Kid's Day!!

This morning the gym was packed out again, so Scott and I were forced to take it to the streets. We had a great 1 hour walk, we skipped through the golf course, getting to look into everyone's backyards and huge houses! The backyard pools with their rockwork was amazing - it was fun to see!
When we got home we fed the kiddos from the yummy 2.00 watermelon and fresh California strawberries! Then we headed off to Mesa, part of Phoenix about 30 minutes away, to go to the "Phoenix Youth museum". This museum was an art museum that was soooo cool. Right now there is a fairytale exhibit on at the museum. The kids could: make hats with big white paper bags, stickers and stamps,
put on huge hats and go into a room where there was a blacklight and Alice in wonderland things painted on the walls, with a tea party set up on the table. (play dishes, play bread with various bugs glued to them, a teapot with a duck head on it...)
dress up as various characters in little centres, each complete with hooks of costumes and different versions of each fairy tale. Little Red Riding Hood had red capes and little baskets, as well as rubber wolf masks and black capes. The 3 pigs had piggie hats and 3 little wooden houses on hinges, cinderella had dresses, shoes, stick horses, and brooms. There was a section with tutus, flower head bands, wings and a whole bunch of frog puppets on lilly pads.
There was also a really cool tablefull of wooden blocks to build a castle, along with little wooden dolls, horses, dragons, etc. Also lots of art around - photos of different fairy tales, art pieces of different fairy tales, etc.
There was also a baseball display set up that I didn't really get around too as Anika was stuck in fairy tale land most of the time, but the girls did come out dressed as baseball players and concession workers at one point, and I know there was a couple of wii baseball games set up.
There was other stuff too, like wooden easles with seats attached and lots of paper, astronaut clothes to wear beside a big floormat of the planets and a screen that showed you as an astronaut playing on it! Lots of those Ikea chairs that you can spin around in, a room to make origami cranes, a place to make crayon rubbings, a place to make critters with fingerprints, etc.
Almost 1/2 the museum was set up for kids under 5 and their siblings. It was set up in little rooms, around a main area that had a little section of toys for under 2 year olds to crawl around on. Also a huge amount of really big soft blocks for the older kids. Around this were little rooms, 1 had soft chairs, books, and a wooden doll house full of dolls and furniture. 1 was shaped like a house and had kitchen furniture, lots of counters, tons of food. Through the back door there was an 'outside' area - a big layered cloth tree on the wall with tons of stuffed birds and butterflies that could velcro on, as well as plastic fruit that could velcro on. There were cornstalks sewn onto cloth on 1 wall so the kids could pick ears out, and rolls of brown cloth along 1 wall where you could plant and pick plastic veggies. 1 room was an art room, they had paints and cupcake liners and pipe cleaners to make flowers. 1 room had a huge velcro wall where the kids could stick tubes and things to make a track for a ball to run down. There was also a light table and see through colored lego blocks as well as magnetic toys that were see through, wooden blocks with colored plastic in the middles, and color paddles, all to play with on the light table! Another room had big curtains painted on the walls and a stage of soft blocks as well as puppets, musical instruments and costumes.
Anika would have stayed here all day for sure, as it was, we stayed as long as Scott could possibly - he left a couple of times, once for a walk and once for a drive - haha. Anika was really sad to leave, but they all loved it.
We stopped (quickly), at a thrift store to get Shaina and (as it turned out) everyone else some new reading material, then headed for supper.
I had a coupon for 'sweet tomatoes', which turned out to be a real winner all around!! It was a buffet place of healthy food!!! It was all salads, soups and breads and pasta, all homemade and was really good! They had really good mixed salads, but most of it was just rows of little dishes of stuff you could mix into your lettuces. A seperate section had 8 kinds of soups/chilis, and you could have a baked potatoe or sweet potatoe, and there was focaccia (3 kinds), and then mac and cheese and a tomato pasta. The kids loved the mac and cheese - it was really nice and cheesy and yummy. They had a 'grilled cheese focaccia dipper' which was great dipped in the soup, and hot sourdough bread. Anika was in love with the mini blueberry muffins, Tia loved the little corn breads, Madie discovered tapiocca pudding, and Shaina loved the sourdough!! Everyone was actually happy - haha. For dessert you could have peanutbutter chocolate chip bars or frozen yogurt, the kids also had choclate muffins.
We rushed to get home during rush hour, so Scott and Madie could leave for their date - they are at a hockey game tonight!! I took the other girls for a 1/2 hour swim in the pool - we're back to 18 here today, then home to bed for Anika while the other girls watched 'cupcake wars'...I know, I know....but since I homeschool I can influence their little brains anyway I want...hahahahaha.