Hands On House

On Friday 2/24, the Hands On House Children's Museum was having a special day where up to four children were free with a paying adult after 4 pm. Shawn & I talked about it, and he said he'd prefer to stay home with Ryan and let the older boys have some fun. So, I invited my friend Lisa to go with her daughter Isabella. Sometimes her husband works on Fridays, but on this particular Friday he had off but stayed home to paint their nursery.

Typical admission is now $8.50 for people ages 2 and over, so it was a fun way to see the museum that's close by for cheap. We got there at 4:30 pm, and I took Ryan along with me until Shawn came after work to take him home. I couldn't find my camera before we left (DOH! Here it was hidden on the desk beneath some paperwork we had been doing). So, my pictures are from my iPod which isn't nearly as high quality.

Thankfully Lisa had her camera and shared her pictures with me. The first stop was right inside the entrance door where Caleb rang the "doorbell" and they opened all the doors to see what was inside.

Then they ran to see what was in the tree house and all the ants and bugs underneath.

Next stop was the construction zone, where they rolled rocks and picked up things with the bulldozers and equipment.

Unfortunately, the face painting area was a mess, so we didn't go there but the kids did start fishing, which was fun. They would catch these fish with the velcro heads. :)

I loved the excitement on Caleb's face when he finally caught a fish. It took a little while for them to get the knack of it, but they loved fishing!

After catching enough fish to feed everyone, they moved behind them to the snow fort area. Here they began with the foam balls in having their very own snowball battle. Then they built a fort together out of the foam blocks.

Next it was corn pickin' time! Here's my little husker with his ear of corn.

For the older kids, there were lists of how many dozen ears of corn were needed to fill the picking order.

The kids got right to work pulling the ears of corn off the wall and then putting them back on (with the velcro).

They had baskets to put the corn in that you picked. :)

Then Caleb decided to ride the pig. What's a farm without one?

Still not full from the fish or corn, we headed to the pretend grocery store next. I gave the boys their shopping list. Joshua followed it for a long while, but then he decided that he wanted to fill up his basket with crabs. :)

Caleb wanted one of EVERYTHING that was there, starting with the produce.

Ryan helped himself to a little green pepper and was content to play with his older brothers running around the store having fun.

Isabella's favorite part was doing the check-out. I was SO impressed by this area. Each food item did have a barcode to scan, so when the kids would turn on the scanner, it would beep and the item and price were displayed on the screen for them to see. Neat-o!

For the older kids, there were math problems like how much money would you need for XYZ items, etc. My kids were content to go fill up their shopping baskets and then check out, then putting everything back on the shelves to clean up and start the process over again (isn't that sort of like what we do - take food off shelves, check out, put it in bags and then go home and put it on new shelves?).

There was also a sandwich making area with plastic food items. The boys had fun making their own sandwich concoctions.

When Joshua had finished all his grocery shopping, he said he wanted Isabella to play check out girl for him. We cracked up! Izzy loved it, and Joshua was having fun being the shopper (like Mommy & Daddy) rather than the laborer. Haa!!

The store was starting to become a little more crowded, so we decided it was time to head to the dress up area. I think the kids could have stayed here all night if we wouldn't have encouraged them to explore new areas!

Caleb dressed himself in this baseball uniform first. How adorable is that? This is one time I really wished I had my better camera!

Joshua's first pick was a tiger outfit. :)

I'm not sure what Isabella was, but she was LOVING it! They walked upstairs into the pirate ship part, and here is Isabella steering the ship while Joshua raised the mast. Then they'd all switch and take turns doing a different activity on the ship. FUN!

I saw this U.S. Mail hat and couldn't resist putting it on baby Ryan. After all, both my parents worked for the post office. Isn't he adorable? I immediately thought of the song "Please, please, Mr. Postman..."







And since the kids were all off playing and having a great time, why couldn't we have fun with some of the dress-up items?

And baby Ryan had to have some more cute things put on, right? Praise God he's so easy going!

 

I glanced at my watch and saw it was later than 5:30 - where was Daddy? I looked at my phone and realized I didn't have a single bar of reception. In talking to the front desk gals, that's intentional so moms stay with their kids and play, but it meant that I had missed Shawn's call. I walked outside the building in the misty rain to call him, and he came from our house (which is close by, praise God!) and picked up the Schnook, who was pretty well done with the Hands On House. Bye-bye, baby!

While I was gone, Lisa stayed with the kids and everyone did another wardrobe change. I loved all the fun stuff they had to dress up in!

Joshua now wore the baseball uniform.

I took a picture of the gang together before we left the make-believe area to see what else we could see.

One thing we saw was more people coming in! One of them was my sister Jen with her five kiddos, along with her friends Jeff & Mary and their sons. Here's Joshua & John sorting eggs at the egg/chicken station.

Caleb & Isabella were right behind them in the tractor. :)

Then we went to the germ station. This was another one that they loved, as usual. You get to turn it on and push a button to knock out germs. Then there's all these notes about how you can knock out germs by washing your hands, using sanitizer, using a tissue when you sneeze, etc. The kids would take turns on this since it was a two-player game.

Finally we went to the back part which is on recycling and science-type activities. Some of it was above the heads of my kids' ages, but some of it they were able to grasp. One area was about making patterns with molecules. They at least understood the patterns part. 

One place had a game where you put an item in and it would tell you to re-use it or recycle it, and then you put the piece in that area. Caleb & Isabella are playing it in the photo above as Lisa snaps a picture.

In these pictures, my niece Emma and Joshua are 'cleaning' the machinery.

At the back of the room was a bunch of tubing hooked on with magnets. You are to put the tubes in such a way that the ball keeps going down the trail. It was more difficult than it looked, but the kids LOVED it once we got it working.

We spent a LONG while there. I saw a few other folks I recognized. But, for it being a special night, it really wasn't all that crowded. I had expected a lot worse!

We ended out the night looking briefly at the mail area (where the kids can deliver packages to the correct address on the mailbox). The kids had no interest, it seemed. Finally, they decided to decorate the snowmen with the hats, gloves, scarves, etc.

Caleb told me he was VERY thirsty then, and I knew they were probably all about done. It was SO hot in that place. I felt like it was a sauna. So, we decided that it was a great time to depart.

We had a great time!