better pb playdough

     I have made a most excellent discovery!  Now, I'm sure you could google around and see that a good many other people may have found this too, but let's not burst my bubble.  I needed a little bit of brilliance after that photo-less hat moment of mine.

     So what have I discovered?  Well, all the recipes I've read for peanut butter playdough have called for dry milk.  Some of us have been having issues with dairy around here lately, and we really needed some play dough.  There was not enough salt for our "best" kind (as Levi would say), but I really wanted to avoid that dairy in our second best kind.

     I decided, what the hey, we'll just toss in flour and see what happens.  It turned out awesome!  It was really pliable (unlike regular PBPD), it was still edible, and it kept fine in the fridge for a couple of days.  I don't know how long it would last, because by that point it was all eaten up.  So here's what I used:

Pliable Peanut Butter Play Dough (say that 5 times fast... ;-)
1.  Mix together:
~A generous squeeze of honey,
~A huge glop of peanut butter,
~A handful of flour.
2.  Keep mixing in flour, a handful at a time, until you have play-with-able dough.  Peanut Butter is oily, so sprinkle a bit of flour on the table the first time you use it.

     You can add pretzel sticks and make all kinds of things, eat it, or store in the fridge.  You can make a little or a lot, depending on how much PB and honey you start with!  Enjoy!

this week's moment

     Just one special moment to savor from the week...

   My preschooler, just being a preschooler...

(and no, I did not have my 3 year old washing my dishes. 

He was playing with the things from his toy kitchen, just so we're all clear on that!)

paper building blocks

Okay, so we needed to do something especially fun for Micah, so picked a pre-school project that we hadn't done in a long, long time (which ended up being him watch in fascination as Levi and I constructed nearly a dozen of these for him). 

For each block you will need: 2 bags & markers to decorate & a bunch of newspaper.

Wad up the newspaper and stuff one bag.  Decorate the other, any way you like, and then slide it over the stuffed bag.  Voila! 

Our favorite bags are the Sir Punzel tower, the one made to look like our house, and the reversable bag, which has the building fine on one side and on fire on the other, so the firefighters can actually put the fire out!

When we're done with them, we're going to throw them in our fire pit, for a quick burst of warmth!

Brighter Afternoon

Rough morning. Just one of those days. So I had a little, ahem, chat with L. When I went to get him and his brother up from rest time I was feeling better already, but this really sealed the deal. L jumped out and cried, "Supwise Mommy! I kweened my room - all by myself!" And it is very clean indeed. It really was very thoughtful, as just yesterday I was saying we needed to clean his room up.
So my afternoon, just like the skies above, was much brighter than my morning. M was pretending the cooler was a horse, so I pulled out the old wooden one, which brought out the cowboy in both of them. Big brother actually got him into that get-up, and while it didn't last long, it was really cute, and some excellent sharing too!

Well, I'm going to get to work on one of my maps for the shop, as all three have now sold out - have a great weekend everyone!

A Small Discovery

First, some fun stuff. Here's the ship L built. Very proud of this ship, he was!

And here's M wearing my shoes. He walked around repeating, "Mama shoos! Waak, waak, waak..." over and over!And here's my small discovery. Yesterday we went to REI for fun. That's a great store to take kids to. The staff are usually very friendly, and the boys loved getting in the store tents and checking the traction of their shoes on the rock pile (it's made for that). But most of all they love going through all the camp gear gadgets (I love it too). Even M put everything back where he found it! I would love to have been there when the staff went to clean up the mess that they'd expect two small boys to leave and found it left better than most adults! They both were drawn to the small greenish camp cups, and being a dollar I let them each have one.

The cups are perfect! Just the right size for small ones, durable, don't spill easily, perfect for snacking from, stackable, and have a little handle! What a great thing for the boys! Silly, I know, but when you've experienced the frustration of tipping kiddie cups, or giant-portion sized kiddie cups, you'll know what I mean!

It's the little things that make life grand! And in case you're wondering, M did not spill that cup of milk!

