String, tape and things.

While other kids went to the Easter show, and Zoo or where ever it is those kids went...

This is what we've been doing:

We got excited about cardboard boxes we found in the workshop downstairs. We told granddad to keep them for us.

I got this idea to make Ninjago life size.

This is it so far. The left is lego, the right paper - cardboard tape - bits of venetian blinds and some packing sheet thing we found in the speaker box.

Haha... they've already destroyed the weapons.

Tomorrow we paint the ship.

We've had a house full of kids the last week - and they've watched the cardboard boxes and tubes transform. They tell me what is missing- Stella pointed out the ship in the cartoon has fire and flies.

I tell her that's where imagination comes in.

I love that with upwards of 7 kids, we've entertained them with just food, minimal TV and countless games of 'Ninjas, jedi's and bad vs good guys.'

At the end of it all Our toys will be tossed out, dismantled and recycled by the time school starts again. But that's okay - coz all it costed was a can of spray paint... and some string.


It's not that these kids can't afford school holidays with all the trimmings of outings and souvenirs. It's just that... some experiences money can't buy.

The memories of playing with your cousins in a pile of cardboard boxes - of that crazy Aunty who spent school holidays thinking up crazy things to fill up your garage space... well those are the kinda memories that always made my childhood.

So i drag boxes through the rain and tape up the soggy bits with duct tape. We fix our weapons with masking tape, with bamboo skewers... they ask me every five minutes - what are you doing now?

And i tell them to watch out - and i stick steak knives to punch holes through corrugated board. They leave me to my madness sometimes, watch curiously other times, rush to help - test out the structure, fight over the pieces.

Then we close the door at the end of the day and they ask me what we will do tomorrow.

Better yet, what will we make next holidays?

:)