Kaleidoscope

When I was little, one of my absolute favorite places to go to was Kaleidoscope. So it's been around for a while :) Hallmark created it as a way to engage kids imaginations, and so that all of their leftover materials for their creative department didn't go to waste. It's really quite amazing, and if you've never been I highly encourage you to go. I mean seriously, it's FREE! The inner cheap-o in you is dancing right now, ha!

During the week, they have "sessions" for kids, but they have to be 5 in order to participate, because parents don't go with them. I can very vividly remember the first time I ever went, when I was 4 years old. My Mom took us on a random weekday to get us out of the house, and when we stopped to get our tickets, the lady at the entrance asked me how old I was. I proudly announced FOUR!! Well unfortunately 4 year olds are not allowed in. I started to cry, and was so upset that my sisters/whoever else we were with got to go and I didn't. The  lady came up to me and let me know that sometimes almost 5 year olds got to go in too, and today was one of the days they did. I seriously think I was so overjoyed I almost couldn't calm down enough to go in. Hallmark had one heck of a lady working that day.

I think my girls share in my excitement - getting ready to head inside!

They now have Saturday open family sessions, so we decided to take the girls. It was kind of surreal to be back there with my own kids. They still have the big box full of pins that you stick your hand under and feel them and make shapes with - wow that was an awesome description, haha, sorry I don't have a reference photo we totally brought the camera, just to find out it was dead, wah wah.

And they still had my favorite part! Where you get to color a picture, and they turn it into a puzzle!

Gracen is very hard at work here. Her favorite part was, well, everything. It's like stimulation overload, so she didn't know which way was up. We got there a little late, so we only ended up spending about 40 minutes in there and trust me, we could have spent all day. We only got through about half of the place. Hadley's favorite part I think was the dark room that used black lamps. She painted a picture frame with glowing melted crayons, and she didn't want to leave. Neither of them did really! It was a pretty great way to burn some energy and get out of the house before we were snowed in... again!