My Mud Pie Kitchen Rules :D

I was in search of inspiration Friday night when I stumbled across the idea of a Mud Pie Kitchen. Brilliant! I thought back to my own childhood days hidden round the side of our house, scrapping together piles of dirt and fashioning them into all sorts of beautiful creations. My brothers and I often organised lavish weddings in the backyard and would adorn our festive mud cakes and biscuits with beautiful flowers and make heaping piles of 'salad' for our imaginary guests. Then my brother and I would marry and then we'd toss flower petals into the air to draw the nuptials to an end.

Saturday morning I shared my plan with Kookaburra and showed him the article. I read it aloud and he drank in the images. He was buzzed and so excited at the prospect of looking for his own pots, pans and utensils for making his own Mud Pie Kitchen a reality. We roped Kangaroo in and he caught the excitement bug lickety split real quick and we headed out to the op shops. Kookaburra is so cool. He knew exactly which op shop to visit and had described in detail the copious amount of needed items awaiting us there.

A great play like this had to be shared and we invited the Cool Cousin Crew to our Mud Cook Off. They rocked up mid-morning Sunday as the sky loomed darkly above threatening to split and wash away the potential fun.

Undaunted by the prospect of rain the kids all went out to the old barbecue and began.

We couldn't serve a banquet without cutlery and my attempts to have them wear shoes was quickly lost in translation. Wha.... What shoes?!

The rain has been ridiculous. The kids are standing in an old, cracked pond and it has rained so much it is no longer draining away to the complete joy of my crew. 'Can we really play in it?!', incredulously they ask.

And yet again here comes the rain :D

Kids play is their work. I sure wish it was mine :)

Kookaburra found jumping in puddles to be awesome fun except for when the mud splashed him in his eyes. Not so great.

Super, Scrumptious, Green Salad waiting to be served.

'No! It can't stop raining!', he yells crazily to the sky. 'Mum! I'll just pray for more. Please God, this is so much fun, may we please have more rain?!'.

Little mother very busy in her kitchen.

She looks aghast at her grubby, muddy sister and quietly says, 'You can't come into my kitchen. You're all dirty!'. Yep, I thought that was pretty funny too :D.

As the barbecue area flooded the scope of play increased.

Gradually the Mud Pie Kitchen Play began winding down, so to prolong the entertainment I injected some fun into it by providing a liberal serving of beans, lentils, chickpeas and whatever other dried stuff I had in the craft cupboard. The colours, variety and texture reignited the fun and the kiddo's continued on playing for quite awhile longer. Due to the wet clothes they're wearing, I'm not going to admit for how long they were out there. I'm guilty of erring on the side of delaying the inevitable when great fun is to be had.

As it was well after lunch I had the kiddo's do a tidy up. We weren't precious about it but nothing was to be left out in the yard and their concoctions were encouraged to be left as they are for the next time. In the next few days we'll check on the different brews to see if any of those beans and chickpea additions have sprouted.

Hot showers, soaped and scrubbed, hair washed and to the table for hot chips, followed by a Christmas movie. A Super way to spend yet another very wet Sunday.