Indoors During the Fall?

I never realized how much taking a walk, playing at the park, riding bikes, and going on a hike was an awesome source of family entertainment until William had his surgery. We are being forced to slow down and stop doing activities that require walking:) Here are some indoor projects we have come up with...

We have made play-dough with cornstarch and salt.

We now go to the library and we recently checked out this wonderful book.
After we read the book, we made our own version of Octopus Soup

We also built a big fort...before and after shots!

We have made shrinky dinks...so fun!I made a necklace....mom jewelry-anniversary and birthdays...So those are some of the things we have been doing to make the most of this challenging season of life. Six weeks in a cast and six weeks in a boot is a long time, but we are trying to stay positive and stay busy....I have decided that when William can walk again we will just have to bundle up and tough through the cold this winter.

OH MY!

Today I was working on two emails...the house was calm, but active...William was a napping (in pain from his recent surgery), Ellis was playing, and Thad was playing in his crib i.e. safe and contained!
The first email was an email about CrossPointe's playgroup... completed it, then ran to check on the boys...all was well.
Second email...an email to a new teacher in Kids' Church, she had lots of questions so I was going through answering them when it hit me...the low rumble in my house went to silence.

Anyone who has a toddler knows that quiet is awesome...a gift from God, but too quiet is very bad. Well it was too quiet.

I called out, "Ellis what are you doing?" I got up, turned around and heard him say as he ran out of their room, "I paintin Thad!"

This is what I discovered-
(I took pictures before I allowed myself to freak out because I knew I would want to remember this "funny" act....it is not funny today though...one day I am sure it will be a "cute toddler" memory....but today the repeated baths, wiping down most of the house, and calling poison control is still too fresh. Oh and Thad was happy with it...it was after the scrubbing he became very unhappy)