Starting a new season with my little boy...

I am so excited about this age with my son. At 18 months he is, to my excitement, able to play and interact more. While he still cannot understand everything I am saying he can at least enjoy more hands on activities, which I am all about!

I've been looking around for ideas for a while now of things to do with my toddler besides sit on the floor and play with the same old toys over and over again. I bore easily and get antsy just stacking blocks for my child to knock over. But for the past year or so I stuck it out for the love of being a mom. But enough is enough already and now that his attention span is longer and his understanding is growing every day and probably most importantly he doesn't put everything in his mouth, or at least obeys when I say No, I am going to work on showing him something fun or creative every day we don't have outings, which can be pretty often :)

So anyways in my web travels I came across a lot of stuff one however is notable, another blogger and you can check out her site that will overload your brain with ideas! http://mommasfunworld.blogspot.com/

I can't wait to continue to explore the world more with my son.

Today we took it easy and used what I knew I already had in the house.. we made PLAYDOUGH :)

I looked around and found a few recipes and choose this one because it had the least ingredients and I had sufficient supply of them too. I read that the cooked ones last the longest so kinda ruled out any that weren't because I live by the words "waste not want not".

The recipe I used is as follows:

     1 c. baking soda
     1/2 c. cornstarch
     3/4 c. water

     sift all ingredients, cook over medium heat in sauce pan, add food coloring, cool and enjoy


(next time, just for tryings sake, I am going to try another recipe that is supposed to last at least 3 months. It calls for 3 c. flour, 1 1/2 c. salt, 6 tsp cream of tarter, 3 TBS oil, and 3 c. water)


ok so we've got all our ingredients! (I cut the recipe cause I had never made it before)

and now we sift.. I added the sifting as the recipe said to make sure there were no clumps and well this seemed easier.

then we added the water and put it on the stove to cook. 

and my son tried to wait patiently and then started playing with the "sifter"

ooops I almost forgot to watch the pot, taking pictures of his cuteness.... starting to thicken.

ok so we've got a nice consistency and I didn't burn it! yeah! Divided it into two and added two drops of neon food coloring to each.  

and I mixed it in with my hands after folding in the majority of the liquid with a spoon ( so I didn't end up with blue hands :) )

 And I hardly had them both in the containers before he was reaching for them.

For a minute there it had been so long since I played with playdough that I forgot what to do. LOL, but then it all started coming back to me. We used cookie cutters and frosting dispensers and knives and forks but his favorite thing to do was to tear it into little pieces. He put it in his mouth a few times but after getting a lick and me saying no he got the idea!

It left a nice film on our hands but was still a lot of fun!

Some of our creations... Ephraim made these cut outs himself.. I just lifted them out. (might I mention after over an hour until he finally let me put it away)

and I made Ephraim a dog which he played with till his leg fell off then he tore him apart :)