Just Smashing

I pinned this forever ago on Pinterest, but finally got the ambition to try it out. How could we not try something called "Bashing Baked Cotton Balls"? I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of messy entertainment, especially with a toddler and a preschooler. But what's a little clean-up when my lovelies are busy and happy for more than fifteen minutes? Plus all you need for this activity is cotton balls, flour, water, and food coloring. Here is the original blog I borrowed the idea from.


 *Preheat the oven to 300. Line one or two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

 *Mix flour and water in equal parts. I did about 1 cup of each, which was plenty. I am notorious for making way too much of everything.

 

 *Next, I divided the mixture into 3 different bowls. We put red food coloring in one, blue in one, and green in the other.

 * Here's where it gets sloppy. Dip the cotton balls in the bowl of your choice and roll it until it is fully coated. At this point, I was questioning my sanity a tiny bit, but the kids dug it. I highly recommend having a couple damp dish towels on hand to wipe off little fingers between colors.

 * Once you've decontaminated your helpers, stick your cotton balls in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes. We went outside to play in the snow while they baked. :)

Finished product.  

*Now for the fun part. After they cooled off a bit, we broke out our trusty tools (plastic hammer, plastic pliers, and a wooden spoon) and got busy smashing those little babies.

Note: They played with these for a good thirty minutes while I made dinner and still didn't use them all. I put the leftovers in a ziplock bag, but when I took them out a few days later they were already moldy. Maybe kept in a refrigerator this wouldn't have happened?

Of course Little Miss had to give them a taste test.

And weigh them....

Le Sneeze

When I was teaching I was always coming down with some sort of illness; a cold, the flu, a sympathetic itch when a student had poison ivy or head lice. No surprise. I mean, I was being sneezed on, coughed on, and some grubby hand was always wanting to be held. To top that off, Little Man was generously sharing all of his germs from daycare.

At the end of my second pregnancy I finished up the school year and became a stay at home mom. And wouldn't you know, our house instantly became a healthier place to live. I guess I should probably give a shout-out to my prenatal vitamin, too, for its contribution. A whole year with hardly a sniffle. Mommy Heaven.

 Then Little Man started preschool. My handsome guy has been thoughtful enough to bring home an assortment of sickness almost consistently since September. I can only recall a handful of weeks where everyone in the house was feeling up to par. You would think my obsession with Clorox wipes would deter things a bit, but No. Even the mighty sanitizing wipe is no match for the germ factory we call school.

I'm not even sure where I'm going with this. Just tired of being sick. Tired of my babies waking up crying. Tired of wiping snotty noses. Tired of feeling like a zombie. Tired.

On the bright side, we recently got a Sam's card and are fully stocked up on Puffs. I guess I can find comfort in that until Summer Vacation gets here.

Spring Feva'

It was beautiful here in good ol' Kansas today. Which means I'm itching for Spring to get its butt in gear. Like now. Daddy and Papa took Little Man on a hike by the lake this morning. Followed by lunch at the grandparents' and some quality time outside. It's incredible what a little sunshine will do for a girl.

Inspired and feeling kinda rejuvenated by those nice, warm rays we finished a couple projects we've been meaning to get to. The main one being to start seeds for our garden. Last year was our first year trying out our green thumbs and we discovered it was something we really enjoyed. What can I say? We're old at heart. We bought most of our plants last summer, but it got a bit pricey, so this year we decided to start everything from seed. Little problem, though. We have a toddler who demolishes EVERYTHING. We affectionately call her Babyzilla. So where to put all of our plants? The windowsills are right within the reach of tiny, destructive hands and none of our counter space gets enough light. I came up with the idea to build some temporary shelves in our living room windows. Something we could take down when we were ready to transplant outside. Turns out no idea I ever have is original. After a doing a bit of Google research I found I'm not the first to come up with this nifty plan. Ah, well. Here's our version.






   Nothing fancy, just some scrap wood the hubster had. By the way, have a mentioned how cute he looks when he builds things for me? I digress....






After all that planting, we started dinner. On the grill of course in honor of the gorgeous weather. I had to share this recipe I got off Pinterest. We could have easily thrown these on the grill with the chicken, but we got a late start so I used the oven. Super yummy. I can't wait to use our own fresh veggies! 1-2 zucchini 6-8 carrots Olive oil Seasoning (I used Mccormick's Perfect Pinch Vegetable because that stuff is like gold from Heaven) Slice your veggies about 3 inches long and 1/2 an inch thick. Throw them in a bowl or gallon bag and toss with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and your seasoning. You can be pretty generous with the seasoning. Spread out your veggies on a cookie sheet. I lined mine with parchment paper first. Bake at 425 until everything is tender (about 30 minutes). I thought we had way too many for our family of four, but they were so good we ate them all!

Valentine's Day. I've been dreading it for weeks now. Not for your normal reasons, though. I'm going to spend the day with my lovelies and I never frown on holidays where flowers and chocolate are practically mandatory. Nope. I am stressed because my sweet little boy has a preschool party where there's bound to be nothing but pink and red food.

