If You Give a Mouse a Cookie & Guignard Park

We headed back to EdVenture's Storyland exhibit for the THIRD time last week.  I think I've burned my girls out by visiting this Children's Museum, but it really rocks.  Columbia, SC's Fire Chief, Aubrey Jenkins, was scheduled to read the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" on Saturday, March 10th, and we arrived just in time to listen to him AND to see the mouse come visit.  The mouse brought cookies and juice boxes too! Awesome!

Aubrey Jenkins, Columbia's Fire Chief, and scheduled "community leader reader"

Oh my goodness!!  It's the mouse!

Look @ these super-duper happy campers!

Seriously though, they were all smiles and laughter, until I said, "Smile!" and then I got the straightest, most solemn faces ever.  

The mouse brought cookies, juice boxes, and even set up tables for crafts so we could make our own "mouses" out of brown paper bags.  Loved him!

The local news, WLTX, Channel 19, was there filming the event and interviewed me and my girls. The news guy said it would run that weekend and would even put the video online so I could send a link to my family back in Utah.  Sadly, I haven't seen it run, nor do I think it made the cut :{ BUT, it was sure fun talking to him about our adventures at Edventure! 

Completely captivated by a T.V. in Edventure.

Another reason NOT to have the T.V. on

We ate our sack lunches in the back of the 'burb, and then headed to Guignard Park (Gwee-nard Park) to explore and play some more.  Rebecca & Mary-Gail collected small pebbles and were throwing them into the water after making a wish.  Mary-Gail's wishes all came true!

Mary-Gail's exact words:

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY E V E R!!"

According to Mary-Gail, if you make a wish with flowers, your wishes will come true.  

(Which is exactly why Rebecca wants to know where the flowers are!)

I'm loving how Mary-Gail's tongue is launched and helping her cross the cold water.  Oh, I also love that she didn't want her skirt to get wet, so up it came!

I explained to Mary-Gail & Rebecca about the green slime (algae) that was covering the creek bed and rocks.  "EWE!"  and of course Rebecca could no longer stand the thought of her feet touching algae.  She she rinsed them off in the algae-infested water, and had to dry them.  Guess what she used to dry them?

Yes, Mary-Gail's skirt. Doesn't Rebecca have the nicest sister?

Mary-Gail said that they only way she could clean her feet off was to use a leaf to scrub them.  So, sadly this Magnolia Tree lost a few of its leaves as both Mary-Gail and Rebecca scrubbed their feet clean.

Lovely pair of little hands

Awesome day @ EdVenture

Lovey's car finally arrived yesterday afternoon! As a result of having a second car again, we girls had wheels and took off on an adventure of our own. We spent nearly 3 hours exploring EdVenture Children's Museum today. Lovey had taken us there on Saturday for about an hour before it closed. And man, trying to pull Becca & Mary-Gail away was bitter. I knew we'd need to return again - this time on a weekday so there wouldn't be all the craziness - so I carefully mapped out the drive (complete with landmarks to help me know if I was headed in the right direction or not). For my family in Utah, EdVenture is like a Thanksgiving Point, and Gateway Discovery wrapped into a whopping 92,000 square foot place. It is awesome!

Edventure boasts the world's largest child named Eddie. He's a rockin' 40-feet tall kid, and that's his height sitting down! Straight from EdVenture's website: "Explore EDDIE® You can climb his vertebrae to his brain, crawl through his heart, bounce around inside his stomach and slide out his intestines." Serious fun right there!

The girls inside Eddie's skull (his brain kept zapping with light mimicking the neurons connecting)

We visited their Storyland exhibit. Every day this week they are highlighting a few selected children's books and have set up Storyland to showcase them. Today's book was Abuela; Wednesday: Where's Spot? Thursday: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom; Friday: Snowy Day; Saturday: If you Give a Mouse a Cookie; and Sunday: The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Wish you all could see these creations in person, but I hope my pics will give you a taste of how awesome these life size exhibits are.

Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Lay on a bed & press a button and a portion of the story is read out loud to you; build your own snowman and dress him; walk on the snow path and hear the crunch of the snow; cling snow icicle's together to hear their music...

Tuesday by David Weisner: (I have to admit, I don't know this book, but Mary-Gail sure had fun playing on the rotary-dial phone. She ultimately got frustrated and started yelling in the receiver {second picture})

The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Warm yourself by the fire, cook some soup, and make yourself @ home in Peter's tree

Rebecca liked this one the most.

She fixed Peter Rabbit some radish soup and then put him to bed

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.
Ah, this was my favorite by far. Perhaps because I have great memories of this book (loaned to us by my sister, Joanna). It wasn't until a couple years ago (when the girls started school @ "R Kids") that I learned about the full story with the Grown-Up letters. Even better!

You could actually put the alphabet up the coconut tree,

and the upward conveyor belt would spit them out!

Today's featured story was Abuela. Storyland had tables set up for the kids could all make their own Abuela. Rebecca & Mary-Gail went right to work, embellishing their masks with shiny sequins, glitter glue, and bold eye lashes, with crazy yarn strings for hair. Their grandma's should be so proud! Mary-Gail made fast friends with two gals opposite the table from us. She kept telling the one gal that her mask was prettier, and Mary-Gail wished she could have it. Well, Mary-Gail got her wish: they gave her their mask! Mary-Gail was so happy and carried the gift with her all day long (she's even sleeping with the scary thing right now!)

Mary-Gail's Abuela mask (this is the one she created)

The World of Work

A you a firefighter? A farmer? Maybe you're a grocer for the local town.

Becca & Mary-Gail were filling their buggies with cakes, pies, and donuts.

When I asked them if those were healthy foods, I got a roll-of-the-eyes from both of them,

and they reluctantly put them back. If helping them choose good foods in the pretend world worked, it might work in real life, right?

Oh yes, gotta have Mac'n'cheese

Checking out

Putting the food back before moving on

I loved this area. Made me realize my littles aren't so little anymore.

I need to give them more responsibilities when we go grocery shopping!

Body Detectives

Explore how your body works, both inside and out! Pull the ropes on the skeleton to see what type of joint is moving; view real slides of cells through microscopes; get your body moving to stay healthy with their dance machine

Awesome EdVenture! We'll be back!

Mary-Gail's mask from the girls @ Storyland; Rebecca's own creation

I think these masks are scary!