Indy Archives • Page 4 of 4 • diy mama

by Shelly on August 6, 2016 2 Comments

Doc McStuffins at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum

I love living in Indy! The newest exhibit at The Children’s Museum is Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins!

“Experience the first-ever museum exhibit based on Disney Junior’s Peabody Award-winning television series “Doc McStuffins” as it opens at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Doc McStuffins: The Exhibit debuts August 6, 2016 and will travel to other venues around the country starting in 2017.”

Doc McStuffins started as an idea creator Chris Nee thought up to help her son not be as scared while visiting the doctor as he was treated for asthma. I love stories of parents who create something that helps make their children happy and it turns into something grand that makes millions of children happy! It has transformed from a 2D TV show to an interactive experience where children can explore health care in a fun environment. Children are invited to help Doc perform check-ups and diagnose toy patients, while learning about healthy habits, compassion and nurturing care.

The Exhibit

As you enter the exhibit you’re transported to Doc’s backyard playhouse where you can enter and ‘check in’ at the reception desk of Doc’s toy hospital. The toy hospital is divided into sections where children can visit the Nursery, Pet Vet, Emergency Room or Operating Room. Without spoiling too much, here are our favorite areas of Doc McStuffins: The Exhibit. Highlights: Pet X-ray in the Pet Vet, taking care of new babies in the Nursery, and meeting Doc McStuffins herself! Without giving any more away, I’ll let my photos give you a little glimpse to hold you over until you’re able to visit!

I really enjoyed the behind the scenes interview with Chris Nee that The Children’s Museum posted on FacebookLive yesterday. For more Doc McStuffins fun, visit the Disney Junior website for games, coloring pages and videos. Use the hashtags #atTCM and #DocMcStuffins on social media when you visit this heartwarming exhibit.

by Shelly on March 25, 2016 Leave a Comment

Fables Across Time: Kalila and Dimna

My favorite exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is called Fables Across Time: Kalila and Dimna. I am grateful to be sharing first hand knowledge of the exhibit as I had the chance to interview the curator of this wonderful display – Sabiha Al Khemir.

Fables Across Time

Sabiha partnered with the Children’s Museum to create an exhibit that would illustrate the importance of storytelling across the globe and time. The focus of the piece demonstrates how ‘fables mirror our morals, our cultures, ourselves…’ It is astounding to me how these fables from 700 years ago are still being adapted and re-told all around the world.

Fables Across Time: Kalila and Dimna is an interactive exhibit of Kalila and Dimna (570 CE), that brings the characters, their relationships and lessons to life. The display showcases storytelling in the form of digital media, illustration, hands-on games and theater. It’s the perfect exhibit for toddlers up through grandparents to have the chance to talk about stories they’ve been told.

Check Indy’s Child Parenting Magazine for more of my visit to this wonderful exhibit.

by Shelly on March 14, 2016 Leave a Comment

Family Day at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

As the weather gets warmer, my itch to explore grows stronger. The days are longer and I want to fill them with as much fun as possible! Much to my husband’s chagrin, I have a tendency to fill our weekends months out. Living in a city with so much to do, it’s hard for me to choose which events to participate in with my family. We believe creativity and art is a wonderful part of life and want to share our passion for them with Sophie. My sister had invited us to join them in visiting the Indianapolis Museum of Art for Family Day and I thought it the perfect way to introduce her to the art museum. I’m so thankful she asked us along because I’m so excited to take her back (when she’s 3). It was a difficult for her to understand that she couldn’t run and squeal in the museum when she got excited to see exhibits and other kids.

Family Day at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Family Day takes place every first Saturday of each month throughout the year. It is an awesome opportunity for kids ages 3-10 (but all are welcome) to learn different art techniques through a themed event. We went to the SMASH, BOOM, POW:ANIMATIONS & COMICS DAY where kids learned how stop motion claymation works, storyboarding for a comic strip and painting cels to make a motion picture. The girls were especially delighted to start the day with cartoons and cereal where they saw New York International Children’s Film Festival Best of the Fest: Kid Flix Mix Mini Film Fest.

Have you checked out the IMA yet? While you’re there, also schedule in time to visit 100 Acres for a little outdoor fun. For more info on our Family Day at the Indianapolis Museum of Art trip, check out my post on Indy’s Child Parenting Magazine.

