The summer without toys

This summer all of our toys were in storage. Grandma has a few toys that we could play with, but they got old after a while. We spent a LOT of time watching TV and playing computer games. But, we also did some fun things that didn't require any toys.

Grandma and Grandpa got new cabinets and had lots of huge boxes. The kids spent several days decorating them, fixing them up, playing mail and just having fun.

Here is Sophie decorating the top of her box.

Katrina liked crawling in and out of the boxes. She also like collecting the markers. Later that day, she figured out how to take the lids off and color on herself. Her outfit was covered in marker by the end of the day. Luckily, it was washable and came out.


Caleb and his cousin Jakey got their blankets out and made a comfy bed in their house. Then they dragged the blankets all over the yard.

Maggie and Hannah drew pictures of flip-flops as their welcome mats for their houses. They traced their flip-flops and wrote "Welcome" on the flaps in front.

We also made fun bubble blowers. (Thanks, Hilary, for the idea.) This was good fun for several afternoons and kind of clean, too. The girls blew the bubbles and then held them upside down and said the bottles had Afros.

We went to the splash pad near our house. It is an open area with fun sprinkler things that come on and off and get you wet.

Hannah on one of the sprayers.

Caleb kept wanting to swing around on this fish, but he was just a little too short to do it well.

We got our toys out of the storage unit a few weeks ago. It was like Christmas in August. The kids played and played with their toys. Some of the joy has worn off, but Caleb loves to get out his dinosaurs when he is watching Big Al (a dinosaur show on Netflix), and the girls have a lot of fun playing Littlest Pet Shops. Yesterday they were making school lunches for them. They had paper spaghetti all cut up for them and were looking for beads to make apples, etc. I love a good toy that they can use their imaginations with.