Oregon Children's Museum

Abby and I had the opportunity to visit the Oregon Children's Museum and had a great time!

First, we headed towards the water room where Abby had a blast splashing, making waves, filling her watering cans, and generally running around and burning off energy.

I thought this one was especially cute. Instead of dunking her watering can in the water to fill it up, she's using a shovel to pour water into the water can. :-)

Next up, we hit the grocery store. Abby is in LOVE with apples right now and she a fair amount of time picking out just the right apples to add to her grocery cart.

 

When she was finished loading up her cart we went to check out. I thought that the check-out counter had a nice touch in that as you passed food in front of the scanner a beep sounded, just as in the real grocery store. Abby had lots of fun running food back and forth and back and forth setting the button off again and again and again. :-)

Once the grocery store no longer held our attention, we went to the veterinary office to take care of some sick puppies. After putting on her stethoscope and declaring that my tummy's ouchies were all better (her sweet little heart is just so awesome!) she proceeded to take care of a puppy by bandaging up all of its legs. Poor puppy!

Then, it was off to the building room where she constructed....a tower? I think the goal was to see how high the PVC pipes could go before she could no longer reach them. 

After that, we went to the theatre room. At first she didn't really know what was going on. Some kids were just wandering around on stage and the little boy in orange was singing some song at the top of his lungs. But then she noticed the drums!

And was happy stealing the showing by banging on her drums for all her worth!

When the little boy in orange came back for his drums she decided that the theatre was no longer interesting.

So off we went to the vehicle room. She drove the bus for a few seconds then heard the singing back in the theatre room and headed back to check it out.

Where she met a friend. :-) I love, love, love how easily Abby can go someplace and find someone to hang out with. I see this time and time again at play centers, open gyms, etc. I really, truly hope that she retains this ability to make friends wherever she goes and doesn't grow into a shy, hard to make friends girl like I was. 

But even good friends must come to an end. At this point we'd hit almost all of the indoor activities so I directed her to the last two that we were missing to make sure we at least saw everything for a second or so. Here, Abby got to paint her face!

And then we both got to play with the light bright wall. There's a small child within me that came out and had the most fun making shapes and other patterns. Almost makes me think that I should get Abby a light-bright for Christmas. Then I remembered how many pieces are in that thing. I may way on that purchase!

As we made our way to the front of the museum Abby saw the water play area and decided she wanted another go at it. I was really surprised when she was able to connect the panel in between the slots. I know she's smart and capable but she still surprises me when she tries something new and succeeds.

After lunch I decided we should check out what the outside had to offer. We got as far as entering the "Outdoor Adventure Zone" and went no further. They had a rock area waterfall that kids were playing in, so Abby decided to join in as well.

She had a great time walking up to the fountain and trying to cover the water hole with her hand.

As well as filling up buckets with water and dumping them out everywhere.

But the fun ended when she was climbing down from these rocks and cut her foot somehow. Not a bad one, but enough that she hopped over to me saying "Ow, ow, ouch, Mom. It hurts." I checked her out and saw that she had a small gash that was bleeding and two other small gashes that were red. I got her foot cleaned up, changed her into dry clothes, and called it a successful morning.