Staying Sane At Home

I'm feeling obligated to update my blog since it's been quite a while, but there's so little new going on around here. Mostly we've stayed at home more lately. For some reason the kids have shown less interest in going out, which is very unusual for them. Maybe it's the weather. In looking through my pictures on my camera, here's the highlights:

Bella got her hair cut fixed and she looks really cute. She still hates to have me brush it, though, so it's hard to get a picture of how cute it really is. Had to take this picture, though. She loves to play pretend with me while Benjamin's at school and it's always the same thing: she's the mom and I'm the child. She takes me to swim lessons, where she becomes the teacher. Then she becomes mom again, takes me home, and puts me to bed, complete with goodnight story and songs.

This is Bella as swim teacher (sorry it's so blurry): gymnastic leotard pulled over the dress she was wearing that day, carrying the other "kids" in the swim class in the pool (Benjamin's bed - because he has the blue comforter). Note the animals all have their leotards/swimsuits on too. I forget what the backpack was for...oh! it was because we were going camping after swim lessons and that night we'd be sleeping in the tent. Her sleeping bag is in the backpack. She's truly a mom - prepared for every possibility!

Since we've been home more lately, I've tried to find fun things to do so that I don't have to just spend all day fighting ogres and taking swim lessons on the bed. We've made crystals. (They loved that, although waiting for them to form was hard.)


We've microwaved ivory soap. (Never done that? You should.)

We've made oobleck (corn starch and water - that trick never gets old.)


We've made puffy paint (the fun is also in the microwaving afterwards).

We've climbed trees in the backyard.


We made a light box. (Punch holes in the bottom of a box and stick christmas lights through them. So fun to crawl inside and close up.)



We made our own playdoh for the first time. (Never felt like making it when you can buy it for $.99, but it gave us something to do and we loved the result.)


We made a catapult out of popsicle sticks. (Great at launching food you don't like).


We made squish paint monsters. (Fold a paper in half, put paint along the fold and close. Reopen and embellish with eyes, arms, legs, etc.)


We also played a game where you draw something on half a piece of paper and then extend just a few of the lines from your drawing over to the other half of the paper. The other person sees only those extended lines and draws another picture off of them. We had some awesome results, such as an elephant with duck feet or a tree trunk with a ghost rising out of it.

And last, but not least, we've played "I'm stuck in the pot!" A lot. (Christian's favorite game.)


One day I took the pot to make some spaghetti and he was so upset. "Stuck!" he kept crying out, pointing to the pot on the stove, until I found another pot of suitable size so he could continue his game. (In case you're wondering, Bella had a stomach ache that day and wasn't up to much, as you can see.)

Today I took the kids to Millrace Historical Village for what they advertised as a "Fairy Class for 3-5 year olds." I figured it was going to be a tour of the village with some people dressed up as fairies doing fun stuff in the various houses. When we arrived, we discovered it was taking place in only one of the houses and they had a list of those who'd preregistered and wanted to know our names so they could check us off. Apparently I hadn't read the ad carefully enough. Luckily they were kind and added us and then proceeded to ask for a mere (ha!ha!) $15/kid. They'd conveniently failed to mention in the ad that there was a fee. I know I wouldn't have overlooked that. But now we were stuck, so I paid for Benjamin and Isabella and then had to leave. Didn't see in the ad that parents weren't included either. So I got some unexpected 1-on-1 time with Christian at the playground while the older two were transformed into a fairy and a troll and had a wonderful time. They had their faces painted, made magic wands and magic potions, had cupcakes and lemonade, colored pictures, dressed up, etc. etc. I guess it was $30 well spent.




One last cute picture: Christian loves his box of balls. Mostly he loves to climb in and throw them out. This day he'd also found Bella's crown, tore most of the letters off and put it on. Guess he wanted to claim it as his own.