The Children's Museum of Portsmouth

Well, you all know how I'm a sucker for a good museum, especially one that allows my kids to touch & explore by themselves.  After Lorien's baptism we all headed to Portsmouth to the Children's Museum there to let the kids play & explore to their heart's content.  They had a BLAST.

The first area we visited was dedicated to trains.  They had a HUGE train display set up & had tunnels the kids could climb through & poke their heads up so they were in the MIDDLE of the trains.  They loved it.

Craiger is my train lover & he was in heaven with all those trains running around each other.  He wanted to stay there all day & probably would have if I would have let him.

The entire downstairs section of the museum is dedication to "town life."  Each area had something to do with places you'd see in your everyday lives, but they allowed you to explore them & play with them.  The kids LOVED the fire station.  They spent a good 15 minutes "putting out the fires" in the windows of the houses.

They also loved climbing into the firetruck.

Craiger was my little fireman.

We also visited the "doctor" station where Bladen dressed up like a doctor & cared for all the babies in the room.  He is so funny.

The other favorite spot was the farm/grocery store.  Craiger liked milking the cow . . .

while Bladen & the girls took turns collecting the eggs from the chickens.

Bladen also liked pulling the vegetables out of the garden.

The best part of the grocery area though was the supermarket check out line.  I swear this thing was every kids' dream.  My kids are always wanting to "BEEP" the groceries at the store.  They each got to fill a grocery basket & then got to "BEEP" it on the conveyor belt.  They had a BLAST.

Cadence especially loved the tug boat.  The kids got to dress up in life jackets & got to play on the ship.

They LOVED fishing.  They each got fishing poles & got to fish for fish in the lake below 

(magnetic fish & poles).  They played FOREVER here.

After exploring the rest of the town we headed into the BUBBLE ROOM.  Here the kids got to stand inside giant bubbles, blow bubbles of all shapes & sizes, & just had a blast with each other.

Notice Daddy was playing just as hard as the kids
were.  HE was the one we had to DRAG out
of the bubble room.

The kids enjoyed the music room as well.  Who knew some tubes & flip flops could make so much music?  The boys enjoyed beating on drums, marimbas, trash cans, & anything they could hit really.  The girls liked playing melodies on the marimbas since they all play piano & know their notes really well.  It was fun.

After conquering the downstairs we headed upstairs to the artistic area of the museum.  Cadence enjoyed making cartoons, Taya completed half done paintings, & Lorien for a fun magnetic sculpture area.

There was also a giant room where you danced & your shadow projected on the screen in front of you. The boys just liked dancing in the dark.

But the very favorite part of this area had to be the pin board.  Remember those toys we used to have as kids where you'd put your face, hand, etc up to the metal nails & an imprint of whatever you were using would appear in the nails in 3D form?  Just picture one of those life size x 10.  Oh boy, the kids (& GROWN MEN) had fun with that one.  I think Trek & my Dad were the worst at taking turns.  They kept telling the kids to go somewhere else while they made funny faces in the pins.  But we were able to get them to SHARE it for one great picture of the entire family.  It was SO FUN.

After playing with the pin board, we headed over to the experiment circus area where the kids got to do all sorts of fun experiments.  They learned about balance & fulcrums & were able to lift an entire elephant by themselves.

They also learned about air pressure & were able to send a beach ball flying through 2 hoops just by blowing it with a vacuum.

After exploring science for almost an hour we headed to the last area which was about home life & garden life.  The girls especially loved playing in the play kitchen there.

And me, I found a giant wasp.

Sorry. . . I'm a Dr. Who fan & we just watched the episode with Agatha Christie about the giant wasp aliens.  I couldn't resist a stupid picture for the sake of Dr. Who.  

ha ha ha.

The whole museum was a BLAST.

After the museum we took Lorien out to dinner at Cracker Barrel & then we went home & slept REALLY WELL.  We were exhausted.  What a fun & exciting day we had.