Rainy Day with Children

My first thought when I saw the rain coming down this morning was, "Ugh.  What am I gonna do with the kids all day?"  There's the usual, unoriginal, sit them in front of a movie.  They were done with that by 9:30.

PANIC MODE!

So, I flipped on the creative switch in my head and came up with some great ideas.  I'm sure after reading this you will wish that you had known these ideas this morning, when it was raining, but now you can store them away in your brain for future rainy days!

Our first project was: COOKIES!  But not just ANY cookies. . .extremely colorful cookies.  I bought the cookie dough from a fifth grader at my school who was raising money for her dance troupe and have kept it in the freezer (and the idea in my back pocket) for a day just like this one.  Here are some pictures from our cookie-baking spree!

This is the cookie dough we used.  VERY colorful!  Sure glad I don't have to change diapers anymore!  LOL

Here are some of the items I let the kids use.  Lots of sprinkles, cookie cutters, rolling pins, etc.

Lauren's creations.

Braden working hard.

Braden's creations.

The cookies are ready to bake!

Once the kids were done, they decided on their own that they wanted to share their cookies with the neighbors.  They put some on plates and ran up and down the neighborhood delivering them. :)

The bakers!

While the cookies were baking, Lauren went off to do something in her room, but Braden chose to hang out with me and make: BANANA MUFFINS!

My little helper. Awwww!

Oh the smells coming out of my kitchen today!  Mmmmmmmmm!

All of the finished bakery items.

"Now what?" the kids wanted to know.  Hmmmm....ART PROJECTS!

First we painted designs onto coffee filters and let them dry.  This usually takes awhile, so I used a hairdryer to speed up the process!

Then we cut the coffee filters into flower shapes.  I had used some plain white paper to cut out some stencils of flowers.  The kids traced the flowers onto the back sides of the coffee filters and then cut them out.

Then we taped the flowers to the windows and started painting a scene.

Now I know what you are thinking:  YOU LET YOUR KIDS PAINT ON YOUR WINDOWS?!!

Yes.  :)

Simply mix a little bit of soap with acrylic paint and you are good to go.  It will wash off your windows, I promise. :)  Enjoy some pictures of the progress:

Finished front door!

Finished back door!

From start to finish, all of these projects took us roughly 6 hours...including clean up time.  Right now you're thinking that I managed to make a whole lot of cleaning work for myself today!

My sink FULL of dishes, paint brushes, cookie cutters, etc.

 And you would be correct.  I did a LOT of cleaning up today.  But was it worth it you ask?

Yes, THEY are. :)

My angels. :)