Children's Museum in Pittsburgh 06/19/09

We went to the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh on Friday. It was super cool and honestly I must say we probably missed many things! But what we saw was awesome and I would love to go again to see all the things we missed.

They had a special exhibit at the time we went that was Bob the Builder. Tye was completely THRILLED!!! These statues were at the entrance to the museum.

This was the coolest wall ever! It was kindof like a maze, with chicken wire on the outside and the only way in or out was the left or right on floor, it went clear to the top of this large wall (two stories) but the kids could not get out at the top, they had to turn around and come back down to the bottom floor. That was very comforting as you could not see them once they got too high! lol

Here is a better side view of the wall....WAY COOL! Tye played in this thing twice and the second time he played for AT LEAST 30 minutes!

The next cool thing was they had Mister Rogers Neighborhood!!!!!!! Thank goodness for the digital conversion or Tye never would have seen it before we went and he would have wondered what all the fuss was about! lol Here is the overall view of the room. YES a full-size trolley!!!

They had the front porch with the swing on it and then you walked in the door and there was Mr. Rogers bench and his shoes! How cool is that?!

They had the castle from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe! Tye and I posed for a photo op! lol

They even had the mini trolley (in front of the curtains and everything from the show!) and you could push the button and make the trolley go back and forth!!!

Here is our family picture on the Trolley! Can you tell I thought it was way cool?! I LOVED Mister Rogers Neighborhood when I was growing up. And maybe you all have done this, but since I hadn't seen it in years and then after the digital conversion I was squealing with delight when I found it again! Tye came in and I had told him he could watch it and I remembered every single word to the song! I am sure I have probably not seen it for at least 20 years! lol But I am so excited to have it back and now Tye can share in it!

I am not sure what the next room was called but apparently there was a "wiggly" floor that you had to walk across to get to the fast slide! lol The slide pics didn't turn out, too blurry but even Opa went down the slide! lol Yeah two "wiggly" floors in two days and Tye still talks about them!

We went to a car area, but I didn't get any good pictures in there. They had this one treehouse kindof thing that had a fun corkscrew slide Tye loved to go down. They also had this area where you could put a parachute on this thing and you cranked the wheel and it carried it up and then shot it across the room and the kids were standing down at the bottom of the treehouse trying to catch them. It was pretty cool! There was a car in there that supposedly you could "put gas in" and "fix" under the hood, but we totally missed it!!! lol We ran all the way around it I think and looked at every other thing (which is why I said I would like to go back one day and see that room again) lol

Then off to the Bob the Builder Room! They had all the characters full size and Tye climbed on just about every single one of them! This is Dizzy (the cement mixer in case you don't know your Bob the Builder cast members-lol)!!

Tye gave a high five to the "real" Bob!!!! He thought that was cool and then Bob gave him a two thumbs up! lol Then Tye was done and the kids FLOCKED to see him so Tye was really done with the crowds! lol

Tye on Scoop (the backhoe/loader)

We ate lunch in the cafeteria that has some cool time pendulum right in the center of it! lol After lunch we found a penny smasher souvenior machine. We definitely had to do that!!! We LOVE the smashed pennies we collect them any place that has them and have LOTS of them! Does anyone else like to do that or am I the only crazy one???

It all started YEARS ago for me. When I was a kid my mom's boyfriend put a penny on the train track one time for my sister and I and the train ran it over and I got a smashed penny. I thought that was the coolest thing ever and thought I was pretty original and then one time shortly after that I saw the machines and ever since then I have liked collecting them! :-)

The second floor had all kinds of activities. Like sand on a table they could make designs in. And beans that you could run through the beach sand toys. Balls that rolled down the wall and then rang the bell at the end. Cool activities for the kids.

On the top floor there was a HUGE water area! Oh my was it ever wet!! lol They had this huge "lake" area that had boats in it and you could turn the crank and make whirlpools form. They had buckets that carried water up and dumped into who knows where! lol When you went in you could put on a raincoat and watershoes so you could play without getting too wet.

They had these water pipes coming out of the floor with water coming out of them and you had to take the other pipes and connect them together to get your pipeline going. WAY COOL! They had all sorts of toys in the water they kids could play with. As you can see his coat was a bit too big and when he did this number while holding a toy the water ran right down his arms on the inside of the coat and down his side and onto the floor. He was soaked on his sides!!!!!

Luckily they have this wall with like 15 hand dryers (like you find in public restrooms) 3 high and 5-7 wide (can't remember excatly how many there were) but you used them to dry your wet clothes off!!! lol

After that we went back to that cool climbing maze wall and let Tye play for about 30 minutes I think until the others were ready to go. It was a fun day and I recommend anyone that is close by there take their kids and go, it is well worth it!