Caterpillar!

It is no surprise by now; my children are in love with all big machines.  Excavators, bulldozers, steam rollers, bucket loaders, it doesn't matter.  They are all loved equally the same in our house, and the favorite brand that they love?  The Caterpillar brand.  Those bright yellow and black machines are spotted everywhere we go.  When I happened to stumble across a small pack of Caterpillar machines at Target, I could not resist but buy them for the boys.  An even better bonus?  I was able to sneak them in the cart, with them there, and they never knew.  Yeah me!  :)

When we came home, the boys were watching Mickey's Christmas Carol, while I set up their invitation to play for the day.  They knew it involved the sand table, since they saw me carry it inside and upstairs.  However, that was all they knew.  I had to keep them out of their play/school room, and that was much harder to do than I thought.  Here is what I used:

Insta-Snow

Tiny glass ornaments (left over from when I was in college)

Various figurines

Garland

Packaged snow

I made the snow according to the directions on the package, and I did not have enough snow to cover the box like I wanted.  That is when I added in the packaged flake snow, which gave the perfect texture that I needed.  Finally, I added the finishing touch; the small vehicles.  

And here was the reaction from the boys:

They were so busy, they did not even look up at the camera!  That is a sign of success in my book.  Pierce then decided we needed to add some cotton balls so he could have some big stuff to bulldoze.  

They played in this for a good hour or more.  And even today, once we were finally home, they went back for some more.  

Our next small world set up is going to be all about the North Pole.  And that also means I may need to go buy some more Insta-Snow...unless anyone else has some ideas.  :)  Have a great night!  And hope you enjoy some small world play if you choose to try it.