The Flat Stanley Project

During our 3 weeks off we had the privilege of having a visitor name Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley was flattened one day by a bulletin board, but it's okay because now he can mail himself where ever he wants to go.  This time he wanted to visit us, in good old Syracuse.

One big thing we did with him was visit the Syracuse City Museum.  We have lived here 3 years and we never new there was one.  We were driving by it one day (one of the MANY times we have) and Rachel pointed it out expressing her desire to go to it.  Benjamin and Hannah chimed in too.  For some awesome reason my kids LOVE museums. Whenever we go on trips they ask if they can stop at the museum there, so to the museums we go.

 When Flat Stanley arrived I thought it was a perfect opportunity to check it out. So I braved the museum by myself with all 5 kiddos.  And you know what? They all did amazing.

The museum is run entirely by volunteers, 3 older ladies were there the day we went. They were so fun to chat with and had a wealth of knowledge, a pitcher full of patience for my kiddos, and hearts full of grandmotherly love. I honestly don't know who had a more enjoyable time, me, the kids or the volunteers.

I chatted with them about canning, quilting, sewing, the beautiful antiques, my children and their grandchildren.

They doted on my children.  They told them stories, boogied with them to an old record, held their hand, picked Hannah up, let them try out some of the antiques, sit on things and even try one some clothes. It was so fun to see the girls wearing late 1800 attire. There are several pieces of furniture they have in the museum that is also sitting in the rooms of my home. Namely the dresser, bed and rocker set from the late 1800's, my dinning room table and chairs, ceder chest in our bedroom and piano. I LOVED it!

There are two parts to the museum. The household area and the farm area.  In the farm area we saw a small one room cabin with a loft where a family of 12 once lived.  I remember going crazy with just 6 people in our 1200 sq ft area we lived in for over 2 1/2 years.  That mother must have had some patience!

In the farm area there was the stuffed corpse of a two-headed calf which was born in Syracuse.  It only lived a few hours.  Then the farmer decided it should be stuffed and put in the Syracuse city museum. Seriously makes me wonder if we should worry about our drinking water or something.....  In the words of my wise daughter Rachel "That's just creepy."

We also learned that Syracuse used to be well known for growing sugar beets.  At one time that was the major source of income for the city and they had a sugar beat which weighed 20 lbs (that's more than Andrew)!  Can you imagine?  Maybe it's not the water I should be worried about, maybe it's the soil.....

   

Flatt Stanley also decided to go to work with Marc one day and play around in the sand room.  The sand room is where Marc does play therapy with kiddos.  It is also my kiddos favorite part of his office. But then who wouldn't love a room filled with different bins of colored sand and a wall of shelves filled with toys?

Thanks Flat Stanley for coming to visit!!