all about mlg: cleveland museum of art

i thought that we might want to get out of the house today and weren't really feeling the need to shop. so we voted on a few options matt and i had come up with and ended up deciding on the cleveland museum of art. we had discussed going to the natural history museum next door, but never made it. much to my relief, the art museum was a hit with our whole group!

we started out in the kids' gallery. all four kids were quickly to work playing and creating.

madelyn made this abstract 'face' that has "a booger falling out of the nose".

matt and mason trying to recreate poses found in artwork with an interactive screen/camera that tracks body position

as soon as we saw the touchscreen wall, i realized that i forgot to bring our iPad to dock up on the stands. oh well. madelyn and i are determined to remember next time.

the kids picked up 'scavenger hunt' brochures again and mason managed to find one of his on the touchscreen! i was so amazed that he could find it on that wall of moving graphics that i had to take a picture (although it didn't turn out very well). the piece is next to his thumb in the brochure - sort of a red colored painting of the parliament building in london.

we didn't really go into many of the exhibits when we came for the chalk festival so i had not realized what an impressive collection they have on exhibit - not just artist commonly known, but pieces you would recognize.

madelyn and nana in front of "waterlilies"

mason even found the actual piece on exhibit that he found on the touchscreen.

maddux found one with something "orange". his expression and pose is one of the main reason we get followed around exhibits.

this museum is nice because you can pop outside very easily to work off a little energy before going back in. the big boys took turns pushing each other up and down the walkway in the stroller.

ashley is an art teacher so she and uncle derek actually wanted to be able to read the signs and see everything. we had lots of places to take in a snack and play while we waited. i think that this is one of the most kid friendly art museums i have ever been to thus far.

a rare picture of matt and i together - even with my dirty hair.

me and the pretty girl

the kids wanted to take pictures with sculptures of the chinese zodiac again. i failed to tell them not to touch and we were asked not to touch. oops.

and back to the kids' gallery with us while we waited for everyone else to finish up. the kids were being troopers but we were more than an hour past their lunch time and out of snacks. they had no problem playing while we waited. i think that they were even a little disappointed to leave when everyone did show up.

for lunch, matt took us to a restaurant he had been to once before for work, called "melt". it is a fancy grilled cheese place. it was awesome! it was a little ironic that a place centered around grilled cheese had almost everything in a vegan version and the soup of the day was vegan. i did not take the vegan route this time, but definitely would if we went again (the blue cheese was just calling to me). there was almost an hour wait for a table. the restaurant was super quirky (matt was given a celebrity name for the wait list - we were "kristen stewart") so there was a lot to look at and they had a phone booth in the waiting area.

mason, derek and ashley checking out the menu - made like an old record album.

the portions were enormous and even served as dinner that night because we all had half our sandwiches left over! madelyn wants to go back to this restaurant for her birthday.

papa and nana love, love, LOVE giraffes. so for a quiet activity after we got home i had picked up several lego giraffe sets from toys-r-us. the idea was for papa and nana to take home a giraffe to remind them of us and this trip. but then i saw that the little bag had a free kids' admission to legoland on the back that we can use on our next trip to kansas city to visit papa and nana, i went back to buy two more (i figure manning will still be free this summer).