a paper city for a rainy day

This time of year in Florida, you can count on two things pretty much every day -unbearable heat and regular afternoon thunderstorms. Thursday I was certain our wild mid-day shower was going to be taking the fence with it when it left, but it's mostly still intact. This morning the kids only lasted about half an hour playing in the yard before the oppressive humidity drove them back inside (leaving me sweating with the lawn mower alone), and now I can hear thunder beginning to rumble...

So what to do on these dark, and rainy, or too hot to go outside days? Enter, Paper City from Made by Joel. You must check out his fun site- the simple coloring pages alone are worth your time and ink! We printed our city parts on heavy card stock, colored, cut, and set them all up.  Just creating it was a lot of fun, and now the kids like to combine it with trains, blocks, legos, you name it -lots of creative possibilities.

I especially like the group of paper people that Kate colored. They're all pink so we named them the "strawberry pie face people" which makes the kids giggle. The people are drawn without mouths so you can add individual expressions, but I noticed Kenna was the only one who added mouths -her people are all smiling. Laughing at the strawberry pie people, she says.

So, what do you like to do on rainy days?