Our Day at the Phoenix Children's Museum

Yikes, this is going to be a long post. There were just too many pictures- this selection is actually narrowed down!

We went to the Phoenix Children's Museum yesterday. I'm on fall break and Michael has Tuesday off every week, so we were hoping it would be a not too crowded kind of day. It's our new favorite place. I have really been looking forward to the weather cooling off a little bit so that we could get out of the house for some activities. The last time the weather was cool (a good 6 months ago) I felt like Spencer was just on the verge of being old enough to really go places and do things. Today was proof that he is finally old enough. We had the best time!

We started out the day with some bike rides through a car wash.

Then we moved on to some sand tables.This was fun until Spencer dumped sand all over his shoes and declared sand time "all done".
He was hesitant to paint this house, but once he got going he loved it. I have a feeling this house has about 780 layers of paint on it, hence the strange bumps and texture. After painting we made a Gingerbread man that is now proudly displayed on the refrigerator. Ah, baby art. This was one of the coolest parts of the museum. An entire forest made out of thousands of pool noodles. It really was very amusing and fun. We had to keep a close eye on Spencer otherwise it was easy to lose a 2-year-old in there. There are little reading spots all over the museum. We took a break and read "Who Pooped in the Sonoran Desert". Hilarious. Spencer would point at the pictures and say "poo poo"? Hilarious.
There was this awesome cactus that had a conveyor belt. You would stick lizards and spiders onto the belt with velcro and then crank it and the animals would go flying across the room.After all the noodle forest excitement we visited the room with all sorts of ball mazes and tubes. Spencer could have spent all day in just that room. He couldn't though, because he had to make a pizza in the kitchen. Looks pretty good, huh? There was even a fake fire glowing under the brick pizza oven. Michael made a pizza too. After the kitchen we visited the grocery story. Another of Spencer's favorites. He got to push the cart around like a maniac. Loaded up on groceries. And took them to the checkout. He even got to weigh some split peas at the bulk food bin. The stroller waited patiently in the parking area while we were shopping.All in all, I was very impressed with the museum. It cost $9 per person to get in and I was worried that it would be a big waste. We had so much fun, I would go back again tomorrow and pay another $9 . I think that calling it a Children's "Museum" is actually misleading. Children's "Awesome Indoor Play Center" is more like it. I'd highly recommend this place if you live in town or if you're visiting with kids. I'd say the best ages would be about 18 months to 4 or 5 years.

After we left the museum we stopped at a little sandwich place for lunch. Spencer ate his first Dorito. They grow up so fast don't they? It was a baked Dorito. Should that make me feel better, because it does.

After we got home and Ginger recovered from the excitement of us being home (she's gotten used to someone always being home with her and freaks out if we just go get the mail) a much needed nap was taken by the kids.
Finally, because yesterday was the 6th and it is ingrained in my brain to get "the shot" on Spencer's month birthday, I took some pictures of him before bed. He's 2 years-1 month old. How am I supposed to stop doing this? Because it's ridiculous to be taking pictures of your kid at 14 years-8 months and 14 years-9 months and 14 years- 10 months. You get the idea.
He's just so cute though. And our fall flannel sheets makes such a lovely backdrop.