Ebeth's Creative Chaos: Indoor / Outdoor day ideas

Zebra, horse, monkey
spider and lion
(the giraffe refused again)

What do you do when it has been 100 + temps for 9 days? You find fun things to do indoors and then you play in the water some more! With 6 kids around during the week I am ALL about inexpensive fun that can be shared. There are zillions of places to find ideas of these things, online and in magazines that is. But another place I end up getting lucky is the dollar stores (Deals and otherwise) in the area. At Valentine's day I came across these self inflating balloons you only needed to hit them to start. Super cool science fun on that one. But this time I stumbled upon these handpuppets/hanimals tattoos. So sorry that I forgot to snap a shot of the package before we tossed it. But they were located right at the checkout station for the last minute temptation purchase. Ding, Ding.. they won and it was worth the 3 dollars I spent. I even have some left over for a future date.

Best buds for life I do hope

Next, there has been TONS of pool time as with every summer. But to twist things up a bit we also headed out to a desolate place called Zachary's Park. This is an excellent place to visit early in the day in less than desert temps. But in the heat of the day any given day the playground equipment could easily give you 3rd degree burns. When we arrived with our 50 cent soda's (thank you Mobil on the Run for this Cardinals inspired promotion) and picnic lunch there was one other group of kids there. They hardly interfered with us and we were all alone shortly.
It was one or both of the bigger girls ideas to get extremely wet and then head to a slide or two. Their first idea worked pretty well and without complaint but after the first slide the dried enough to need something more. So.... add a towel and off they went again. I say they excluded my oldest son and birthday boy of course. I mean age 12 does equal party pooper!!

Look at that face! :)

Love the expressions!

I love the faces I was able to capture in these pics too!! Course this special slide caused the towel to roll up so they got even more brave, re-wetted themselves and tried a bigger piece of equipment further away. I probably should have pressed them to wear shoes but well, kids are kids. A few hot feet complaints later they slid just one time each like Aladdin with their towels and that was it for the slide playtime.
We all kind of hovered about the water area until I went to the restroom to change into my swimsuit. These temps are warm enough for me to enjoy the cool water, amazing I know since it takes a lot for me to not be cold. I found all but oldest on the swings (with towels of course). I wish I could have heard what the topic of conversation was. That is always interesting. Anyway, we began playing a follow the leader type game with littlest and the girls when they boys (again all but 1) started playing. He didn't stay off the hook bday or not because he was forced to join. That game getting a bit old after 30 min, turned into red rover. I had to explain a few rules but we laughed away, and pretty much didn't get hurt :)

Precious!

The last part of the water fun is the best though, inspired by a bright orange bouncy ball and my dear niece. I am guessing oldest would have thought so himself and enjoyed the experimentation but again pouting boys miss out.
There are 2 spouts that work, 2 that do not. Also, there is a technique to getting the ball up higher than before. But this my friend's is well worth the effort to discover rather than me elaborating. I whole-heartedly recommend that you find your own splash pad fun soon. When you do make sure to bring along some bouncy balls of different colors, sizes and types too!