You Are My Sunshine: Day at the Museum

While not nearly as action-packed as Night at the Museum, we had a wonderful time at our second Free Tuesday at the DMA. We took Gramps along for the ride this time.

Just riding the train is pretty thrilling to us, especially when a snack is included.

And to make it even more exciting, our ticket got checked...twice! We could barely contain ourselves.

Be prepared for thousands of pictures. I went a little crazy and there were so many fun things to remember.

We started off in the playroom. Seeing as how this month's theme was "Feel the Beat," O felt that a little drumming was an appropriate way to kick off the day.

Look at this handsome Boy! We were so happy to be joined by this guy, Grant, brother Preston and their amazing Mommy.

Puzzles for everyone.

Peek-a-boo blocks

Fast forward to craft time, which came after a very brief stay in the theater for story time. It was too loud and crowded, so we moved on to bigger and better things.

This craft room is absolutely dreamy. It is filled with long tables containing every sort of doo-dad and bling and scrappy stuff you can imagine: feathers, beads, foamies, pom poms, dried beans, sparkly paper, colored tape, stamps and stamp pads. Need I go on? A person can not help but be creative when surrounded by such things. The kids LOVED it! Each Boy could choose to make a trumpet or a shaker.

Preston hard at work

Nosy and Gramps crafted the shaker of all shakers together.

Grant got a little crazy with the glue stick!

Owie made a trumpet. He started off by drawing that whale you see in the very middle of the cardboard roll. When he decided it resembled a nose more than a whale, he made it into a trumpet guy, complete with feather arms and legs and pom pom eyes. I could not imagine a more creative trumpet, although playing it did pose a feathery type of problem.

Next up? Picnic time outside!

Running off a bit of boyish energy.

After lunch, we bravely ventured into the real, grown-up, actual art-containing areas of the museum. Trumpet Guy and O were pretty excited about the prospect. For a group of energetic little boys, they all did so well at behaving themselves.

LOVE this bunch!

Notice Nosy in particular. Gramps (sweetly called "Gamp" by Noah) walked with his hands behind his back while we were among the exhibits. Pretty soon all four Boys were mimicking Gramps' "museum behavior." They were all so good, clasping their hands behind their backs so as to not touch untouchable art.

More "museum Behavior."

Later on, we discovered another room to explore in the children's area.

Gramps and Nosy sketched a bit.

DeAnn's boys were interested in the art books.

Gramps and O made rubbings of all sorts of interesting materials.

After this, the Boys spent a long time building with cardboard blocks, but that's a post in and of itself! Coming soon...

To top off the day, African storytellers played drums and the gong while intriguing us with their tales. The Boys were enraptured. At one point, O leaned over to me and whispered, "I can't wait for the man to play that!" gesturing towards the largest gong I have ever seen. He didn't have to wait too long, because next up was a most humiliating experience for this mommy, accompanied by the gong.

The man asked for adult volunteers to demonstrate an artifact from our childhood: the hula hoop. All the women around me were shrinking back into the audience and I was praying to appear invisible, when out of the corner of my eye I notice Dad's finger waving wildly in my direction. He was volunteering ME to get up in front of everyone and hula hoop, something I haven't done since elementary school. The man honed in on Dad and his pointing finger right away, and before I knew it, there I was, in front of everyone, with a blue hula hoop around my waist. Bummer.

I survived though, and the gong-playing was timely and loud enough to thrill little Boys. O and Noah were excited to watch me perform, so I guess it was worth it, although my hula-ing skills are lacking.