The Phoenix Children's Museum

Would you believe that we had never been to a children's museum before this trip?

David and I are all about education and fun family experiences but we have never had the opportunity to take Sydney to a really incredible museum just for her.... until last week. The Phoenix Children's Museum is one of the coolest places I have ever been. I can honestly say that I haven't felt more like a big kid in a very long time. The museum is built inside of a very old school building in downtown Phoenix. From the outside it doesn't look very interesting but as soon as you walk through the door you are transported into a child's dream. 

Sydney made sure she looked her best for the day...

The entire main floor is one giant climbing structure. It is made out of recovered pieces and is so big that pictures really can't do it justice. I had Henry in the carrier so David and Sydney spent a good amount of time crawling through the structure while Henry and I listened to the deafening sounds of happiness coming from all of the little humans in the structure. 

The other exhibit on the main floor is a series of tubes that are pressurized with flowing air. You can change the direction of the air by moving flaps to block the air. Once you have set it all up the way you want it, you put scarves in one end and watch them fly through and shoot out. 

We made our way up to the second floor where we played with washers on threaded poles and sand on a glowing table. 

Then it was off to the art studio. Sydney got to paint on a giant rocket ship and make a day of the dead skull out of paper plates that we took home with us. 

We followed up creative time with some active time. The bike car wash was super cute. There was a constant stream of little people taking their bikes through the carwash and back again. Sydney tried it out on two different bikes. 

We spent some time in the three and under room where we were able to let Henry out of the carrier for a while to hang out. Sydney played house and we crawled through the tunnels (which was a pretty tight squeeze for the adults).

The next few pictures are from my favorite exhibit... the noodle forest! They literally had hundreds of pool noodles hanging from the ceiling. They were so close to each other that you couldn't see where you were going. Trying to keep tabs on Syd in here was almost impossible. When you made it through to the other side you were rewarded by some pretty cool little tree houses.

The fort room was the ultimate for David and I. I have incredible memories of building intense forts with my siblings out of anything we could fine around the house. The whole room was built to make forts. I am not quite sure is Sydney has grasped the whole idea of fort building yet but the adults sure had a good time. 

I am pretty sure that Sydney's favorite place was the mini grocery store. There was even a mini receiving bay! She played cashier, did some shopping, helped out in the receiving bay and "bought" Henry some formula. 

We followed up the grocery store with the mini kitchen where we made pizza and ice cream cones and everyone shared.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic day. I think we are planning on going one more time before we leave. We really need to get Edmonton to put together something this awesome!

Mrs. E