the national museum of play

This weekend we are visiting with my cousins Sveta, Andrey, Vika and Maksim.  They live in Webster, NY which is a suburb of Rochester, NY.  Bennett and I were up the earliest and we played around the house until the rest of the gang woke up.

Around 7:30AM Sveta made a yummy breakfast of pancakes and crepes.  Bennett loved Sveta's pancakes.  He ate an entire pancake after eating four of his mini muffins and some Cheerios.  He was doing well picking it up with a fork.

After our large breakfast, we had plans to go to the National Museum of Play aka The Strong Museum downtown Rochester.  We have never been, even though Nick and I used to leave here during college years, and we were excited to check it out.

Bennett was more excited about being pushed around in his stroller than actually getting out and exploring the place.

We did manage to get him out for some of the many exhibits here.

We played with the kaleidoscope.

Then we drove around in a car.  Daddy is looking at a screen that the car was facing and the driver is supposed to move the steering wheel according to whats happening on the screen.  

First, Bennett needs to learn how to keep his eyes on the road.

Maksim and Bennett bounced around a room with padded walls and flooring for a while.

But, Bennett loved the room of illusion.  It has a slanted floor and the windows are different sizes.  On one side of the room you look big while on the other you are small.  He was laughing and loved running around inside the room.

Maksim and Bennett really bonded on the floor of this room.

We tried going to Wegmans for some shopping but Bennett didn't get past the entrance.  He was not interested at all and wanted to move on.  I felt bad for Maksim who loves to go to this exhibit.  He passed going as well because of Bennett.

We checked out the world of reading next.  They had rooms set up for all the different kind of themes children books can have.  The mystery room, the fairy tales room, the jungle room and so on.  It was really neat.

Nick is poking his head out of the trap door in the Mystery Room.

A painting in the Mystery Room without Sveta looking through the eyes from behind the wall.

And, with Sveta looking through the eyes.  So creepy!

We roamed through the Fairy Tail Forest.

Enjoyed sitting on the throne.

Played some chess that was as big as Bennett.

Bennett and Maksim really enjoyed running around and exploring all of the different nooks and crannies the rooms had to offer.

My failed attempt at getting a nice pictures of the boys.  What was I thinking?  Bennett was too busy to sit down for a picture.

Circus Mirror fun.

We built some funky creatures.

Found a magnetic wall and played with magnets for a while.

 Dug around in the sandbox.

Played hide and seek aka "Where is Bennett?"

We went to the Berenstain Bears room next.  Bennett really liked the slide.  He was having fun going down face first.

Found this amazing train table and messed with the tracks.

Two hours flew by at the museum in no time.  We headed back to the house around noon for some lunch and Bennett's nap.  On the way out we kept walking through some of the exhibits we missed like the superheroes exhibit.  Bennett and Maksim climbed a building like Spiderman!

The museum was way busier now.  I am glad we got out so early because it was much easier to navigate when it was empty.  We were all hungry and Bennett needed a nap soon so we headed back to the house.