"Project Store" Fun

One of our fun discoveries this summer has been what Daniel calls the "project store". There's a local toy store that's hosting a different free craft every week during the summer and we've been enjoying that a lot! Our first project was a treasure chest, which Daniel had the most fun decorating and then playing with back at home. The next week it was a beach ball, which they ran out of minutes after we made ours; thankfully we got there in time! The beach ball was decorated with markers and we've had fun with that around the house, too. This week the craft supplies ran out (again), but we had enough fun just decorating cardboard cutouts of a car (Daniel) and a flower (Annabel- yes, she participated this week and LOVED it- she did NOT want to stop! She's definitely my strong willed child). And of course the kids love that it's in a TOY store, so we have fun looking around, too. Daniel is drawn to the super nice big huge trucks that they have...these are on his birthday list now. He's so good about shopping- I'll just put this on my birthday list, he always says. Love it! They have a train running around above our heads by the ceiling, which Annabel loves. They have a Chuggington (TV train show) train table for the kids to play with, which is always a hit. They usually have a few other demo toys, too. It's a super fun store! And when it was 100 degrees outside for those couple weeks, this was a nice cool activity for us to come to! We're planning to keep going each week...Daniel looks forward to it and always asks to go to the project store now!

And near that store, there's a "train restaurant" that we've gone to twice now, too. It all works out wonderfully- do the project and then go out to eat, or vice versa. Annabel LOVED the train restaurant. She was delighted with the trains, the ones overhead and the ones that serve our food. She had the most fun! It was the first time she'd been really been to a restaurant like this, so it was fun to see her delighted reaction.

Thanks to Grandma Cheryl for joining us on one of these excursions! And this week, we took Delilah and Asher with us, which was lots of fun, too! Enjoy our project store and train restaurant pictures!

Treasure chest decorating...

Beach ball decorating...

Checking out toys...

First time at the train restaurant...

Second time at the train restaurant...still just as delighted!

Daniel was being a one-eyed pirate I think...

Sand-art on cardboard cutouts...scooping colored sand out of jars was tons of fun!
Annabel LOVED doing the project, too!