Want more kid-friendly Indy attractions? Go here!

by Shelly on September 25, 2014 5 Comments

Our Wedding

Hello lovers! Happy Fall! I know, my mind is supposed to be all things apple cider, pumpkin cookies, sweaters and colorful leaves but I’m feeling very nostalgic for my family. Not sure if it’s Sophie’s birthday coming up or our drawn out anniversary celebration but I am beyond thankful for the family that I get to spend my life with. I’ve been thinking about our beautiful wedding day where we were surrounded by all of our favorite people. Weddings are strange, there’s this feeling of stress for the bride to make sure everything is perfect, perhaps a bit of a grudge for the guests coming to spend their time and money and a touch of forced happiness for the big event that is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. I’ve felt all of these emotions regarding my wedding day and others weddings I’ve attended, but in the end, weddings rock and are a beautiful tradition that I’m grateful to experience.
The day of my wedding started out strange. I was alone in our wedding suite for the morning while my friends and family went to get ready with their families. I was receiving phone calls of Uncles being rushed to the hospital, cousins missing flights and flowers being locked in the refrigerators. Wondering if all of my decorations were being laid out correctly, welcome bags being put in the correct rooms and whether my cake had arrived yet. This huge event that we had planned, prepped and paid big bucks for had finally come and I was alone in a hotel room worrying about it ALL.

As the day went on, my bridesmaids and Mom got to the hotel room and started getting me primped for our photo shoot. Now I could relax and have fun! All my worries went away and I was beyond excited! My sister did my hair and I did my makeup so we weren’t worrying about dealing with any extra hands. We were extremely lucky to have teamed up with a great photographer and had a ton of great shots from our friends and family throughout the day.
We wanted to do the ‘first look’ moment out on The Circle so that every time we visit we’ll remember the butterflies of anticipation. I’m a true Hoosier and love Indy so I’m so glad we got to spend our special day there.
We got the normal ‘sweet family’ photos as well as the ‘ok, now be crazy’ photos before the 3,000 bikers swarmed our photo sesh!
There was a motorcycle rally on the circle that made our day really fun! We felt like celebrities as bikers were honking, taking our photos, asking for us to pose with their bikes and giving us money! It was awesome.
Jessika did an amazing job of letting us do what we wanted and captured the exact feelings that we were having. She’d promp us on where to stand but let us do what we wanted for our photos, which I loved.
A lot of people have asked me about this photo from my About Me page. We were hungry and were missing out on the cocktail hour because of the shoot. Jeffrey works at the corporate headquarters for JJ and we’re big fans so we got JJ for our wedding party.
The foyer of the reception had a baby grand piano that I had made a little vignette with wedding albums and framed wedding photos from our families. It was very special for our grandparents and family members to see their wedding photos.
We bought our flowers in bulk through a local florist and divided them into all the vases I’d collected. The hotel let us store the flowers in the refrigerator for safe keeping (this might not happen at all hotels, I used to work at the Hilton where we got married.) The table centerpieces were made up of stacked white books to represent Jeffrey’s love of reading. We had Babies Breath as well as yellow and white Daisies in honor of my parent’s wedding flowers. My sister painted signs for our ceremony and reception to help guests not crash the wrong wedding. My cousin wrote the ‘photos’ poster last minute for our photo booth because I’d forgotten to write one! My family took all the vases and books and arranged them on all the tables for me while I was at the photo shoot. I had all the vases and books numbered and a photo of each arrangement as a guide. I didn’t care if they looked exactly like that but thought it would make it easier for them in the short amount of time they had to decorate. I wrote out all the name cards in different fonts and printed them on card stock to match our color theme. I’d also printed the drinks banner and table numbers from a Martha Stewart template I’d found. I ordered a few props from Etsy for the photo booth which seemed to be a big hit according to the insane amount of photos we got from the booth!
Our ceremony was literally 5 minutes long; honest, meaningful and to the point!
After the ceremony we had cocktail hour for our guests while we went outside to shoot a few more photos as a married couple. The photo above describes our relationship perfectly!
Our Dads and wedding party all had awesome speeches and we gave a speech to thank everyone for sharing our special day with us. Our cake was yellow cake with fudge chocolate icing because that’s Jeffrey’s favorite cake combo. It was the best wedding cake I’ve ever had (and I’ve had at least 100 wedding cakes through working catering.)
The evening wrapped up with hours of dancing, drinking and lots of inappropriateness in the photo booth. We only stopped dancing when they turned the lights on and started cleaning up. I’m so happy for the memories I have from our wedding day. I am forever grateful that all of our friends and family came to spend the day with us to make it absolutely perfect. I’d love to have another party without the pressure of a wedding but full of drinks, dancing and cake! What did you love about your wedding? Did you diy any part of your wedding? Anyone have 3,000 bikers to help celebrate their happy day? I’m going to go watch the video my Dad made for our wedding!