Saturday at the Chicago History Museum

Maddie and I had the day to ourselves as Joseph went to Dallas for a cousin's wedding.  I picked up a free pass to the Chicago History Museum so we went there in the morning! Joseph and I have been twice so I knew what they had to offer for children. While they are located not too far from us, I did have to drive but luckily they have a validated parking lot 1 block away AND free coat check! It came in super handy as it was a very cold day out and we had on our puffy coats!

The children's area is right on the first floor and Maddie immediately went straight for the hot dog!! She LOVED laying in the hot dog while I put the toppings all around her. Her favorite topping was the mustard toy.  They had a few other exhibits in the children's area but Maddie was not interested at the time.

While playing with the hot dog, a little girl came over and I thought for sure Maddie would have a melt down as she has not been good at sharing with strangers lately. But luckily the girl went to a different exhibit and Maddie got tired of the hot dog and we went to another exhibit as well. I did not get photos, but they had a room with carpet dots on the floor hooked up to noises. You had to step on the right noises to get them to appear on the screen so the next photo would show up. She loved jumping up and down on the dots.

They also had an exhibit of "Chicago smells"!  Maddie LOVES to smell spices so this was right up her alley! She smelled fire, hot dogs, chocolate, grass and cow poop!  Later we walked to a room filled with dioramas that she also loved! She especially liked the ones where they had a button you could push and the diorama would move.

We got lunch there and sat right by the window where she could watch all the cars and buses go by. We then walked quickly to the car and drove home where I put her down for a late nap!  We had a great time and will definitely do it again!!

Lots of pictures and some videos below!