Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! We went to Oma's house, and then to Grandma and Grandpa's house. William had 3 costume changes (a shark, Spider-man, and a dragon), and Violet was a tiger (rrrrwww! As she reminded everyone!). Somehow I fit into my high school cheerleading uniform! Yay! William and Violet went trick-or-treating to Chase and Taylor's house, and William also went trick-or-treating with Daddy to score some candy. It was cold, but lots of fun!!

Kohl Childrens Museum

Yesterday, I took William and Violet to the Kohl Childrens Museum in Glenview, IL (it's about an hour from where we live in Chicago). We stopped at my parents' house first so the kids could get out of the car for a little while, and it was only another 10 minutes from there. We got the yearly membership.

Wow, was it a blast! We probably only did about 10% of what there was to do. First we went into a room with car tracks, a huge car wash, and various car parts (brakes, wheels, etc.) to learn about. Since it was right near the entrance, this area was a little crowded, so we moved on.

Next, we went into an architecture room. There were large foam blocks that William and Violet built up and knocked down. William especially loved these. We sat at a light table that had geometric shapes in different colors; when you put the shapes on top of one another, the colors mixed to form one color (i.e. a red and blue square made a purple one). There was another table to draw using pencils and a ruler. They mostly just liked the blocks in this room.



We went into a special Little Builders exhibit; everything in this area was construction (pvc pipes, hammering nails and screwing screws, moving items with a pulley system, etc.). We liked this exhibit, as well as the Waterworks area, that we went to next.




But the best part of the day was the Dominick's grocery store! What a realistic little shopping area. William grabbed a shopping cart right away and started loading it up with real groceries (minus the food...for example, a Honey Bunches of Oats cereal box minus the cereal). There was a little baby area that I thought Violet would like to go inside, with baby toys and books, but she would have none of it. She climbed away immediately and started putting food in William's shopping cart. When a cart was free for her, I was surprised when she started wheeling it around and putting food in it, just like her big brother! William spent half of the time sitting at the cash register, checking kids out with their groceries. We spent a good 40 minutes in this area, and I know they both had a lot of fun.



What a great place to be able to go to, whenever we want...it definitely made the day go by quickly!