Bored

The school district here in Carpentersville decided to combine Thanksgiving vacation with in-staff teacher days...which results in the kids getting a nine-day break from school.  The kids are horribly excited by this.

I'm a little less excited.  One of my ideas had been to plan weather appropriate activities during this week.  If it was warm enough, I could give them a few more biking lessons before snow made that impossible.  Other warm day activities were hiking and playing outside with friends.

If it was too cold for biking, I figured they could play outside in the snow.  Build snowmen, go sledding (there's a nice hill a block away).  Lots of winter-type activities.

But rather, the weather decided to laugh at me.  It's cold outside - too cold to ride bikes or play.  But not cold enough for snow.  Just cold enough so that the precipitation falling from the sky is a chilly, miserable rain.  Too cold to play outside, too wet to play outside.  We're effectively limited to the house.

So how do you entertain three active boys in a house that is barely 1000 square feet?  I know most people would count on TV and video games, and they are allowed more of those than they would get on school days.  However, I don't want my kids sitting glued to the TV all day long.  So I have had to get creative and find things for them to do this week.

The first thing they are going to do is make cute thank-you cards for the gifts they recently received.  I might also have them draw cute thanksgiving pictures to send to various relatives and friends.  Some crafts can be done as well - we are decently stocked on craft supplies.

Of course, playing with the kittens is always a hit.  Simply drag a string or throw a ball of tinfoil at the felines, and you have hours of entertainment right there.

We have a large bookcase, and two shelves are completely dedicated to board games (this doesn't include the DnD stuff, which fills an entire bookcase of it's own, plus a duffel bag full of miniatures).  We also have a LOT of books, and will be going to the library on Wednesday to pick up more.

However, I still am already hearing "Mom, I'm boooored!"

Anyone have any new ideas for activities to keep these active boys busy?