cinnamon ornaments

We've needed lots to keep us busy the past few weeks because it's been cold and snowy.  While M would like nothing more than to be out in the snow all day everyday, we can't do that with baby G hanging out with us now.  So due to G's laid-back nature we've gotten to try out lots of Christmas projects from gingerbread houses to homemade gifts to these fun ideas...

I think these cinnamon ornaments are one of my favorite holiday activities because they're easy to make and always come out cute. They look baked but they're not. In fact, I made them in school one year because it's that easy. 

1/2 cup cinnamon

1/2 cup applesauce

Mix them to make a dough. Roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. I rolled it between a piece of parchment paper and a piece of Saran Wrap. Then use cookie cutters to cut shapes. 

Use a straw to poke holes for hanging then let the shapes dry for at least 24 hours. I kept them uncovered on parchment paper and flipped them halfway through. 

Once they're dry they can be decorated and strung to hang. We broke out the glitter glue and puffy paint for this...

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While we have lots of time for crafts, I have limited blog-writing time, so I'm including a few other Christmas decorations we've made at the tail end of this blog. 

First, the self-explanatory Christmas tree feet:

And a hand tree. Trace their hands, fold the paper and cut 6 or so out at a time. M loved decorating this with stickers. If I had been more on the ball I would have gotten cute ornament stickers.

Merry Christmas from me, M and G!

bird snacks

We have bird feeders in various places in our yard.  We get a lot of birds because we have woods behind our house.  M always checks out the birds in the morning at the bird feeder outside our living room window.  We have some kind of Japanese(?) tree right outside and the birds seem to love it there. M loves filling the bird feeders with his Papa.  He also enjoys yelling at the squirrels.  

I This morning we were talking about the snow storm that's coming this weekend and how the birds would have trouble finding food under the snow.  I found this activity during a middle-of-the-night playtime feeding with G and I loved it.  A lot of times when I find an idea on a blog I'll then Google it because chances are it's on twenty other blogs and might have different variations.  Most of the first versions of this that I found called for using unflavored gelatin.  Call me weird but giving birds jello seemed odd.  We used honey and bird food.  Seems more natural to me.

We started with a bowl full of birdseed that M enjoyed playing with for a few minutes before we started (sensory).  I didn't measure anything so I can't really tell you how much we used.  I'd guess we had about two cups of birdseed.  I eyeballed adding in the honey.  I was really trying to get a sticky consistency like play-doh but I think we ended up with a bit too much honey.  Then we spread it out and used a cookie cutter....

Our mixture was a little too soggy so what ended up working best for us was filling the cookie cutter instead of actually cutting a shape.  One we did that it held its shape fine.  We put them on wax paper and use a wooden skewer to make holes for string (which are difficult to see here).  

They're currently freezing in the freezer.  Either this afternoon or tomorrow morning we will string them and hang them from our Japanese tree.  Photos to come...

homemade play dough

This morning M and I made a batch of homemade play dough.  I hadn't made homemade play dough since I was little but I think it came out pretty well.  There are a few different recipes for it but the one we used was:
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of water
Mix the salt and flour then add water and knead to form the dough.  We probably ended up using an additional 1/8 cup of water to get the consistency we wanted.  I split the dough in half and added 1 drop of blue and green food coloring.  I did the mixing but I think this is something M will really enjoy doing at 2 or 3.
M's favorite toys are baseballs, footballs, beach balls, rubber balls, etc. so I formed a blue and green ball for him to start with and he jumped right in.  We flattened them out like pancakes and rolled out the dough like snakes.  I attempted to make a few animals and we practiced our animal sounds (currently he has sheep, cow, and monkey down).  One of his favorite things was picking up the little dough balls (marble size) I was making and squishing them between his thumb and finger.  We also tried some cookie cutters:

M liked pushing the cookie cutters into the dough.  Our favorites were the stars:

M's table and chairs are near his play kitchen so we also used some of the kitchen toys with the play dough (his idea).  He liked stabbing the dough with the fork.  He also liked putting a bunch in a bowl and stirring it.  I showed him how to cut with the play knife.  This is M stirring:

If I remember correctly the homemade play dough doesn't last that long before it hardens up.  I wrapped ours in saran wrap when we were finished to try to preserve it but it's so easy to make that it doesn't really matter.  I also put out a white tray to play with the play dough on because I wasn't sure what it would do to M's wood table.  At a few points we were rolling the play dough right on the table and it did nothing.  The homemade variety seems less greasy than the store-bought kind.  I had thought about trying play dough with M before and decided not to because I thought he might be too young (currently 13 months) but he really enjoyed it and did a lot with it.  I also loved that he thought to use the kitchen toys all on his own (I should have thought of that!).