Nolan and McKenna: February 2007

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Children's Museum of the East End

We had such a wonderful treat today...Nonna and Papa took the four of us, along with Ryan and Sofia, to the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton. What a fabulous place! We took over a hundred pictures (OK mainly me!) and most of them are posted below. There was so much to see...and the kids had a wonderful time! As you can see, the fire truck display had working lights that the children could control, and all of the items on display were out for the children to play with. The pictures at the top are from the 'underwater' cave display...I liked the pictures for the mirror effect...it looks like McKenna is holding hands with her twin!

This was probably my favorite room, because of the vibrant, beautiful painting (yes, the bookcases in the back are all painted!) and fantastic lighting! Of course, the whole museum was fabulous, but I just kept coming back to this room (OK, maybe it was because Nolan liked running down the path that led here and jumped between the big, squishy books they had).

Of course, Nolan barely stood still long enough for the camera to focus, but our little ham sat and gave Mom the best smile!

Of course a museum focused on the East End of Long Island couldn't overlook the rich maritime history of our area. The museum had some great places for the kids to play...fishing with magnetic fishing poles and fish (then the kids had to fit the fish back into the correct hole to 'release' them).

The picture in the middle is of a huge ship mast (looking up from below-deck), and McKenna is captain!

And yes, in the top picture of Nolan climbing on the rocks, the sign above him does say "NO CLIMBING ON THE ROCKS...THEY"RE SLIPPERY"...oops! Guess it pays to read before letting him run amuck...

Nolan had a blast in the ice cream parlor (the pictures on the wall behind him are of actual stores on the East End of Long Island)...the kids got to play with "real" ice cream (everything looked amazingly real...so of course our two had to try to eat it-hope we don't end up with some funky disease from trying out the food!) and also with some fruits and vegetables in the market. The big potato with the watermelon on it was a life-sized "Mr. Potato Head".

What imagination the creators have!

the museum had a great instruments display in the trunk of a tree...the xylophone was Mom's favorite-it was a beautiful instrument and had the best sound, even after hundreds of children have played on it!

BRAVO!

and what a treat...some SCIENCE for mommy!

We had a blast at the museum...thanks to Nonna and Papa for taking us! We were there for an hour and a half (which should go down in the record books, because anyone with one (let alone TWO) toddlers knows that not many things can stop a meltdown)...and all this took place during normal lunch/nap times for our two-so they really had lots of fun!

Can't wait to do it again...

Whoever invented Color Wonder markers and paper...thank you, thank you, thank you! The markers only write on the special paper they sell...as you can see, it certainly made McKenna a little confused when she drew and drew on her hands, but nothing showed up! (top left) Nolan can draw with regular (non-oops! proof) markers, but of course he had to have the special markers when McKenna started coloring.
And yes, I'm a bad mom...they are jumping on his bed in the bottom pictures-they'd do it anyway, and I'm too tired to stop them!
Also, as you can see the turkey hat is still kicking around... I hate to see what happens when it won't fit on his head anymore...