New Stuff

So here are the boys at activity time, with play dough and trains (the trains ended quickly when the play dough appeared!

Here's the trains. Sorry about the silly Blogger side-ways thing again!
And here's the new stuff. Everybody has to re-vamp. Old stuff gets old. So we rearranged our daily routine. I don't like scheduling things time-wise, but both the kids and I like knowing what comes next. This way we can spend as much time or as little as we like on a thing. We've always done this, we're just making a new chart for the kids to follow along (and to cut out some of the TV that's crept in - so sneaky, that TV). L was really excited to make his into a book! He loves making little books.

Have a great day everybody!

Junior Photography

So L wanted to try his hand at some more photography (and as his brother was busy digging through the toys in L's room), I let him have at it! The only thing I wouldn't let him do was go take a picture of his brother, as that would end the photo session with much wailing and nashing of teeth. Other than that he went around taking pictures of things that are fun and/or important to him... I know it's a lot of pics, but I wanted to share them all. Enjoy!

Happy Monday!

Bubble Dance

And here's a bit of the fun we had Thursday evening...

I taped some bubble wrap to the floor and the boys danced away! It lasted longer than I thought it would!

Preschool Fun - Paper Bag Turkey

To make your own turkey you will need:

-2 paper bags

-construction paper

-old newspaper

-glue

-2 pieces of string (about 12" each)

-scissors

-paper towel tube

-"feathers" (leaves, paper cut-outs, etc)

Directions:

1. Cut out features (your child can do this if capable). You will need 2 eyes, 2 pupils, 1 beak (cut out a diamond and fold in half), 2 large wings, 1 red gobble (I forgot mine!) and 2 feet (they don't have to be perfect - you just need some bird toes sticking out from under the turkey!)
2. Crumple newspaper and use to stuff both paper bags. One bag will be the body and one the head.
3. Stick the paper towel roll into the "body" bag. Gather the edge of the bag around the roll, and use a piece of string to tie it shut. The paper towel roll will support the head, but will not show when you are finished
4. Invert the open "head" bag and set it down over the body and paper towel roll. Be careful not to lose all your stuffing! Gather the edges around the "neck," and use your other piece of string to tie it closed. He's starting to look like a turkey now!
5. Now you can glue on the turkey's features. You may need to lay him down while the glue dries. We save the feathers for last, and your kids can put on as many or as few feathers as they like. I once cut out their handprints for the feathers. It looked really cool, but took a lot of time. This year we used fall leaves.
   
   

Give your turkey a name and a nice place to sit! Promise not to eat him for thanksgiving!!!

Let's Go Fishing!

L and his friends...

And here's L de-nuding the couch. It is now a ship. M loves it, because he can get up without any help!

Going fishing on our ship! I tied a string and clothespin to the end of these soft poles! L was so excited, and loves putting "fish" on and off. Wheel-fish, flying wheel-fish, bird-fish, dog-fish, you name it, we caught it!

Our First Freezer Paper Artwork

Nana also brought some fabric paint and canvas bags for some fun crafting time. We got some freezer paper and tried SouleMama's approach, which I read about in The Creative Family. It was awesome! The kids can actually do their own painting, and it comes out looking really great (which is a plus if you're investing in fabric paint and canvas bags)! I cut their patterns while they took their rests, ironed them onto the bags, and then taped the whole thing down to the table. Here I am working on mine (a little one-floor school house, which L declared, "That's our house!")...

When the boys got up they were eager to get to painting! M used a variety of colors, and needed a bit of help!

Here's L carefully removing the paint from his hands. He is always so cautious when we first start a messy project. After that he chose to paint with blue, blue, and blue (no surprise there!)!



We put them somewhere safe to dry, and then chilled out for the night!

Here we are the next morning checking out M's dry project.

We peeled off the freezer paper together....

And this is what we got! It turned out so great!

Here we are with L's bag...

I'd say he's proud of himself, what do you think?

And here's our finished bags, all lined up. We are going to use them for library books and road-trips! Thanks for the materials Nana!