“What the heck are you doing over there that’s so much fun??” -said my mom with a chuckle.
When my mom isn’t working, we usually call her in the morning around 7am to say hi. Today, when we called, Amelia immediately said, “I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house. I want to stay home with you and Nick!” My mom’s comment was in response to this, but it really sat with me.
What are we doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing – and we really, really like it. A lot.
So I thought I’d gather a list of ideas of things to do with little ones on those days stuck in the house. I cannot believe how much I dug up and/or remembered in a matter of only a few minutes!
First, from a message board where I post regularly, suggestions from moms with little ones stuck inside currently:
-Playing in random parts of our house where we don’t usually play
-Cooking and baking together
-Going on “adventures” around the house to see what treasures we can find
-Finding new fun kid’s music on the Pandora kid’s stations (toddler tunes is usually the winner)
-Building roads and train tracks out of blocks and pillows and blankets
-I wanted to get one of those big rolls of paper for art, but kept forgetting, so I got out a piece of foam board from a project and we just keep adding to it when she wants to do art projects – crayons, paint, stamps, stickers – they’re all over it
-Cleaning – she’s always up for dusting or sweeping or wiping anything with me
-Making anything and everything into musical instruments
-Emptying kitchen drawers and cabinets is always a big hit
-Playing on the floor in the closets – they love having little forts in there!
-Digging out some old toys that are “new” again
-Making birthday cards for whoever has a b-day coming up (we do this at least weekly!) – lots of stickers and blank cards on hand
-Making bird feeders with pine cones, bird seed and peanut butter
-Taking a bath during the day (a nice change up, and a good way for mom to get a few minutes to sit down and read or pay a bill or whatever while kids play in the tub).
-Make your own play dough
-Toilet paper and paper towel rolls. Endless possibilities.
- Dress up with mom and dad’s clothes/shoes
- Finger paint/play dough/sticker crafts
- Marching band (they love to turn up the music, bang on their instruments, and march around the house)
- Playing in the garage (my kids love it for some reason); almost as good as going outside except a little it warmer!
- Playing “teacher” and having circle time; she loves this since she picks the book and ‘reads’ to us
-Color the back of one paper plate red and another green. Play “Red Light, Green Light” in a long room or down a hallway.
-Again using a long room or hallway, get a basket and fill it with whatever skill you want to work on (i.e. magnetic letters, shapes, colors) and have your child run to the basket, pick out an object and run it back to you. He or she then has to tell you the letter, color or shape to earn a sticker, grape, m & m, or whatever is motivation. We do this in the evenings to burn off extra energy before bed and practice some preschool skills.
-Play hide and seek with flashlights. Either have your child hide or hide an object.
-Make sandwiches and snack mix together, put a blanket on the floor and have a picnic.
-We have a Cozy Coupe car and we play “mailman” with it by putting out several stuffed animals empty Tupperware containers around our living area. I then give her blank envelopes to decorate with stickers and crayons and then she gets in her car and delivers them to her animal friends. {My note: Don’t you just love this one?? We’ve already played twice!}
-Fill empty baby food jars or water bottles with rice and make shakers. Turn on the radio and dance and shake along with the songs.
-Cut out circles from different colored construction paper and put them all around the house. Pretend you are frogs hopping from lily pad to lily pad and name the colors as you land on them.
-Pull out Velcro curlers, bows, clips, etc and play hairdresser.
-Put shaving cream on the table and draw in it with your fingers. Cleans up easily and makes your table extra clean!
-Go to free library story times, Chocolate World, local pet stores to look at animals.
More Fun Ideas I Have Saved or Searched:
-Making these little treasure baskets
-Family Fun always has lots of ideas!
-The Indoor Safari – make sure you read the comments on this one for even more ideas!
-Toddler Craft – so excited to have found this – love the real pictures!
-Fabulous Finger Paint in Se7en Steps
Happy Playing everyone!
{This post is a part of Steady Mom’s 30-Minute Blog Challenge. Just so that I feel honest – it did take 33 minutes today;)}
I used a combo of Ina Garten’s recipe and this recipe from a fun new blog I just found via this unreal site! It turned out tasting like apple pie on a spoon – seriously amazing.
You’ll Need:
-A bunch of apples – this batch was 4 Granny Smith and 2 Gala(good thing I bought the Granny Smith specifically for applesauce – they were mostly bruised and *someone*coughcough*my husband* would have been a baby and complained)
-a teaspoon or two of brown sugar(depending on the type of apple)
-a teaspoon or two of cinnamon
-a few squeezes of lemon juice
- Half and core your apples.
- Place them flat-side down in a baking dish.
- Bake them on at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes(until very soft).
- Pull off the skins, sprinkle the remaining mounds of apple with cinnamon, a squeeze of lemon juice and a tiny bit of sugar.
- Using a fork in the baking dish (loved this suggestion at Circle B Kitchen), just stir and mash them in there to save yourself from transferring them and making another dish dirty.
