Easter vacation indoor activities

So the extended Easter vacation is over for the children. As usual we don't treat our/their vacation time any different than weekends.  We're not the type of parents that think ahead a lot and go and search for "vacation activities".  We just hang around like we do most weekends, starting with a slow morning in pyjama. The rest of the day there's usually at least one walk or some time at the nearby playground or in our garden. There is always some time for TV or tablet games. 

Other than that, we keep ourselves busy at home.  This time the children also had to play 6 days by themselves because we were working. Not too bad, in those 3 weeks we managed to have a majority of time that we took some time off and there were a couple of times that classmates made some play dates for them.

So what did it look like (beside the ample screen time) ? 

There were gym acrobatics in pyjama. 

There was renewed interest to draw or color and to learn how to draw Pokémons thanks to some new drawing books we got them for the vacation period. 

We also recolored our windows as there were still Valentine hearts and carnaval masks and some forgotten Christmas trees.  

Jan usually takes some time to bake with the children.

I volonteered to play some family games with them, which especially Beertje adores.

I rule winning quartet against Beertje

With our new library books, I refreshed reading time

Since we cleaned up all toys away from the living room, the lego boxes got renewed attention and get moved up back into the living room all the time. The lego play is more roleplay than building, but hey, fine by me ;). 

I introduced watching De Mol together. We watched our backlog of 3 episodes this vacation as a family together.   Now the boys get to learn the perks of "waiting one week" of analog tv, which seems quite new to those digital natives. 

Beertje still adores playing with the wooden railtracks in the east of Belgium and seeks continuously volunteers to join him. Unfortunately his older brother is growing out of this activity so this creates tensions. Frankly I don't enjoy crawling on my knees for too long either.  

We had a couple of play dates on the days we were working.  Somehow it is often easier to combine homeworking with children if there is one or more guests in the house.  At least if you keep the catering going and if you accept that every toybox gets opened up to show off all possibilities of play.