Current Project: STRONGER THAN BONE
Status: Holiday Hiatus
School was canceled for Monday. School was canceled for today. One weather man said 2to 6 inches of new snow for tomorrow. A different one said 8 to 16 inches. I didn't personally hear that forcast; my husband announced he'd heard it on the car radio as he walked in the door last night.
Translation: The kids might be home all week. Official Christmas vacation is supposed to start next Monday. I think it started last Saturday. I'm so not ready.
If I was a perfect mom, I would have been out sledding on the hill with my kids Monday and making them hot chocolate with marshmallows. I did sled a little on Sunday, but I have a thing about cold weather. I don't like it. Especially windy cold weather. Instead I stayed inside and griped at the girls about tracking snow into the house and the importance of wearing a hat.
We did make Chex Mix together. That should've scored me some good mom points. I have cupcakes on my mental entertainment list for tomorrow. Maybe cookies, too. But will that be enough to avoid the anticipated fifty "I'm bored" comments? No.
Two weeks ago I ordered some Christmas crafts online. They finished them in two afternoons after school. I'd hit the video store if I could make it down our hill, but I don't think that's going to happen for a while. I always tell the girls it's not my job to entertain them, but they love doing new projects or playing games with me.
Help me out here. Because of the weather and the dates of the holidays, it looks like I won't return to work until January 7th. What wonderful projects for kids can you recommend to keep me from going insane?
Status: Holiday Hiatus
School was canceled for Monday. School was canceled for today. One weather man said 2to 6 inches of new snow for tomorrow. A different one said 8 to 16 inches. I didn't personally hear that forcast; my husband announced he'd heard it on the car radio as he walked in the door last night.
Translation: The kids might be home all week. Official Christmas vacation is supposed to start next Monday. I think it started last Saturday. I'm so not ready.If I was a perfect mom, I would have been out sledding on the hill with my kids Monday and making them hot chocolate with marshmallows. I did sled a little on Sunday, but I have a thing about cold weather. I don't like it. Especially windy cold weather. Instead I stayed inside and griped at the girls about tracking snow into the house and the importance of wearing a hat.
We did make Chex Mix together. That should've scored me some good mom points. I have cupcakes on my mental entertainment list for tomorrow. Maybe cookies, too. But will that be enough to avoid the anticipated fifty "I'm bored" comments? No.
Two weeks ago I ordered some Christmas crafts online. They finished them in two afternoons after school. I'd hit the video store if I could make it down our hill, but I don't think that's going to happen for a while. I always tell the girls it's not my job to entertain them, but they love doing new projects or playing games with me.
Help me out here. Because of the weather and the dates of the holidays, it looks like I won't return to work until January 7th. What wonderful projects for kids can you recommend to keep me from going insane?
9 comments:
My hair pulling would make more sense if I'd mentioned that my husband has commandeered my suburban for the week to drive himself to work. I'm stuck at the top of any icy hill with his useless rear wheel drive car.
Hi Kendra, I'm glad those days are over for me. I'm trying to think what my kids did... They built snowmen, worked on their 4-H projects, sewed, baked, made Christmas cards, paper chains. Are you having people over for Christmas dinner? Have them make place cards. OR if you have old magazines, let them cut out pictures and clue them to a piece of cardboard or poster board to make a collage for them or a friend.
I'm off to the store this morning and then I'm hunkering in to get some writing done.
Good luck,keeping the munchkins busy!
Oh, dear, it's been such a long time ago. Sheesh. I admit to relying on tv a lot to keep them occupied, but we were a crafty family so I always had heaps of materials for them to use. I worked with a lot of printers so we had stacks of all kinds of paper. I saved bits of fabric and yarn and buttons. But each kid had a different favorite craft to make. My oldest daughter loved miniatures and was very creative making furniture and stuff for her miniature doll house. My son liked to draw. My youngest daughter was the toughest one to occupy because she watched too much tv. Still does. Sigh.
For the holidays, I'd save all the xmas cards from previous years and let the kids make ornaments out of them. I love Paty's idea of cutting up magazines to make collages. I bet you can find all kinds of things online that will help with ideas for fun projects.
Have a fun holiday!
Kendra, go here:
http://holiday-kids-crafts.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_find_christmas_craft_projects_for_kids
And www.amazingmoms.com
Thanks for the good ideas, ladies.
Karen, the amazing mom site makes my mind boggle. Lots of good stuff there. Part of me doesn't feel worthy to visit a site with that name. :) Elisabeth probably knows what I mean.
Glitter glue stars coming right up.
Good moms are supposed to sled and bake and keep their kids entertained????
Uh oh...
Mine are not so lucky. I'm so busy with promo for my book, I'm being a bad mother.
I have some painting projects for them to do (I hate paint), and we'll probably make cookies today. That'll be it for my fun-motherness. I have to hit the post office, then Costco, then gather a bunch of promo stuff (more work!). All I can say is thank goodness for Wii, Playstation and webkins.com.
Oh, and thank goodness for my Suburban!
The only thing I can think of is that we used to take walks, gather stuff (pine cones, needles, rocks, I don't know, whatever isn't buried in snow, etc...) come home and glue them to paper.
I really like Paty's idea about the collages, esp. if you talked about a theme for each girl and then helped them broaden their ideas of what fits that theme. That could be neat.
I was one of the weird moms who enjoyed days when the the kids were out of school. I don't have the slightest recollection what we did, I guess it was just a day away from the bureaucracy of the school system (I don't do well with bureaucracies...), a day to do what we wanted.
This is the conversation I had with my mom when I was a kid: Me, "I'm bored."
Her, "Only boring people are bored."
Ouch.
Oh. I am so going to use that quote, Alice.
Oh Alice, THANK YOU soooo much for that quote!! I'm pasting that to my forehead for my little darlings to read every time they come near me.
Oh, and this one, "Eat a damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a snack, AND CLEAN UP THE DAMN MESS, TOOOO!"
Do you think that's too many "damns"? LOL
Okay, Kendra... I hate crafts, so no ideas there. I tell my kids to go read a book. That's what my dad told me, now I love reading. And we don't have T.V. reception anymore. Only had that for about a month and then we cancelled again.
You could sign up for Netflix. They have this VERY COOL thing you can do now through your computer or something, (they explain it on the website) where you instantly download movies. No more waiting for them to come in the mail. You might check that out. Just go to Netflix.com and you'll find what I'm talking about.
And like Elisabeth said, webkins.com or Nickelodeon.com has some fun stuff. Even Sesame Street has some stuff, or just Google any of the girls' favorite characters and you'll find stuff for them to do on the net. Lots of coloring pages to print out and interactive webpages.
I know what you mean about early vacation. My kids haven't been back to school since last Friday, and it looks like they won't go back until January now. Lucky for them (and me) they all have their own X-Box's, plus the Wii, new and old Nintendos, etc... Basically, they'll never run out of video games, consoles, controllers, or books in this house.
Sorry I couldn't help you more, but seriously check out the Netflix thing. We just downloaded a movie last night and watched it as a family. It was sooo easy and no waiting!! It's good to be in America. :)
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