Be it a snow day or an 'I am not feeling well' day, here are a few things you can do with your kiddos when you don't want to leave the house!

- Move around some of the lighter furniture (ottomans and leg cushions) to create an obstacle course.  Kids love to play hide and seek behind them.  Add pillow's to spice it up a bit. 
- Toy re-organization -- i emptied out her toy bin on the living room floor and had her pick her favorites to keep in the living room.  The other toys went to her bedroom for a second go at playing with them.
- Holiday Card readthrough -- she loves to sit and "read" the holiday cards we've received, especially the photo ones.  As long as you don't mind if they get a little bent, this can kill about 5-10 minutes.
- Window watching the snow and sledders can be peaceful!
- Vacuum - depending on the kid if it's scary or not. Kids like to chase it around and bring out their poppers to "help." 
- Open up the tupperware or other safe drawer.  I call it "helping me organize." 
- Build towers with blocks, mega blocks (toddler version of leggos), plastic cups. 
- Play with water.  Bath or not, kids love pouring and splashing in water. 
- Play chase, he loves it!  Crawling or "fake" running, whatever to make him feel the rush. 
- Bring out a flashlight in a dark room or not, kids like shining it around. 
- An old cell phone.  A definite favorite, especially if he sees us using ours.  I just watch closely to make sure he doesn't call anyone or do something else official. 
- Anything he can put on his wrists.  He usually uses the rings from the stacking toy or one of those "livestrong" type bracelets that are flexible but not breakable.
- Bouncing on our bed. 
- Climbing up on chairs. 
- Walk around explaining what he sees and letting him touch things he points to. 
- Look in the Gymboree "Toddler Play" book.
- Pushed kids around on a dining room chair.  We also have a spinning office chair that he likes to spin in.
- Play in the bottom of the dishwasher.
- Play with these Christmas gel cling ons we have on our windows.
- He likes helping me with laundry (even just likes looking into the empty machines).  I don't know how long this will last but it is pretty cute.
- He thinks it is funny when I sweep and I pretend to sweep at his feet which makes him laugh and run away.
- Make music with tupperware.
- He also likes playing with the buttons on the computer or a calculator.
- Bundle up and play outside for a little bit.
- Play with old gift cards-girls put them in & out of their little purses, I hide it in a book & flip through the pages together to find it, hide it anywhere, flip it in the air, make it dance on the floor & showing kiddo how to make it dance too.
- Brought out my 20 year old flute (yes I was a band nerd & loved it):  play it for her (I sound terrible, but she doesn't mind) & let her play with the keys to make different sounds, bang the pieces together, put it in & out of the case (like a puzzle), she loves playing with the case -open, close, open, close :)  (I make sure she's supervised with this activity...too many little pieces)
- Old Entertainment coupon book:  It's her official "Rip" book.  She also loves it when I take the pieces she ripped out & blow on them to make em "fly".
- Boxes!!  We love boxes!  The bigger the better :)
- Dropping things in the playard surrounding the tree..definitely makes the tree look more festive!
- Making mountains out of pillows & letting her scale it.
- Tickle games..my favorite is tickling her ear with my hair..she does the same thing back to me :)
- Music-Love to sing & dance!
- Tape paper to the floor and then let him pound/scribble with a marker.
- Blow bubbles
- Call people and let him alternate between holding the phone to his ears and talking and running around with it. Can also use speaker phone.
- Practice eating with a spoon - very messy but less involvement from me.  Actually we are doing that right now!
- Sit in front of the keyboard with a MS Word document open.  He bangs away on the keys, and I pretend that he's writing a letter. 
- We make a lot of noise -- scream at each other, clap things together, shake bells and maracas. 
- We share a chocolate chip cookie (or three).  Drink milk in between. 
- We play with refrigerator magnets.   
- We nap together.   
- We go through the Sunday paper together.  He will mess up all the pages, and I work around him.   
- I'll sing songs to him and try to do the hand movements to them.  I think he tried to imitate me once.  There's hope yet.   
- Singing Christmas carols - Frosty the snowman is a favorite at our house
- Reading lots of books
- Playing with junk mail or advertisements from the newspaper
- I gave her one of her plastic bowls and a spoon and she carries them around the house stirring something imaginary in the bowl.  A measuring cup and measuring spoon work just as well.  Sometimes she prefers those because the measuring cup has a handle to hold onto.
- Looking at pictures of babies/toddlers such as from books or magazines.  She is really into this right now.  She demands that I read these types of books to her over and over and over and over.  Eventually I try to hide them before the repetitive reading makes me crazy.  :) 
- Sledding in the snow (she refuses to walk in it so far)
- Playing with a mound of dish soap bubbles.  She loves this.  I scoop them right off the top of the water when I am about to wash dishes and she has a blast with them. 
- Peek-a-boo with me using her own hands to cover her eyes.  She thinks that is particularly funny.  Otherwise I just give her some fabric of some type and she uses that to cover her face up. 
- It is tons of fun to pull kleenex out of the box.  I bought a cheap box for this purpose alone.  It is also lots of fun to play with the empty kleenex box - great for putting stuff in and out. 
- As she was about to eat something disgusting I discovered that if I stick out my tongue, wrinkle up my face and say yucky with a bleack kind of noise she thinks it is fall on the floor, hysterically funny.