Keeping Busy

Mega is 11 months old.

Zilla is 3 years 9 months old.

Recently I've had a few conversation about keeping the kids busy so they stay out of trouble.  It seems that once the heat/humidity hit we spend more time in a smaller space as we only cool one room in our home at a time.  The same thing happens in winter when only one room is heated.
Here are some of the things the kids have been doing in the kitchen/dining room recently:

 Mega has been working in her home office.  

The old keyboard and phone come out of the closet about once a month and the kids both love to role play using them.

We have had some early morning art sessions.   Since the sun is up by 5 AM and the kids are often up by 6 AM this early morning time can be put to good use - even if we, the parents, aren't very awake yet!

 Here is Mega's section of the kitchen activity shelf.  It has been tough for me to make space for her as we don't have much space to begin with.  Once her area was set up though it became much easier for me to get things done in the kitchen as she is now able to entertain herself.
The top shelf has a ring stacker, airplane, duck on wheels and a wobbly duck which makes a chime noise.  On the middle shelf has a ball basket, cloth basket and paper basket.  On the bottom shelf there are some books, a pot, an area rug and a basket with a stacking toy.

One of my recent discoveries is that clothes pins hooked to the curtain rail make a great place to dry painted pictures!

Zilla is loving his Kumon Workbook "My First Book of Cutting". 

The cutting book also creates the chance to use the tape which Zilla also loves to do!