How to.... do something: How to keep kids busy when it's cold out

This past week was pretty nice out, considering but we've had some cold weather the past couple of weeks. There was one week where I litterally didn't leave the house for 4 days. So that meant that we had to keep busy inside.
Here are some of the things we did.

Craft - we made snowmen, an idea from Makes and Takes that linked over to Ramblings of a Crazy Woman with these snowman ideas. My tip to keep young kids interested in crafting is to make it simple and have all the supplies ready.
So I got together some stuff.
- Coloured paper
- White paint
- Black paper for hats (I cut out the hats before we started)
- buttons (I had some with a logo on them that I wasn't going to use but you can just cut circles out of paper)
- Goggly eyes (again you can just use paper but goggly eyes are so much fun)
- ribbon for scraf (paper would also work)
- orange paper, carrot shaped noses
- glue (I used stick glue and white glue)

First we drew out the snowmen shapes and then filled them in with the white paint using the Q-tips. We painted 2 each, after we painted the 2nd on the side was dry enough to decorate - try not to do projects that require long dry times between steps, youngs kids don't want to wait - or at least mind doesn't, but lunch or nap works if you need longer dry time.
Anyways - back to it. We then glued on the pieces to dress the snowmen - we used the glue stick for the paper pieces and the white glue for the other pieces. Then we cut them out - you don't have to cut them out but Lilo wanted to - and of course tape them up to display.

Another craft project we did was the sun. Another great kids craft site is No time for flash cards - not sure how she has time to do so many crafts. Lilo likes this site because she also posts videos of herself singing songs. So we sang Mr. Sun, Mr. Golden Sun while we did this craft.
You need.
- Yellow paint
- Paper plate
- Yellow paper
- Scissors
- glue
- marker

Start by tracing out your kids hands - I traced both Lilo and Isla's hand. Since Isla wasn't very patient I only got to trace her hand out once so I just used that to cut out a few mini hands.
While you are cutting out the hands your kid can paint the paper plate. I had an extra paper plate that she also painted while the one was drying. Then when it's dry-ish you can glue on the hands.
Then Lilo added a face and then it was time to tape up. I thought it made the snowmen happy to have the sun above them :)

We also painted butterflies - just cut out shapes out of white paper and get your kids to paint. It's more fun to paint shapes, like butterflies, trucks, hearts, etc. She just used the dollar store water colour disk paints for this - less mess. The other projects I used the liquid paint but I find most times I just have the disk paint, just easier.

We also baked. Lilo got a kids baking set from my cousin for Christmas. It's really neat, it came with a no bake cookbook, a bowl, coloured measuring cups and spoons and a pan to put your creations in, and apron.

We made a few recipes in there and they are all yummy and not nurtious :) Oh well, she's more interested in making and Rob and I eat most of it.

Just before this photo Lilo was carring it to the fridge saying "My so strong" and then it fell. At least most of it was still in the pan.

And well I was feeling bad that poor Isla was missing out on the fun so we had dress up/ photo day. It was a lot of fun - both girls loved it. When Isla went down for a nap, Lilo and I had a tea party and ate some cookies that we made earlier.