What to do when the weather is yucky....

North Carolina has been under all sorts of fun weather warnings, advisories and weather people basically telling you to stay inside.

So we have been.

In an effort to try to keep myself and Ella from having major cabin fever and going insane, I've been looking for the best activities to keep a kid (and her mom) busy.

Here is what we have found so far.

1) Movies...they are good, but you can only watch so many of them before it starts to feel like your brain is melting.

2) Cooking. Kids can help wash and chop veggies and stir things in a pot.

3) Snow cream. We have had a good amount of snow here. During one of the bigger snowfalls, I stuck a mixing bowl outside and waited for it to be filled with snow.  We brought our bowl of snow inside and added some sweetened condensed milk.

Then, we added some vanilla extract. Yes, I used imitation. It's what I had on hand. Don't judge.

Then, because it's way more fun for her, I had Ella mix the snow cream.

And then we ate it. Well, Gabe mostly did. Not because it isn't good but because he is Gabe and he tends to eat everything :)

4) Catch up on your sleep. Unless you have an early riser like me. Then, sorry about your luck.

5) Make Borax crystals. For those of you who don't know what Borax is, you can find it in the detergent aisle of any store and it looks like this.

Add three tablespoons of Borax per cup of very hot water and put your mixture into a container.  Make a shape out of a pipe cleaner (we made a heart), and suspend it from a pencil and two paperclips so it is submerged in the water. It should look something like this.

In about 6-8 hours (we left ours overnight), it should look like this.

Pretty cool, huh?

6) If it's cold enough, boil some water and throw it outside. These pictures are pretty lame, and it's way better in person.

If you look close, you can see the water turning into ice crystals.

7) Start a project. Ella is making a giant rubber band ball. I'll be periodically updating with pictures of its progress.

8) Play board games. Ella's favorite is Trouble.

9) If all else fails, and you have the option (and the guts!), GO OUTSIDE!