Fun with Art

The stars aligned this past weekend and the girls actually had an early release day from school on one of Orrin's days off.

I took this as a sign for us to reactivate our "Family-Fun Day".  You know, for this week.

Anyway, I go this app for my iTouch (no, I am not cool enough to have an iPhone, so I suffer in silence with the Touch) called Phoenix for Families.  I highly recommend this baby.  It has everything in this state that you could possibly want to do with your kiddos on there with a short description on what it is, the price, the map of the location... everything.

I started flipping through it to find something for us all to do.  Orrin, ever the tightwad, says, "Why don't we do something free?"

I eye him over my screen.  "Like what exactly?"

"Let's go for a hike."

"Sure, let's take our 8 month old son out in 110 plus weather for an exciting hike. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will get heatstroke."  I am a very sarcastic person.


He rolled his eyes, grabbed the dohickey from me and found the Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa.

*You will have to forgive the horrible pics.  I love my camera in natural light settings, but in a dim building the pictures end up a little disappointing.*

Yes people.  That is a giant Lite-Brite.  I could have stayed right there for hours.

But then we would have missed the Charlie Brown art displays

By displays I mean totally interactive activities for the kiddos and a few interesting things up on the walls for Mom and Dad.

Here's Pipes making a rubbing of good ole Snoopy.

Porter's action shot of trying to get the ball into the mitt (he was about as good as Charlie Brown).

There was a room set-up just like Charlie Brown's  living room complete with a TV, a fireplace that blew up orange paper, Snoopy's typewriter and a couch.  Oh, did I mention the Snoopy costumes?

Whitney, I can see you cringing at these pics right now.

No worries, Orrin checked them all for head lice after I was done with my picture snapping.

Porter impersonating his sister's usual pose

They made these masks then went into a black-light room that had scenes from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown painted on the walls.

Did you know that highlighters light up in black light?  I learned something at the museum!

Wyatt mostly chilled in the stroller.

Piper got to try out drawing on an easel,

and Adi spun around in the Ikea chairs.

 There was even a sea-scape painting section.

There were so many other things there too that I just didn't have enough time to take pictures of.  The kiddos have a tendency of scattering when they are allowed to roam in settings such as these, so I spent most of the time trying get them back together.

It cost $7 a person.  And the kids are already planning our next trip there when the Warner Brothers stuff is put in next month.