For us, during our self-elected quarantine, things haven’t changed too much. My husband and I work from home already and our kids are not in daycare so the choice was easy. I understand that for many of you, it has not been this easy.
Either way, we are home with the kids. We have been trying our best to shield them from our stresses.
We have been doing more praise and worship each day.
We have been praying with them more.
But most of all, we have been playing and laughing with them more.
This impromptu carnival came about when I randomly told Scarlette I would paint her face the next day. Don’t ask me why – I don’t even remember what silliness we were talking about when I said that.
I got to thinking…
Carnival games are so random and DIY-like to begin with.
My kids have no expectations on what a carnival even is so there was no way this would be a fail.
I decided to throw a whole carnival together while they were napping and surprise them with it when they woke up.
Here is what I had in my home to make a home carnival:
Bath toys for the win! In a new setting, it made for a really fun game.
We made a half batch of cupcakes earlier in the day and while they were napping, I frosted them and threw some colorful sprinkles on them!
This was actually the most fun for me! We didn’t have any darts so I DIY’d that part too.
I actually used an old medicine syringe for babies and cut the tip off and dropped a thumbtack in it and then put the back on so it was secured shut.
I thought it was pretty clever.
The penny toss was loud and challenging for the kids. They loved this one!
We had 3 cream sodas in the pantry from a week or so prior. Within about a month at the end of Feb and March, 3 of us have birthdays so we had a lot of sweet treats like this already.
I also had some party bags in my craft box so I popped some popcorn and threw it in the bags.
I’ve had this candy gumball machine for a few years and it looked perfect in our carnival!
I have used it for potty training and for the “spend or save” concept when rewarding my kids for tasks. I got it on Amazon.
Oddly, this was their favorite. Throwing a tennis ball at a toilet paper tower. They kept calling it the merry-go-round.
I wish I knew why haha!
We also painted faces upon entering the carnival. I had some acrylic paint in our craft box but no paintbrush.
It turned into finger painting shapes on their cheeks. THEY LOVED IT.
