Crown Center Day of Fun!

WARNING 1: This posts contains lots of pictures
WARNING 2a: You may be jealous of our super fun day
WARNING 2b: …Especially when you realize that all of our fun didn’t even cost us a single penny!

Belle spent the day with my parents, so I planned a “big kid” day for Jackson and his friend Sean. First stop, Kalediscope. If you don’t know what it is, you can check out it out online… but basically it’s a Hallmark owned kid destination that fosters creativity with the scraps from Hallmark’s operations.

Here’s where they painted their glasses

And the boys enjoyed waiting for their finished masterpieces to come across the drying belt {this contraption is genius!}

Next was some sticker fun

This is Jackson’s completed sticker art

We did several marker activities, including 3D fish…

And the coolest part about Kaleidoscope—making your own puzzle! Here the boys roll their artwork through the puzzle machine.

And wha-la! It’s a puzzle! This is Sean’s puzzle and he said, “This means I love my Mommy!” So sweet!

We stopped  by the dark room right before we left and the boys enjoyed painting neon fish under a black light.

We made a stop by Hallmark Visitors Center right next door, and a trip to Hallmark just isn’t complete without watching the machine make a bow {or five}.
   

We stopped for an {indoor} picnic!

And then we headed to the Dinosaur Exhibit located in Crown Center until September {when another free exhibit will come!}

The boys got to ride a T-rex,

a baby Stegosaurus,

a Troodon,

and climbed around an Edmontosaurus.

{Yes, be proud. I did that all from memory. And I can pronounce and spell them all correctly. I read a lot—A LOT—of dinosaur books with all their ridiculous names and spellings.}

Anyway, the boys played with Troodon eggs.  

And sat still for 2.5 seconds to look through some flash card books. 

Next, they played with dinosaurs

And then the cutest thing—they dug through “dirt” to find some fossils!

And {almost} lastly, we stopped by the Crayola store where the boys did some more coloring and played with

{Jackson said he drew a ladder!} 

Our trek back to van ended up to be an adventure of it’s own as Jackson tumbled down the escalator and scared the bejeebies out of me. I’m so grateful for the kindness of strangers—a lady who stopped Jackson’s fall, the restaurant manager from Crayola Cafe who SPRINTED to our rescue, and the Crown Center security who made sure everyone was alright.

But besides the little “eskimo” incident {as Jackson’s calls it} our day was a total success. And totally free!!! I’d love to visit the new acquarium and Legoland that opened this year, but tickets to both will cost nearly $50 per person! So for now, we’ll stick to these long-standing KC favorites!