Snakey's Cafe

Call me an annoying control-freak, but if my kids are going to be hanging out at our house all day with a babysitter, I want them engaged in something besides watching Sprout for 7 hours.  That's why I've been trying to leave new, no-assembly-required (at least for the babysitter) activities for the little guys.

The cloud dough was a hit, as was the rainbow rice, so I decided to up the ante a little and try for a dramatic play center.  Sarah had the idea for a restaurant, so I took it and went overboard ran with it.  I found some great little menus here, mounted them on construction paper, and covered them in clear contact paper for durability.

For our diner setup we turned over some cardboard boxes, used scrap fabric and hand-me-down napkins and placemats, and turned the puppet theater/airplane on its side for a prep station.

I don't have a really clear report on how it went, but based on the volume of wailing that went on while Mike broke down all the boxes  restaurant furniture, at least Sarah had fun.  Will would rather get his food at the Drive-thru.

Sarah's menu cover.

Despite the demands for chef's hats and "half-aprons with pockets to hold money", they had to make do with Home Depot aprons and bare heads.

Since I wasn't around for the restaurant itself, I couldn't guide my little lab rats the way I would've liked to.  Next time, we're busting out the fake money and tickets for writing orders.

This whole thing came about from our visit to the real Brown's Diner here in Nashville.  The kids had the staff rolling with their Knock-knock jokes and Spanish lingo.  And since we were there even before the card-carrying AARP members got there, we had the place to ourselves.

My boys

Us girls.  I'm getting a little trigger-happy with the phone.

Clean-plate Club

As if Sarah wasn't already upset enough over the demise of the Viking ship, check out what happened to the prep station/puppet theater/superhero telephone booth:

Sigh.  Now I'm off to make flubber.