Adventures of a SAHM: Please Touch Museum Philadelphia, Pa

Since becoming a stay at home mom to my rambunctious toddler, I've been trying to find new and exciting things for us to do. We're lucky to live a large city that has a long list of things to do. Many of those things are geared to older kids, but one of our all time favorite places is The Please Touch Museum. It's a children's museum that's perfect for kids of all ages, especially those age 2-7. The museum is extremely stroller friendly, they even have little areas for you to park it. They offer a coat check, family restrooms, off street parking and ample seating areas. They have a cafe which has an nice assortment of food, drinks and snacks. The best part is, if you don't want to buy lunch you can bring it with you. Just set up at one of the many tables they have, you'll see many others doing the same thing.

We have the basic membership that gains admission for 4 people as well as  1 free parking spot. The membership also gives you a discount on food, carousel rides and admission for additional guests. I was happy to find out that as a member you get free admission to over 200 children's museums nationwide. Then my happiness went to sadness when I found out on April 1, 2013 it will no longer be free, but instead be 50% off. Here is a list to all the museums that are included. If your not a member, Target hosts a discount night every first Wednesday of the month from 5:00-7:00pm admission is $2.00. I'm not sure how crowded it gets but it might be worth it just to see.

The museum is extremely stroller friendly, they even have little areas where you can park them. They offer a coat check, family restrooms, off street parking and ample seating areas. They have a cafe which has an nice assortment of food, drinks and snacks. Whats even better is, if you don't want to buy lunch you can bring it with you. Just set up at one of the many tables they have, you'll see many others doing the same thing.

I'm obsessed with this black and white area they have set up! So trendy, I want it for my home!

The Please Touch Museum has 8 different exhibits as well as, a theater, art room and story time. B loves anything music related so the giant piano and Rainforest's Rhythm exhibit are  huge hits. Other goodies are the kitchen setup, grocery store, space area, and the water way. Alice in Wonderland is so adorable too! For kids under 3 they have different area sectioned off just for the little ones. This makes it fun for non-walkers or walkers just starting off. Everyday at closing time there's a parade that the kids love. They beat drums, yell, and march around the entire museum gathering all the kids.

Regardless if you live, work, or are just visiting I highly recommend going to visit The Please Touch Museum. It's clean and spacious, and one of our favorite places to spend the day!

See, I told you it was fun for all ages!

Oh!....And if your also trying to find new things to do with your little ones, you have to check out hipsterhenry.com it's a super cute blog with a variety of different places to take you kids. I just recently found it, and am so happy I did!

Sesame Street 2nd Birthday- at the Please Touch Museum

This past Thursday was our little mans 2nd birthday, so we celebrated on Saturday at the Please Touch Museum. We've been members ever since Bobby could walk. It's an awesome place to take your kids to run around and literally touch everything! When I first started planning, I went to Google to try and find pictures of how others have decorated  their party room. I was surprised to find... NONE! WTH... not a single photo of a party held at the Please Touch. This is what we did to decorate the small party which held up to 30 people. I thought the 30 minute allotted time would be enough to get set up, but the guest started coming the room early. That was one of the huge issues I had with the PTM, they told the guest where the room was, but did nothing to keep them out before the party time.

Our theme was Sesame Street since B is obsessed with those characters. I used mostly primary colors, which helped add color to the room. There were larger tables for food, cake, and favors then 3 kid size tables in the middle of the room. They also has chairs lining the walls for adults to sit at.

I used small .99 cent sand pails from Party City to hold the goodies. Elmo and Cookie Monsters face was just painted on with Acrylic paint. All the goodies inside were purchased from Party City as well.



We hired an Elmo character from The Peoples Choice to come for  hour. The woman that came was perfect. She was on time and great with the kids. I couldn't be more happy with my decision to have a character come. B was so HAPPY when Elmo walked in. His face was priceless and he had a fit when it was time for Elmo to leave. The PTM was great with the character and they had no problem with one coming.

Bobby wore a Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt with a bow tie that purchased from the Etsy Shop Dressed To Thrill I highly recommend checking out her bow ties and ties. I had the bow tie rushed and it was here faster then I thought it would. I wish I had a better picture of his outfit, but getting a picture of him is a task! We changed his shirt for cake.

 

The party was great and I was pleased with it for the most part. If I could have changed a few things it would be

   1. The helper they have in the room to help you, was extremely rude and short with us. She made me feel rushed and like I was bothering her by asking her to do her job. The other girl Sarah was helpful and nice but seemed to just be monitoring the room. They should hire older people that have kids and have been through the stress of planning a child party.

  2. We didn't receive the gift that was said to be given to birthday child.

  3. Getting to the back of the PTM was a nightmare! If you don't know the area then getting behind the museum took us forever. Both my mother and I are terrible with directions, so that might of been the issue.

  4. Our party was from 2-3:30pm and the museum closed at 4pm. I wish they would keep the 5pm close time during the winter as well. I wish I would have known how rushed we would have been getting to the carousel ride.

 5. Like I mentioned before, having the guest come in before the party was set up really bothered me. If people know what room the party's in then they're going to wonder in. I think they should have had the room closed up and only let the host in to set up.

I would highly recommend the Please Touch Museum to kids under 7. I love doing all the exhibit with the kids, while the kids love to run around being loud. It's the perfect rainy day place to take the kids.

B's growing up so quickly and there's times when I want to keep him little forever but I love watching him grow into this amazing little man. So now we're 2 its all about tantrums, potty training and breaking the Binky/bottle. We have quite a bit to do in this next year!



Family Fun Day: Please Touch Museum

Hi Loves! I hope everyone is having an amazing Saturday. Today we decided that we were going to have a family fun day since Baby B is starting daycare on Monday. We just want to try to spend as much QT as possible. I planned on us spending the full day at the pool, but when we woke up it just wasn't pool weather. We decided to head the Please Touch Museum and just let Bobby run and play. He rode the Carousel for the first time. He was a little confused at first, but ended up smiling the whole time. We had a great day and I'm glad that we got to spend some quality time together.

Here's the make-up look that I did today. I wore a mix of blue and purple shadow from my Coastal Scents 88 palette. I never wear color so today was a nice change.

Sorry the quality of the this picture sucks. My love is not the best photographer!