What to do at Home on this Cold, Cold Day

Looking for some ideas of ways to keep your kiddos entertained during the polar vortex?

We’re going to be doing a few of these today……and tomorrow……

• Do a scavenger hunt indoors.
• Make hot cocoa. Add marshmallows, whipped cream, and sprinkles to make it extra fancy.
• Bake something!
• Color in a coloring book.
• Have a picnic inside.
• Make a blanket fort.
• Make a painting – water color or finger paints are both fun!
• Read, read, and read some more.
• Write a story.
• Play board games.
• Watch movies.
• Listen to music.
• Have a dance party!
• Write a letter to a relative or friend.
• Play hide-n-seek.
• Read some more.
• Have a “camp out” in the living room.
• Make a big pot of soup.

This pile of boxes has already become a house, a fort, a boat, another kind of boat, and a store. Who knows what it’ll become later today….and tomorrow.

Right now, the girls are resting and reading books in bed. As soon as they get up, I think we’ll do some baking.

Have you done any of these activities today?

 

Get Those Kids out of the House

Winter can be tough. It’s cold. It’s icy. There’s snow, or my least favorite, freezing rain! (Gross. I hate freezing rain.) And it can be tough when the kids need to burn off some energy but you can’t really get outside. (Ugh! Freezing rain!).

Through several winters, we have developed our own list of things to do when the weather is not cooperating. All of these are great whenever you need something to do but the weather isn’t great and that happens during every season in Illinois. However, I think that these are especially great in the winter when you can’t get outside as often as you might like.

Free museum days!

I’ve posted about managing the free museum days before. You can read that here. Many of the Chicago-area museums have free admission days during the winter months, especially after the holidays have passed. Adler, MSI, Field, and Shedd offer lots of opportunities to explore and get outside and if you can do it without having to pay admission, well, that’s even better. The Chicago Children’s Museum has free admission for kids the first Sunday of every month. The Art Institute has free admission for kids every day.

Go to the mall

Several malls have great indoor play areas. Yes, these can get pretty busy during peak hours so if possible, aim for lunch time or early afternoon to run around in the play areas to avoid some of the crowds. Also, be aware of cleaning times. Some play areas actually shut down for a half hour or hour every day so they can be cleaned. But, really, wouldn’t you rather the play areas are clean?

Bouncy houses, bouncy houses, and more bouncy houses

There are many businesses that make their money by being an indoor bouncy house extravaganza. We have gone to Funflatables several times for birthday parties or just to let the girls burn off some energy. It’s a fairly decent price, especially considering that location is an all-day fee. Go before lunch. Jump around. Leave and get some food. Come back and jump around some more.

Read a book….somewhere else

True, your kiddos aren’t going to burn off a lot of energy reading a book. And, yes, reading is something that you can (and should) do at home, too. But, there is something fun about reading a book that you don’t have at home. Or, reading a book in a different space from where you normally read. Head to your library. Go to a bookstore. Libraries and many bookstores often have storytime programs or crafting projects that will get your kids’ creativity going.

Find an indoor tropical oasis!

Is there a botanic garden near you? Or a greenhouse that stays open year round? These are great places to visit during the winter. They stay nice and warm year round and it’s nice to see plants that are actually growing, not dormant and covered in inches of snow. One of our favorites is the Garfield Park Conservatory. It’s like a topical getaway!

 

Where do you like to go to get the kids out of the house during the winter months?

 

 

Goodbye, Christmas

It’s true. Christmas has finally left our house. (Well, mostly. The outside lights are still up – although not on – I’ll get those down when the weather cooperates a little more.)

It’s a lot of work to put the Christmas decorations up and it’s a lot of work to put them away, too. I find that it works best if I keep a system going each year.

The first thing that I do? Take down all non-tree decorations. Mostly, that means that the fireplace mantel goes back to normal. But, we do have some Christmas decorations throughout the house that also get boxed up with the mantel.

Everything gets dusted before it gets packed up, the mantel is dusted and the rest-of-the-year decor goes back up (after it gets dusted, too.)

(Time to pick up some flowers for those vases.)

Next up – time to take down the tree.

We do the girls’ ornaments first.  Their storage box also has a small tree that we set up in their room and a Melissa & Doug nativity that we set up by the tree.  The girls have many ornaments that have boxes (I keep most of the boxes) so the first job is to take out all of the boxes so that we can see what we need to find.

We start taking down the ornaments and match them up to boxes (if there are boxes).

After the girls’ storage is down, it’s time for my ornaments and Ryan’s. I will admit, we have a lot of ornaments and if we lived in a larger house, I would probably have three trees. So, this does take some time.

Luckily, I had some help taking everything down and organizing it.

Just like with the girls’ ornaments, we have to match up some to the box that they belong in. (I have one large storage container just filled with boxed ornaments.)

Once the ornaments are all put away, then the lights come down. This tree was a pre-lit tree and, as you can see in the picture below, there are very few lights on the tree that still work. I add everything else.

After the tree is down, it’s time to do a sweep and vacuum the living room. It’s always sad to put Christmas away, but it’s also nice to have some more space back in the living room.

Until next year!

Use Those Leftovers!

I am notoriously terrible at eating leftovers. Seriously. It’s bad. I’ll eat them. But I don’t really want to. (Except for holiday leftovers – I eat those for sure!) But, I’ve learned something…if I just add one or two new ingredients and transform it just a bit I can trick my brain into eating something new.

After a run on the treadmill, I was hungry. Like really hungry. And I needed something quick!

You know what we had in the fridge? Eggs. And leftovers.

I threw a couple eggs in a pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then, I added some leftovers. (These were from a quick skillet dinner that Ryan made earlier in the week with chicken, brussels sprouts, carrots, golden raisins.)

The skillet was really good during the first meal (I had two helpings of it for dinner that night) but I really wanted something different.)

The finished product? It doesn’t look very pretty but the eggs, olive oil, and the hot pan transformed these leftovers into something new. And I ate all of it.

What do you do to be sure that you are using your leftovers?

2019 Goals

I always try to start the year with goals but in the past they’ve kind of been all over the place. This year, I’m trying to do something different.

My goal for the year? Self-care.

This means many things to me. I’ll say no when I have to and try (try) not to feel guilty about it. I want to read more. I want/need to drink more water. I’m going to get more running miles in.

The good thing about this all-encompassing goal is that I know that I can do it. Sure, there will be days when I haven’t had enough water. I know that there will be days when I don’t get any miles in on the treadmill or outside. But, tomorrow is a new day! As long as I’m always working toward that goal – I’m succeeding!

What are your goals for 2019?