Cardboard House

When I was growing up, we lived near an appliance store, and we use to go get empty refrigerator or other large boxes to use for making houses. I remember the fun we use to have telling my mom where to cut the windows and doors, and then the most fun came in decorating the house. Drawing trees and birds and flowers on the outside, and curtains, chairs, or whatever on the inside!

What's incredible to me is that people will actually buy a kit to make a cardboard house with! I've seen them online several times. Here's one:This pre-packaged cardboard house cost $50! Incredible! I couldn't imagine paying for one!

Well, the other day we (finally!) got new car seats for the girls. Edith was a few pounds past the weight restriction on hers, and Emma's was a seat we had gotten for free, and the back of the seat was cutting into her back, and overall, it just didn't seem like that seat would have kept her safe in an accident. We took advantage of the Toys R Us trade in sale, and got them the Graco My Ride 65. I did lots of research and reading before settling on this seat. (Another post perhaps.)

I hadn't thought of the car seats coming in boxes, but as soon as we emptied the first box, I knew what we were going to do with it! When we got home, I put the box horizontally on the floor and showed the girls they could crawl through it, and thus commenced over an hour of entertainment for them! When Daddy came home he turned the tunnel into a house for them, and days of entertainment followed!
Edith, the smart little bug that she is, likes to snatch things from her sister or from the table and go crawl in the box to hide with it! If I give her a snack, she'll usually go sit in the box to enjoy it. She's so cute! They both have loved this house, and so it still has a place in our home, since it is such an easy form of entertainment. And technically, it's FREE entertainment, since we were actually paying for the car seats!

Make Lined Canvas Boxes from Diaper Boxes...

...or any box! I'm reposting this because I don't want to lose this idea! I still have some diaper boxes floating around from the days when we used disposables. And I have two shelving areas that could use something like this. I plan to try this with smaller boxes as well for our "office" shelve over our computer!

Have some diaper boxes from all the Amazon Diaper Deals? Positively Splendid shows you how to turn diaper boxes into lined canvas bins.

Dry Erase Workbooks

This is a link to a great idea! Using page protectors to make re-usable workbooks (and word puzzle books) for you and your kids. The only "problem" I foresee is the kids hands getting inked if they swipe their hand across the page. My two-year-old would probably color the page just so she could wipe it off and get her hand colored at the same time. :)

PYP Blog: Dry Erase Workbooks