Five Things to do with a Sheet.

It's rainy inversion day activity time, folks!

Because rainy? Not so much.

But sunny with a 99% chance of toxic haze? You betcha! 

So here are 5 are inversion day activities to do with your little ones using 

ONE 

simple item that every household has:

A sheet. That's right.

A sheet.

Here we go!

#1 Build a fort!
This is one of Kortland's all-time favorite things.
At his insistence, his fort was made with his comforter, but you could totally use a sheet.

Some additional ways to enjoy your sheet fort are:
a. Watch a movie in there! Kort loves to build them in the living room and watch cartoons from their openings.
b. Have lunch in your fort.
c.  Encourage your child to take stuffed animals and toys in there. They can role play being a little family, OR hold a session of school in the "school house" {a.k.a. fort,  *wink, wink*}
d. Have a tea party.

#2 Make a sheet hammock.
Kort loved this!
The hubs and I nearly threw our backs out trying to satiate his ravenous hammock swinging hunger!
With little ones, make sure you keep it "low and slow" so if there are any tumbles out of the sheet, they only fall a few inches. Also, watch out for furniture - play in an open space!
This is a great activity for when dad gets home.

15 minutes of your time, and your kiddos will think they have died and gone to heaven!

#3 Blow Bubbles!
Blowing bubbles has been STRICTLY an outdoor/summer activity at our house... until now! If you cover your carpet and furniture with sheets - you can let loose and blow bubbles all the live long day. Kort was REALLY excited to demonstrate this one for all of you!

You can also blow them in the bath tub, if you're not looking forward to the soapy sheet laundry...

#4 Have a picnic!
This doesn't have to be a major production.
Stick a couple of snacks {fruit leather, crackers, gold fishes, cheerios} in IKEA bowls and let 'em have at it. Kort asks to have picnics roughly...EVERY day. So it's a treat, and can make even something small feel special.

Another variation on the "sheet picnic" is to have a popcorn party.
Set an air popper {if you have one} in the center of the sheet, and pop a batch of popcorn WITHOUT the guards on. Popcorn flies everywhere and your little ones will get a huge kick out of it.
They can pretend they are animals {puppies, goats, frogs...?} and crawl {or hop}around eating the popcorn off of the clean sheet.

The final idea is {not pictured, but that is my FAVORITE picture of Tennyson CRACKING up!} but it is:
#5 Sheet parachute!
You all know this one. They are awesome {and sort of hard to photograph}.
Get a BIG sheet, throw it up in the air, dive under it and pull the sides down around you. Now, sheets don't hold air the way that those awesome REAL parachutes do, but your little ones won't mind. Believe me, if they've got their mom laughing and diving onto the floor with them, they are going to be happy.

So, there you have it!
5 things to do with a sheet.
Did I miss something?
What cool things do YOU do with sheets?

Christmas Bucket List.

The Christmas Season comes and goes SO QUICKLY and it's easy to lose track of time. It seems like the holidays always end well before we get the chance to do all of the Christmas-y things that we had "good intentions" of doing. Well, NOT THIS YEAR! We've put together a Christmas Bucket List to keep us on track.

To make the bucket list, we simply typed up all of the activities we wanted to be sure that we do, printed them out, cut them apart, folded each separate piece and put them all in a Christmas-themed Bucket. Now, we draw out a paper every day, or every other day, depending on how many activities we have to do within the time allotted.

If it is a big activity that needs extra planning, we do it within 3 days of drawing it out. For instance, Kort drew out "Have a cookie decorating party." We needed time to make invitations and get them out to friends, so it is scheduled for this Wednesday. We're going to decorate cookies and make Christmas puppets. I'm really excited! This is exactly the sort of thing I would have put off until it was too late. I LOVE bucket lists!



Another fun approach is to slide a slip of paper into the slots in your advent calendar instead of using a bucket. This gives you a two in one. Each day, when kids mark the countdown, they can also get a bucket list assignment. 
My good friend, Natasha, came by for a visit last week and was lovely enough to brainstorm with me. Here are some ideas we came up with:

1. Straw for Baby Jesus (At the very start of the month, set out an empty nativity and challenge your children to fill it with straw for Jesus' bed by Christmas Eve. They earn a piece of straw {raffia or cut up yellow paper} by doing a good deed. The more good deeds that go on in your home, the softer Baby Jesus' bed will be when you lay him in the manger on Christmas Eve.) *I LOVED this one.

2. Build a snowman, and make a snowman kit.

3. Wrap up a bunch of your Christmas books and put them under the tree. Have a few of the bucket list days say "Unwrap and read a Christmas book together"

4. Pop popcorn and watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

5. Pop popcorn and watch "A Christmas Story"

6. Make reindeer food (Granola and magic glitter and anything else you want to put in it) then put it in individual bags for all of your children, {labeled "reindeer food" of course} save it, and then sprinkle it all over the yard on Christmas Eve. {Make sure the kiddos understand that it won't ALL be gone in the morning because reindeer just nibble a little at each house!}That oughtta save you some clean up!

7. Have a family snowball fight.

8. Go sledding.

9. Do a family "secret service santa" day. Draw names in the morning and do good deeds anonymously throughout the day.

10. Go caroling with friends. Come home and have chili and hot chocolate.

11. Assemble and deliver neighbor gifts.

12. Have a Christmas Cookie Party!

13. Decorate a fun cake (have everyone help) and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Then have everyone in the family give a gift (of service/love to others) to Jesus.

14. Have an elf treasure hunt. At the end of it, kids can find their new Christmas pajamas.

15. Drive around and look at Christmas lights, or go to a fun light festival in your area.

16. Make gingerbread houses.

 

P.S. How exciting is it that you can make a stinkin' cute Christmas tree card with strips of brown paper, and green polka dot paper cut into simple triangles? I love how these turned out and they only took about an hour from beginning to end. {This includes a LOT of time spent designing the font and layout of the info in Word.

Do you have any awesome Christmas Activities your family loves? I'm all ears. My bucket list could stand to have a few additions!