- Eat.
The end result didn’t look pretty. You don’t want to really see a picture – just trust me that you DO want to taste it! Plus, Amelia LOVED helping with it – picking the apples, putting them in the dish, helping to squeeze lemon and sprinkl sugar, then stir. It’s always fun to see how excited the little ones get when they make and eat food they helped to make!
Daddy at home, Snowmen, Snow Angels, Hot Chocolate with marshmallows shaped like hearts, Cookie Baking, PJs all day. Just the slowing down we’ve been needing.
I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s definitely worth a try!
-Whole Wheat Tortilla
-Eggs scrambled with spinach and mushrooms
-Bleu Cheese crumbles(goat would have been even more heavenly if we had it!)
-A sprinkle of shredded Cheddar
-Tomato
-Avocado
A hand full of blueberries on the side. Thrown back in a hot pan once it was wrapped up to grill it on both sides. So Lovely.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for just under forever, but things kept coming up. The playsilks were one of the biggest hits of Christmas gifts and so easy that I needed to share. I will definitely be making more! If you don’t feel like dyeing, but love the idea of playsilks, you can always buy some Sarah’s Silks or already made on etsy. They’re at least $10+ each. depending on the size, and I made 6(and a scarf) for what I would have paid for 1 or 2 without shipping. So this just made more sense.
So, what is a playsilk, you ask? It’s literally a large piece of silk dyed in different fun colors.
And why on earth would your kids need or want them? After watching my kids play with them at even their young ages, playsilks go right up there on the list of absolute must-have toys for all kids. They’re fun, creative, imagination-sparking toys that are so open-ended and let KIDS do the play and imagining!
I’m just sharing the method of dyeing that worked best (and easiest!) for me. There are many out there, so feel free to check the links below to many others who have also dyed playsilks with Kool-Aid in different ways.
Supplies:
-Silk Scarves. I bought them at Dharma Trading, I have also read good things about Thai Silks.
-A large glass or stainless bowl or large pot – something that won’t get stained when you put the Kool-Aid in.
-Distilled White Vinegar
-Water
-Unsweetened Kool-Aid powder packets
-Some form of rubber/latex gloves if you don’t want to dye your hands, too
A few notes:
- I love pastels, so I only used one packet of Kool-Aid per 2 scarves. If you want the colors to be darker/brighter/more vibrant/saturated/etc. you might want to use at least two at a time, possibly even more if you plan to dye more than two silks at a time like I did. I used strawberry, lemon-lime and blue raspberry for our colors.
- I got the 30″ x 30″ scarves thinking the 35″ x 35″ might be too much for the kids right now. They’re definitely great, but as they grows I know they will like the bigger size more, so if I get more I’ll definitely just do the 35″x 35″ size when I dye more.
- These color charts were amazingly helpful to get an idea of what the kool-aid colors would actually be.
- http://www.thepiper.com/fiberart/koolaid/images/colorchart-max.jpg
- http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/FEATdyedwool.html
Instructions:
1. Boil a large pot of water. I used a big stock pot and filled it up so that the water was ready when I needed it. You could easily microwave the water to get it super hot, I just didn’t want to do a ton of batches. Basically, you need enough water with each batch to cover all of the scarves you’re dyeing and still have extra water to swish around.
2. Once the water is boiling and/or super hot, add some vinegar. I added a cup-ish to my whole pot, if you’re doing smaller batches I’d add a Tablespoon or two to each batch. The vinegar helps the dye to set in the fabric.
3. Add hot water with vinegar to your bowl – enough to more than cover all of your scarves for that batch.
4. Add in the packet(s) of Kool-Aid.
5. Stir the Kool-Aid so that it’s evenly mixed into the water.
6. Add your scarves to the water and stir them. (WEAR GLOVES IF YOU’RE DOING THIS WITH YOUR HANDS!)
7. Stir the scarves well until you can see the water beginning to get clear. It’s crazy how you can see the scarves just soak up all of the color from the water!
8. Once the water is clear, you can hang the scarves to dry. A note here – make sure the scarves aren’t touching while they dry. Mine hung on each other a bit and the colors bled onto the other scarves. It isn’t a huge deal at all, but I can see how it might be an even bigger mess with darker or more saturated colors.
9. Once they’re dry, they’re ready to be used!
The finished product:
Some other great tutorials that helped me(thanks!):
On another note – I know I comitted to having their room done this weekend. BUT, I just keep finding more that I want to add!! I feel like we’ll never finish. We finally got the furniture all arranged and about 75% of things hung on the walls. I’m finishing up a few projects, we need to move their chalkboard in, finish the sink and faucet on the play kitchen renovation and do some finishing touches and then it’ll be done for real. In the interim, here’s a messy not-yet-arranged-bookshelf peek because I just can’t wait to share!
p.s. I swear our couch isn’t as dirty as it looks in these pictures…but does anyone have a tried
and true method for getting a microfiber couch looking shiny and new again?
