Madness at the Museum

Yesterday I took Avery to the Strong Museum for their tots Halloween party. We wanted to go last year, but she ended up having a cold so we didn't go.

Oh.My.God.

They open at 10am and I decided to get there right when it opened so we could stay about 2 hours before it was time for lunch and her nap. The party ran from 10-2.

I pulled in right at 10...it was pouring rain out and the line was out the door! Now I have been to the museum a bunch of times-weekends, weekdays, morning, afternoons, etc and I have NEVER seen it like this.

Getting the stroller out and her in it in the rain was interesting then we had to wait outside for about 5min before they got smart enough to wrap the line around inside. Luckily the line moved pretty fast, but we still didn't get checked in at the desk until around 10:15-10:20ish. It was nuts!

They had a lot of people dressed up as different characters: Mother Goose, Old Mother Hubbard, Little Bo Peep, a wizard, a detective, a scarecrow, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, a chef, a princess, a pirate....just to name a few! They had a few stations (maybe 10?) where the kids could do a game and then get a prize (this was their version of trick-or-treating). Of course most of the games were way over Avery's head so I had to "help" her get her prizes-she got crayons, a coloring book, stickers, a tattoo, a spider ring. They also had a few stations where they gave you a gold coin and then at the end, you turned in your coins for a prize. They had a treasure chest full of glow sticks and Earth balls. Avery chose a ball. The only candy she got was on the way out-we got some tootsie rolls and smarties.

Overall it was fun, but a little too chaotic. I felt like she really didn't play much because it was just so crowded and you had to wait in line for things. It was fun seeing all of the costumes though-some kids looked super cute!

We met my friend Jen there and her two boys, Nicky (3 yrs old) and Ryan (1yr old). We didn't get to spend a ton of time together though since we spent most of the time chasing the kids around! But I tried to get a few pics of them together (which was really hard!): I have no clue why the color of this came out weird:

Nicky saying "cheese!"

In one area they also had a DJ set up playing music....you can see Avery checking out all of the kids dancing!