I took my lovely children to the craft store today.  We’ve been looking for different adventures to occupy the long summer days and decided we’d venture to the craft store to see what kind of trouble we could dig up.  Plus, the $1.00 coloring books are such a bargain!

We wandered around for over an hour looking at all the things we could do this summer – making t-shirts, paintings, jewelry creation, dioramas, etc.  I decided to let the kids each pick out something to do this afternoon.  Surprisingly they each decided they wanted to paint a bird house – not for birds to actually use but for their teeny, tiny midget toys to have a place to play.  We left with a pirate ship bird house, a log cabin bird house, and a castle bird house.

When we got home I set up the kitchen table with newspaper, towels, paints, and brushes.  They sat there laughing, talking, and painting their birdhouses for two hours! No arguments, no fighting – just two hours of laughter, politeness when asking to pass more paint, and imaginations running full force.

I sat in the living room and read a book while they worked on their creations and overheard some of the most hilarious conversations happening between them…

Jacob: “This boy pirate is going to marry this boy pirate.  But this other boy pirate is just going to have a bunch of wives!”

Amelia: “That’s a great idea! We can make them have a wedding and then they can adopt all the animals as their children!”

Charlotte: “They can’t adopt the horse because he’s going to have to be the orphan.”

Jacob: “My boy pirates can’t adopt anyone because if their peg legs come off they’ll just fall over and they won’t be able to take care of anyone! Except maybe the parrot because at least he can fly away when they start to fall over.”

Amelia: “How can they have peg legs and hooks for a hand?”

Jacob: “The hook is a bloody stump underneath but the wives like it.”

Charlotte: “Neigh says the horsey orphan!”

Clearly, this trip to the craft store paid for itself.