We are an egg family. You name the preparation method and we probably love it. We easily go through a dozen eggs each week, sometimes more. Scrambled(with just a tiny splash of milk or half and half), over easy, over hard, half-fried and yolk broken in the pan, quiche, frittatas…
The one thing I haven’t mastered? Hard Boiled Eggs. Until today! I’ve made them and eaten more times than I can count, but never well. They always get that grey ring on the yolk or the shells are difficult to get off. Honestly, it’s never bothered me all that much because we eat them anyway, but this morning I decided to see what all the fuss was about and I will never, ever, ever go back.
I searched MarthaStewart.com (because if anyone would know how, it’s Martha/her team) for “perfect hard boiled eggs” and the results literally came up as that. I altered the end a tiny bit, but otherwise stuck to her plan.
Simple. Perfect. No grey. Soft. I’ll never go back!
1. Place your eggs in a pot.
2. Cover completely with water.
3. Bring water to a boil.
4.When the water reaches a rapid boil, cover and remove from heat.
5. Set timer for 12 minutes and just leave the eggs alone.
6. Pour out water and fill the pot with ice and very cold water, covering the eggs to cool quickly and stop from further cooking.
7. Crack egg, roll on a paper towel to break shell all over, peel off shell and eat and enjoy!
p.s. We’ve been working on the kids’ room for just under forever. My goal is to actually finish it this weekend so that I can post some pics. I sort of needed to just say this out loud to have the committment out there in the world, even if no one ever reads this but me!
Have I mentioned how excited we are to get this show on the road with gardening? We officially planted our first seeds today because Amelia has been begging me all week to “please plant my garden.” At the store a few days ago we had some extra time, so we wandered to the gardening section and she came very close to losing her mind. COMPLETELY.
She was allowed to pick one thing and she spent a good 15 minutes just wandering. First, it was some violets that we could water and watch grow. Then some bulbs(I think they just looked interesting? She was convinced that they were onions.) Then…OH, THEN…she found the seed packet displays…and completely lost it. She wanted every single one. She finally decided on strawberries and has been walking around with the packet all week, showing “her strawberries” to anyone and everyone who will listen.
So this morning we started some seeds. I’m well aware that it’s probably way too early. We put in seeds to start Marigolds, Sunflowers, Cucumbers, Lettuce and Strawberries. Honestly, right now that’s not the point. I can buy another packet of seeds in a while when I’m really ready to plant them in the ground – right now she’s just excited to have something to take care of and water and check each day and watch sprout and grow. What could be more exciting??
{Feel free to go ahead and note that not only do I have two different dates
on them, even though we made both this morning, they also both have “09″ as the year.}
In the interim, I’m working on more planning for our garden. Here’s what I’m using:
- This site to plan veggies and herbs
- This site to help me figure out good locations
- A few books – old and new. Sometimes it’s just so much better to just read a book and stop the endless jumping from link to link on websites.
- Most of all a pen and paper. Just under a million lists and more lists – what veggies, fruits, herbs, flowers we want, what we’ll actually eat, what we can actually grow, where they’ll go…the lists are endless and so refreshing right now. It just seems like the possibilities are so endless. I like that:) This is the current “short” list of fruits, veggies and herbs(flowers are somehow a whole different monster):
Can I please just add, for the record, that none of this even begins to touch on the general yard work and landscaping we’re going to need to do this year because last year was filled with new house busywork and a new baby and a just-barely-2-year-old? I foresee a lot of time spent outside this spring and summer and fall…
I’ve been intending to post, I just haven’t been able to get the words together.
My heart has been aching.
Not sure how many of you know, but I spent three spring breaks during college in Haiti.
Other than my wedding and the births of my children, those trips were the most transforming events of my life.
Few things in my life have touched me as deeply as these faces:
As I have been going in circles about everything and things to do, I’ve been reading a lot online. This image is one that stuck out:
The image is from The Hands & Feet Project and is a picture of where the children in the orphanage have been sleeping because of damage to their building and lack of help.
If you want to contribute, there are many organizations working hard to get money and resources to Haiti as quickly as possible, but the challenge lies in the lack of communication and infrastructure in Haiti.
Some organizations that I’m familiar with that we have chosen to support:
In case the earthquake news makes anyone want to learn a bit more about Haiti’s struggles, Paul Farmer(who started Partners In Health linked above) is an unbelievable man. This book is one of my all-time favorites and an incredible account(by Tracy Kidder) of Farmer’s life with lots of very accessible information on Haiti and the complicated history and political layers. Farmer wrote this one that’s a bit more difficult to read, mostly because it’s hard to read and acknowledge the reality. It is information that it is difficult to just walk away from after you have it.
It has changed my perceptions of every single thing that I do and choose in my life.
Please, consider donating to an organization that feels right to you. And Pray.
There are so many people who need it more than we could possibly imagine.
