Ideas of What to Do over the Next 2 Weeks?

You might try looking in Parents Magazine. It was either their November or December issue that had some ideas for inside play during bad weather or rainy days. Board games are good. Anything dealing with arts and crafts is good especially at their age, because it lets them be creative and imaginitive. Have fun on you vacation and enjoy the little ones.

Five minute fudge! It's super easy to make, and you can put whatever you want in it, and make it whatever shape you want by pouring into different shaped containers or lay out cookie cutters on wax paper and pour into them (I'd suggest non-chunky fudge for that).

The base recipe (from Rachel Ray) is:

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup peanuts
1/2 cup currants or raisins

Spray large pan with non-stick spray and heat on low heat. When pan is hot, mix in all ingredients except peanuts and currants/raisins. When those melt together, turn off heat and stir in peanuts and currants/raisins. Pour into greased container and refridgerate for half an hour. (If you want to make a wreath out of it, pour into a greased 9" cake pan with a saran-wrapped vegetable can in the middle of it, then decorate.)

I personally don't like peanuts or raisins, and I LOOOVE the milk chocolate morsels that Nestle has, so this is the recipe I made and have eaten half of in two days. My husband won't eat chocolate, so I have to. ;) It's awesome!

12 oz. milk chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 small pkg chopped hazelnuts
1 small pkg sliced almonds (for cake toppings, the package is a blue baggie about 5in x 5in)

You can also do white chocolate fudge (all white chocolate chips), mint chocolate fudge (I would try milk chocolate chips + mint chips or maybe Andes mints instead of semi-sweet + butterscotch), peanut butter fudge (peanut butter chips or 1 cup peanut butter of your choice instead of butterscotch). And you can make it with whatever nuts and dried berries you want (cherries, cranberries, raisins, golden raisins, etc.), or without nuts at all. There's so much versatility.

I'm also a big fan of movie marathons, but I don't know how well your kids would do with that since they're so little. But maybe a day in front of the TV watching Christmas classics would be fun. You could take breaks between movies to do crafts or go out and play or go for a walk or something.

Hi J.
I just moved from Osceola not even a year ago to Muncie. I know that Baugo Park has tubing for the kids if the weather is permitting. It is so much fun too. Also, there is an ice skating rink in South Bend. My girls and I has lots of fun there. Take them outside to play and then come in and make some homemade hot chocolate. Get a puzzle for you all to do together. They have the big sized ones for little ones that you can glue together when you finish and hang it up. Play dough is a big favorite in my house as well as painting. I put up an old white sheet one time and me and the girls spent over an hour painting it. They each had their own spot to paint and it became a beautiful collage of their art. We one time made our own marachas (spelled wrong) with paper mache and balloons. For the end of the marachas we used empty toilet paper rolls. THey have the paper Mache ingredients at family fun.com
Hope this helps in some way

my oldest son (3 years)loves to do the following:
-wash his plastic small animals and action figures in small bowls of water. he uses spoons and old toothbrush to give them their bath.
-get his socked feet wrapped up in wax paper and "ice skate" on the carpet around the house
-check out local movie theaters...sometimes they run special morning shows where you get to watch an older movie and eat popcorn for a cheaper price
-make an homemade invitation and invite a friend over to play and have lunch.

hope that helps

Elkart huh? I'm originally from Warsaw, so howdy neighbor! :) Not much to do there, I understand. My original thought was the Children's Museum, but would that be quite the drive or what? Do you have a boys & girls club? Do you have any places like "Kiln Creations" where you can go in for a flat fee, buy special items to decorate and they'll fire them in the kiln for you? Kids always enjoy making their own art works. You could even buy some of that self drying, or oven baking clay and have them sculpt something! Anything artsy-craftsy. Make a play date with some other moms with children your age. Play some board games with them. Go see a movie. Do you have a roller skating rink? Go bowling. Go to a local book store and have them each pick out a book. Go to McD's or something fun for lunch. Just think of things they don't often get to do! They'll enjoy having you home no matter what. Enjoy your break and happy holidays.

well, if the weather is nice enough, you could bundle them up and take them to the park. you could bake cookies and let the little ones decorate them. get out the crayons and construction paper and have the little ones make holiday cards for close friends and family. maybe you could take them to a nursing home and let them visit with an elderly person for the holidays...old folks love cheery little faces. I don't know if there is a Micheals near you, but if so, they have all kinds of age appropriate crafts that they could work on. take them to a matinee at the movies...Charlotte's Webb is playing now. Plus Christmas is just a few days away...I'm sure they will have plenty of new toys to keep them busy for a while too.