Afternoon at the Children's Museum

We just completed week one of Anna's three week Fall Intersession. That means she gets three weeks off from school. Although I enjoy having more time with her, we're all feeling a little out of sorts getting used to a new routine for these few weeks. But we've been trying to do some fun things and take advantage of the fact that she's not in school most of the day. One of the things she really wanted to do was check out one of the Children's Museums in our area that we haven't been to before. So today we drove over to the Bloomington/Normal area to visit the Children's Discovery Museum. What a fun place! The exhibits are really interesting and well kept, and it was just the right size for us to spend a few hours there.

One of Norah's favorite areas was the water play.

Anna loved the grocery store. She worked the checkout counter, bakery counter, AND the deli counter. All for one customer (me!).

Norah is admiring the image of herself she made in this thing. I don't know what it's called, but the girls loved it!

They had this climbing structure that was suspended over the entrance. I think it looked more fun than it really was. Some of the spaces were pretty tight and it was hard to find your way out once you got in. But it was something different that we had never seen before.

They had an elaborate puppet theater, and you could even design your own puppet.

This was one of my favorite things--painting on a window! You paint whatever you want, then you squirt it with water, squeegee it off, and start over. Brilliant! The girls love to paint, but I am always reluctant to do it because it's messy and they go through lots of paper and I run out of places to let the paintings dry. But this is so much better!

We found an ice cream store/coffee shop to visit after the museum. Norah does not mess around when she eats an ice cream cone.

We really enjoyed our time together today, and this place is such a great find! In my opinion, it was better than the Children's Museum in Denver. We'll definitely go back!