote costume that Daddy brought for him to wear. And in case you are wondering why a coyote has feathers....well that had something to do with the story that we didn't read and the Indian legend regarding the raven and the coyote. Daniel looked super cute in it though, but immediately worked to get it off as you see here right as it was put on.

This was a popular part of the exhibit where the raven went up to put the sun in the air (another part of the story) and the kids got to crank up this dial that made the raven fly up and then it would come back down by itself. The boys were pointed at the raven coming down in this shot.
In another area, they had set up a kid-sized famer's market area complete with a store with many plastic fruits and vegetables, a restaurant area with plates/bowls to "eat," a place to garden and harvest the foods and other things like that. This is Daniel discovering the cash register and saying, "Whooah," when he pressed the open button and it came flying out into his face. David's quote was, "It was worth the price of admssion to see that face." Daniel frequented the cash register many times afterward and also made a gigantic mess of the kitchen area by throwing all the plates and bowls onto the floor. And now you know why we have a gate blocking OUR kitchen area. Another funny note here in the kitchen was they had a bucket stapled to the wall labled, "The Slob Bin" for those plastic fruits and veggies that ended up being tasted by little mouths. Needless to say, this slob bin was awfully full when we left the museum!

Caleb-bee had fun painting and after his first couple brush strokes on the paper, he shoved the yellow paint brush in his mouth and got a nice taste of the paint. Ick! He was a real mess after a bit and even after we washed him up and brought him elsewhere, he managed to sneak back to the paints for another round when David and I were occupied with the other two.

Josiah really got into the farmer's market area and had the best time "gardening" with the little kid's tools and "preparing" a plum dinner for all of us. He went over to the fruit area with some bowls and kept remarking, "This is hard work!" as he prepared our food. He brought over 5 bowls for all of us and I got more plums he said because, "Mommy has a baby in her tummy." Eating for two I guess, right? He was SO proud when we all sat down to "eat" the meal with him. We even prayed beforehand and then pretended to enjoy our plums together. He absolutely loved it!! Afterward, we went to a sandwich shop right down the road nearby and had some lunch. The sandwiches were absolutely fabulous (though a little spendy) and Josiah had a piece of pizza made with a whole wheat crust which was ALSO super good (we had little tastes of it).

Rather then trek back up the hill with the stroller, the boys and I waited across the street at the water fountain area and David went back to bring the car down to us. Josiah had a blast putting his hand in the water and fountain sprays as we waited. The twins were distracted enough by the spouting water to remain happy and content strapped in the stroller until Daddy came back. It was a fun outing and one we may do again in the future. Yeah for fun family time!

1 comment:

The Morrissey Family said...

Oh my goodness Heather! You have had quite a month!! What a fun, busy family and on top of it all you are dealing with morning sickness- what a SUPERMOM!!!