“April showers bring May flowers” seems to be a a theme at the moment.  In North Texas droughts are typical in the warm months so rain is always considered a blessing.  Except that unending rain holds the quads hostage inside.  And, cooped up toddlers quickly turn into cranky, bickering toddlers.  After several weeks of rainy days I was running short on patience and knew it was time for a novel activity.  We’d run through my arsenal of  indoor activities several times over.  On the fly, I decided we’d camp inside.  I dashed into the playroom closet and snatched the quad’s backpacks, which I stuffed with toilet paper binoculars (made by Poppa a while back), mini flashlights, and magna doodles.  I also riffled through our bookshelf and scouted three books related to camping: Charlie Goes Camping, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and Let’s Go Camping. To create a “campsite” I quickly set up the our play tents and Ikea play tunnels.   Once everything was ready, I announced it was time to camp and handed each kiddo a backpack.  With camping gear in hand, all four enthusiastically slithered through the tunnels and into their tents.

When everyone was cozy in the larger tent, I read the camping books and we talked about what it’s like to camp.  While reading, I realized that making s’mores is an integral part of camping and would be the perfect afternoon snack.  The only problem was we didn’t have two of the main ingredients: graham crackers or Hershey’s bars.  Of course, not having the right stuff never stops me once I have and idea in my head.  I remembered a finding a recipe for home-made graham crackers, plus we ALWAYS have chocolate chips.

The kids weren’t the only ones to enjoy the tents….

Before nap, the quads helped me make the graham crackers by dropping in pre-measured ingredients then cutting rolled dough into shapes.   When they woke up, we had some makeshift s’mores for snack.

Our s’mores were no traditional with homemade graham crackers, chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows.  Nonetheless, they tasted pretty good and the quads learned about s’mores!  To wrap up our camping day, I found a short cartoon about camping, Olivia Goes Camping, on Amazon Prime. (When we do “themed” activities, I always to a quick search on Prime to see if there’s a related television show, and I almost always find one that’s age appropriate.) This particular episode was really cute and the quads seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.   In fact, the Olivia series is one of their favorites.  I often spy them acting out scenes together after watching an episode.

What’s your favorite rainy day activity?  It looks like we have more to come…

hugs,

Amber

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