thinking inside the box

My kids are proving that you don't need to think outside the box to find a bunch of fun (or a platform for imagination).

In our attempt to find something even more fun-worthy and even less conventional than our big pile of sand, we presented the kids with a big empty box this week. (Here ya go kids! Hooray! You're the best Mommy and Daddy ever!) What was in that box originally? Well, it's irrelevant. But much more technologically advanced (and much less fun) than the box it came in. Only going to prove that the best part about buying a new TV isn't neccessarily the improved reception. I assure you, this cardboard box has gotten a lot more use than the electronic equiptment that came in it has. At least by the kids, anyway.

Here's a puppet show, written, directed, and produced by J and Zoo Boy productions, brought to you live from Big Box Theater, located in historic downtown Livingroom. I won't give away the ending, but it's a suspense-filled story of an elephant who was in for a bit of a surprise when it went to take a drink out of a pond.

May I help you? Zoo Boy decided to open a fast-food stand from the box. Then it became a coffee shop. Then a gas station. Did you know that I can fit 16 gallons of gas in the pocket of my shorts? At least that's what Zoo Boy claims. And his version of gasoline is vastly cheaper than what I filled up my mini-van with yesterday.


Peek-a-boo! I'm honestly not sure which kid this is. Or what he's doing in there, other than peeking out the "spy hole". Some sort of secret mission, no doubt, possibly including aliens, or superheros, or baby vultures.

What do you get when you stick a camera lens through a peep hole in a closed box and take a flash picture? Here's the answer!

Have any of you seen that episode of Spongebob Squarepants (oh, c'mon, admit it, you love it as much as we do!) where Spongebob and Patrick buy a big TV just to have a box to play in? It's been sort of like that around here lately. Only in three dimensions. And without Squidward whining.