That probably makes no sense to most, but in our household that is a recipe for disaster. Less than a year ago we were having a lot of trouble with our son. Crazy mood swings, uncontrollable screaming fits, night terrors, two parents for sure they had ruined their sweet little baby....You get the picture. Then one day after his very own bowl of bright red sherbet his face broke out and he went all Mr.Jekyll. A light bulb finally went off. Red food dye. I'd heard of kids being sensitive to it before and it all kinda fit the bill.

So we dropped it cold turkey. We started reading labels and purged our cabinets of all violators. You'd be shocked at all the ridiculous things they add red food dye to. Look sometime for yourself. I scoured the Internet for alternative food ideas and proof that it was a real allergy (well, more like a food sensitivity, but I'm not a doctor). We had plenty of people think we were crazy, but we held our ground and things got a lot better. Not that he's an angel or anything. He's probably the most stubborn little human on the planet, but we've noticed a complete difference. And we haven't been 100% successful keeping it away from him. The other day he accidentally got some crackers with the yucky stuff and let's just say at one point he was on top of a public toilet while I tried to hold onto a wiggly toddler and simultaneously coax him down. Like a really weird hostage situation. It was super.

Anyway, back to this preschool party. His teachers are aware he can't have the stuff, but I feel like that's an awful lot to ask of them. The poor guy's going to be surrounded by all kinds of awesomeness that he's not allowed to have. Usually he's a real trooper at parties, telling the host or hostess that he "can't have red", but he struggles with understanding that red is in lots of colors. And I'm afraid that EVERYTHING will be off limits. I mean, when was the last time you saw a Valentine's treat that wasn't pink or red? And he definitely doesn't get that most cookies and cake have it lurking in there somewhere. Don't ask me why white frosting and cake need to include red. It's apparently something only the food industry can understand.

So tomorrow I get to play the bad guy and hope he's not too disappointed when I take away all of his goodies. Yes, I know there are mistreated, malnourished, unloved children out there, but he doesn't know that. And I just hate the thought of him being sad. :(  I guess that's why I bought him one of those stupid, singing, dancing stuffed animals for a Valentine's gift.  Which really just adds to my dread of tomorrow. Sigh.

Sliiiiiiiiimmmmmmme!

I love me some Pinterest. It's like crack for anyone even remotely crafty. And look what I stumbled upon; GLOW IN THE DARK SLIME!  While I'm not completely sold on the idea of my preschooler playing with goo in the dark I couldn't deny it sounded kind of awesome. Besides, we are planning a superhero birthday party and what could be more perfect than glowing slime? So after two trips to Walmart (because apparently Borax is in high demand) we had everything we needed to do a trial run.

Here is the original recipe, but I altered it a bit.

Ingredients:
4 oz Clear glue
1 cup warm water
Neon Green Glow Paint
2 teaspoons Borax
1/3 cup warm water

Mix together the glue and one cup of warm water.  The container of glue I had was 5 oz, so I just kinda eyed it. Then we added the Glow paint.  This is the part I changed up a bit and I'm terrible at measuring, but we used about 2 tablespoons of the paint.  I really like recipes that don't need to be exact. :) In another small bowl we mixed the Borax and the 1/3 cup water and stirred until it was pretty well blended. Add the Borax mixture a little at a time to the glue mixture.  It will firm up quickly and you probably won't need all of the Borax. It really depends on how runny you want it.  Since I'm dealing with two under four here, we made it pretty firm.

This literally took 3 minutes to make and hardly any mess. Two big plusses in my book. It looks and feels just like old school Gak and I was half tempted to teach the kids how to make farting noises. Ahhhh, memories.

The kids loved it. N thought we needed to get out the playdough tools. His wish is my command.

 No Daddy's were hurt in the making of this slime.

I stored it in some cheapy containers. A week later and it's still good. 

So simple, so fun. You know you wanna.

Our Snack Solution

My 18 month old has become a monster....A snack monster. At least 15 times a day she takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen chanting, "Mama, mama,mama" and pointing at the refrigerator or pantry. If she talks someone into opening the refrigerator she climbs right in saying, "Want dat!". No matter that we've just finished a meal. She's hungry all day long and it's my job to try to fill her cute little belly with things that are healthy. It's exhausting.
This is how our refrigerator snack basket was created. We already have a snack basket that I keep in the pantry. It's usually filled with dye free fruit snacks, granola bars, veggie sticks, and trail mixes I make about once a month. Anyway. This got me thinking I should do the same thing, but in the refrigerator.

These are the things I added:

• Squeeze Snack things. Don't ask me the real name for these things, but both of my kids love them. 
• Fruit cups (pears, tangerines, applesauce)  
• Yogurt tubes. Maybe not a great idea. Little Bug made a pretty good mess. We live and learn. 
• Fresh fruit (strawberries, oranges, grapes) 
•  Biscuit and fruit dippers. Not something I would normally buy because they are on the pricey side. But I had a coupon.
•  Mini pepperoni with cut up cheese and mini crackers. My version of a lunchable. :) 
• Cheese sticks 
•  Fresh veggie bag (snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower) 
•  Celery with peanut butter. I got these tiny little containers at the dollar store when I was making baby food and they come in handy for all sorts of things.

So there we have it. She still raids the kitchen and demands to be fed, but this gives her the opportunity to make some healthy choices on her own. Go me :)