Happy, Surprised, and Angry

I started showing G how to make faces in the bathroom mirror months ago.  We make happy faces, surprised faces, and angry faces.  Now she wants her Daddy and me to draw faces for her when we color together and she specifies which of the three.

 So tonight while she was helping me with dinner aka stirring a few dry ingredients together while I cook, we also decorated our canned biscuits.  (Usually G & I make Bisquick biscuits....one day I'll learn to make my own real biscuits.)

Unfortunately the faces mostly cooked right out of the biscuits, but we had a few make it.  I think that happy face might have looked surprised when we buttered it.  :)

This is the second time I've posted photos of my ugly cookie sheets.  They are old, but what finally did them in was Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes.  Delicious potatoes though!  :)

Goop with Sprinkles!

We love cornstarch goop.  It's safe, fun, and easy to clean up. 

 

 We start with two parts cornstarch to about one part water.  Here I think we had about two cups of cornstarch and one cup of water.  I let G work at stirring it together and then I help a little.  Cornstarch goop mixes together better if you dig in with your hands.  :)

Once we have it mixed up we push it around for a little while and pick it up and drop it and watch it melt into a puddle.  It's very mesmerizing. 

 Then to keep our interest in the project we added some food coloring.  Adding color was new for G and she enjoyed it a lot.  Although I did panic a little when I realized it was staining her fingers and we were having a special photo shoot with Grandma the next day.  Thankfully it all came off!  So that's my warning, be careful with the food coloring! 

It's so fun and pretty to pull the dye through the goop. 

 

Eventually we had green goop and we played with it for a little while more.

 

 Then I had the brilliant idea of adding sprinkles.  G loved shaking the colored sprinkles in herself.  :)

Organized Lists

A notebook for all my lists with self-adhesive index tabs to organize it?   This is brilliant.

Source: myworldmadebyhand.blogspot.com via Angela on Pinterest

Being a big time list maker myself, I've been going through withdrawals because I can never seem to get to paper and pen at the same time I have an idea.  I blame this partly on my "New Mama Brain", but how long is that excuse good?  She is 21 months old.  I guess it's "Toddler Mama Brain."  Yes, that is what I'll call it.  I am now inspired to get my list writing back in order.

Magnetic Tray for the Little Traveler

When I finally decided that I could take a day trip three hours from home I started looking for road trip ideas for my 21 month old toddler.  I thought the cookie sheet activity tray was brilliant.  Then I found this plastic activity tray idea- a tray hot glued to a pillowcase.  So, not having time to check the dollar tree for a cheap cookie sheet, I decided to use my crusty, thirteen year old cookie sheet that I want to replace anyway.

I learned the hard way that it works best to hot glue a section at a time and lay the pillow case over as you go.  Turns out that hot gluing the entire tray and then flipping it over in the air to the pillowcase behind you is not the best way to go.

I put a bunch of Melissa and Doug magnets in a zipper bag and when the novelty of the zipper bag wore off she thoroughly enjoyed the magnetic tray.  We also tried coloring, but my little darling is still rear-facing so the coloring on the tray didn't go as well because her seat leans too far back.

The tray occupied her for the better part of an hour which is a big deal for the parental ears and nerves!  Videos, new books, dolls, a few new cheap toys, stickers, and her favorite snacks and we did pretty good.  Daddy had to ride in the back for the last half of the ride back.



(Photos taken of rear-facing toddler in moving car with phone camera at end of stretched out arm from front seat.)

I did it!

Daddy decided G should be able to switch on her own light.  This is the second version of her light switch.

One day it may have something other than a wire tie holding it together.  The black part attached to the light switch with double-sided foam tape is from a cheap-o frame that came from a theme park photo we bought years ago.

 The toddler is thrilled.  "I did it!  I did it!  I did it!"

And I did it too.  I started a new blog.  Stay tuned for more toddler fun.  :)