It is summertime! Time for fun sleeping in and fun in the sun! I have been looking forward to my very first summer home with the kids. It is something that I could only dream about being able to do when I was a working mom. I thought if I was only off I could take them to the pool and to the zoo and to Worlds of Fun, etc. I only thought about all of the fun things we could be doing out and about and never thought about how much work it takes to keep them busy in between the all of the fun outings.
Last October we took Kaleb to Worlds of Fun for his birthday. They were running a deal that if you bought Gold passes to Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun (that included free parking!!) for the upcoming 2012 season for $89 you would also get into the park free that day. Since we were about to pay $40 a piece just to get in that day and just paid $15 to park it was a really sweet deal. Here it is not even June yet and we have already used our passes several times. They really did pay for themselves! Besides the gas it takes to get there it is a virtually free activity we can do as many times as we want this summer. I even bought this big drink cup thingy for $12 that you can refill as many times as you want for $1!!! The best thing about having the passes is that you can go for 3-4 hours at a time (which is the MAX I can handle with Lilah) and you don't feel like you have to stay there all day like you would if you bought a day pass. Anyways as fun as it (minus the toddler tantrums and whining from the 8 year old that we have to spend most of the day in Planet Snoopy) we can't go everyday. Once or twice a week is about as much as I can handle.
So now what do we do? If I let him Kaleb would play video games ALL DAY LONG! Seriously. All day. When I tell him he's been on long enough and it is time to move on to something different what does he do? Watch TV. Sigh. Now the kid loves to play outside but if there are no kids to play with he has no interest in being out there. Can't say that I blame him. The problem is there are no kids home during the day around here. I have made the realization that my biggest job this summer is going to be keeping him busy. So yesterday I got on the internet and went on the hunt for fun activities for the kids to do that won't cost me a small fortune.
Bingo! Man the internet is awesome. I got a few ideas to get me started and wasted no time working on the first one....an art project. Now Kaleb usually rolls his eyes when I mention anything about arts and crafts but this one he really enjoyed!
I have a roll of paper so I started by rolling out and cutting two large pieces. Then I took masking tape and spelled out their names on the paper. Luckily my kids have mostly straight line letters in their names or this might not have been so easy. The B in Kaleb's name was a bit tricky but we are not creating Picasso's here!
Then I got out the finger paints and told them to have at it. Anytime finger paints are involved you will have happy kids!
I had to help Lilah with this project for it to turn out how it was supposed to. She was only painting in one corner of the paper! Once they were done painting I set them out on the deck for fast drying and then very carefully peeled off the masking tape. And ta da! We have awesome little personal pieces of art to add to my art wall. :) Oh and it kept the kids busy for a whole 45 minutes! Double sigh! It is going to be a long summer!
Last October we took Kaleb to Worlds of Fun for his birthday. They were running a deal that if you bought Gold passes to Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun (that included free parking!!) for the upcoming 2012 season for $89 you would also get into the park free that day. Since we were about to pay $40 a piece just to get in that day and just paid $15 to park it was a really sweet deal. Here it is not even June yet and we have already used our passes several times. They really did pay for themselves! Besides the gas it takes to get there it is a virtually free activity we can do as many times as we want this summer. I even bought this big drink cup thingy for $12 that you can refill as many times as you want for $1!!! The best thing about having the passes is that you can go for 3-4 hours at a time (which is the MAX I can handle with Lilah) and you don't feel like you have to stay there all day like you would if you bought a day pass. Anyways as fun as it (minus the toddler tantrums and whining from the 8 year old that we have to spend most of the day in Planet Snoopy) we can't go everyday. Once or twice a week is about as much as I can handle.
So now what do we do? If I let him Kaleb would play video games ALL DAY LONG! Seriously. All day. When I tell him he's been on long enough and it is time to move on to something different what does he do? Watch TV. Sigh. Now the kid loves to play outside but if there are no kids to play with he has no interest in being out there. Can't say that I blame him. The problem is there are no kids home during the day around here. I have made the realization that my biggest job this summer is going to be keeping him busy. So yesterday I got on the internet and went on the hunt for fun activities for the kids to do that won't cost me a small fortune.
Bingo! Man the internet is awesome. I got a few ideas to get me started and wasted no time working on the first one....an art project. Now Kaleb usually rolls his eyes when I mention anything about arts and crafts but this one he really enjoyed!
I have a roll of paper so I started by rolling out and cutting two large pieces. Then I took masking tape and spelled out their names on the paper. Luckily my kids have mostly straight line letters in their names or this might not have been so easy. The B in Kaleb's name was a bit tricky but we are not creating Picasso's here!
Then I got out the finger paints and told them to have at it. Anytime finger paints are involved you will have happy kids!
I had to help Lilah with this project for it to turn out how it was supposed to. She was only painting in one corner of the paper! Once they were done painting I set them out on the deck for fast drying and then very carefully peeled off the masking tape. And ta da! We have awesome little personal pieces of art to add to my art wall. :) Oh and it kept the kids busy for a whole 45 minutes! Double sigh! It is going to be a long summer!
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