Museum of Natural Science

We took a 20 minute drive to downtown Raleigh on Saturday to see the Museum of Natural Sciences. They have a whole new wing that is amazing so I wanted to go check it out. But we had so much fun in the other four floors that we didn't even make it over! We'll just have to go again on a different weekend, that's the best thing about a free museum! The kids were loving this puffer fish and really wanted it to puff up.

My kids are wasp-a-phobic except for Jake. At the pool he will take his toys and try to smash/hit any that come by him much to the terror of his mother. So of course he wanted to pose in the honeycomb.

The kids loved being able to push buttons, see live animals and bones of other animals. They darted from one exhibit to another with fairly little danger. Michael was way too interested in the escalator, but that was really the only speed bump of the day.

The dinosaur fossils are awesome- this T Rex was pretty cool to see. They have a video going on about a fight between two dinosaurs as guessed from fossil finds with this guy. Pretty cool.

The ceiling of the Rex room. They have a huge brontosaurus, I just got his head in this shot.

 Checking out the dinosaur print. Hard to imagine such enormous beasts!

Jake loved climbing to look at the snakes, fish, frogs, and other small animals. They all loved the enclosed butterfly area but I didn't get a picture. It's a lot harder to take pictures with four kids!

Case in point: here is Jim racing after Jake Jake who is making a dash for the emergency exit on the right while the oldest two are climbing the side of an exhibit.

Bat cave! (with fake bats of course) Classic crazy kid pose when I asked them to say "cheese"

Looking at the sea turtles. I loved hearing Jake's little voice saying 'tewtewls!' over and over with excitement. He has this sweet little voice and is so curious about everything!

Our last stop was my favorite spot in the whole museum. There are dressup costumes (Michael has the dino costume), masks (not sure what bug Nicole is), realistic stuffed animals, discovery boxes with bones, fossils, and stories. There are shells, live animals at certain times, and really nice employees who help the kids have fun.

Miss D was great and slept the whole time at the museum. She is such a sweet, precious girl! She loves taking baths, shares smiles with us (have yet to catch that on camera), and can't get enough of being held and snuggled. We treasure her sweet sunshine!