It's Snowing!!!!!!

Can you tell we are EXCITED?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chocolate Playdough Hearts

O and I recently made chocolate playdough using this recipe. It smelled divine, but we halfed the recipe and I never could get the texture quite right (it was too sticky). O had a great time making chocolate hearts and tricking her Grandaddy and Grandpa into to thinking they were real (they played along...O is not very good at deception :).

Heart "Cookies"

O and I had fun making salt dough "cookies" for Valentine's Day.

We made them a little differently this time...I decided to bake them instead of letting them air dry. We also varied the recipe a bit (we followed the recipe from the long thread). We mixed a cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, and a 1/2 cup of warm water. We rolled out the dough and cut out the hearts. We then baked them on 250 for about 2 hours.

O really enjoyed painting the hearts...we're going to glue magnets to the back of the larger hearts, and we made necklaces out of the smaller hearts. This was a fun and easy craft project (that we enjoy doing for almost every holiday!).

Heart Pocket Pillows

My mom and I made heart pocket pillows for O, E, and my niece. The pattern and directions for this gift came from Handmade Home. The pillows were quick and easy to make and are perfect for sending little love notes to our sweet girls.

Would This Be Allowed...

in a real Montessori school?! O has recently developed a love for her knobbed cylinders. After she completed the work correctly, she started pretending that the cylinders were a mama and her babies. She had a great time, and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt her creative play. Would this type of play be allowed in a "real" Montessori school?

Just in case you are wondering...the big cylinder that is lying down is actually a mama who is having a baby.

Play Make-Up Kit

My mom made O and my niece a bag full of play make-up, and this gift was the HIT of Christmas! (even more so than the doctor kit!)

To make the pretend make-up, my mom collected empty compacts from friends and family. She also bought cheap make-up from the Dollar Tree. She disposed of the actual make-up and filled the trays with fingernail polish. The polish took a couple of weeks to dry (it was VERY humid, which is why it took so long to dry), and now it looks just like REAL make-up!

O and my niece have had a wonderful time pretending to put on make-up, but they REALLY enjoy setting everything up and having us pretend that we are customers who are buying the make-up :)

This compact of brush-on lipstick is my favorite :)

This eye shadow is lots of fun, too!
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I think it's so funny that O loves make-up so much since her mama rarely wears any make-up at all (I can't stand the stuff). I'm glad to have an alternative to the nasty, gooey pretend make-up that you find in the toy section at most retail stores.

My mom got the idea for this gift from a website that she read months and months ago (can't remember where).

E's Birth Announcement

I was happy with how E's birth announcement turned out, so I thought I'd share :)

To make E's birth announcement, I printed the information on iron-on paper and ironed it onto a onesie. Then we had several photo shoots before deciding on the perfect picture. I uploaded the pics to snapfish and ordered 4 x 6 prints for the announcement. I intended to turn it into a card, but I couldn't find a card on the site that didn't have extra "stuff" on it, and I wanted to just have the picture. Unfortunately, I edited the pic before ordering it, and E looks a little green in the pic (it looked fine on the computer...just not so good in person). I bought 4 x 6 envelopes, but I was so late sending them that I eventually just added them in with our Christmas cards. I'm REALLY bad about sending cards. I always make a list of people to send them, too, but by the time I finally send them, I forget to look at the list. Then I don't know who I've sent cards to and who I haven't. So...if anyone that we know in real life reads this blog and you didn't get a birth announcement, now you know why :) I know there are several that I forgot to send because I have extras, and I didn't order extras :(

The idea for this birth announcement came from an old issue of Martha Stewart Kids.

Glittery Snow Playdough

O and I made homemade snow playdough about a month ago, and I just realized that I'd never written about it. We followed this recipe and added white glitter and peppermint extract. It smells delicious! We had fun making and playing with the playdough, but O lost interest in it rather quickly (very surprising since she used to be obsessed with playdough). Luckily, this playdough lasts and lasts (if you store it in an airtight container), so I'm sure she'll be ready to play with it again eventually :)

Heart Suncatcher...Or Not

I planned for O to make a heart suncatcher using contact paper and crepe paper streamers. I cut a heart out of the contact paper and taped it (sticky side out) onto our sliding glass door. I gave her a basket of crepe paper streamers and a pair of scissors. I told her she could cut or tear the streamers and then put them on the sticky heart. She cut a few streamers, but then decided that she'd rather her heart have tails. My little artist has a mind of her own!

"Dance Streamers I Love You"

We do a lot of spontaneous dancing around here, but since we've started having Family Game Night and Family Art Night, it seemed like a fun idea to have Family Dance Night, too (we also have Family Block Night frequently which is O's favorite!). O says every night is Family Dance Night, and that is fine with us.

For our 1st scheduled Family Dance Night, I made O some dance streamers using bamboo pocketbook handles (that her grandmother gave her) and crepe paper streamers (leftover from making the surprise ball). I just stapled the streamers to the handles. Simple, fast, and fun!

I asked O what they are called when I was writing this post, and she said they are called "dance streamers I love you."

Valentine's Day Surprise Ball

O is getting a surprise ball for Valentine's Day! I saw this tutorial for a surprise ball too late to make one for O for Christmas, but I think it will be a great Valentine's Day gift. It was fun, fast, and easy to make!



First, I collected small objects for the surprise ball, including chocolate lady bugs, Valentine's balloons, a growing mermaid, tiny dessert erasers, chapstick, and stickers.

Then I started wrapping the objects with crepe paper streamers (the tutorial says to cut the crepe paper into strips first, but I didn't cut my crepe paper). I wrapped an object completely before adding another object and wrapping it and so on and so on...

After all of the objects were wrapped in the crepe paper, I squished it around a little to make it a more symmetrical ball (it was a little lopsided at first). I continued wrapping it several times to smooth out the crepe paper. Then I taped the end and wrapped the surprise ball with a ribbon. I think O is going to LOVE unwrapping her surprise ball on Valentine's Day!

Make sure to check out the tutorial at Alpha Mom. The pictures and directions are much better than mine :)

Heart Family

When I saw these heart people at The Crafty Crow, I thought they would be fun for O and I to make. To make the heart people, you need a construction paper heart for each person, 4 pieces of pipe cleaners for the arms and legs, and a hole puncher.

I set up a tray with all the necessary materials. I punched the holes in the hearts while O decorated the faces. She decorated 4 hearts, one for each member of our family. She was so funny when she was drawing the face on E's heart. She kept staring at E's face and looking back and forth from E's face to the heart as if she were copying it exactly onto the heart.

O was surprisingly uninterested in this project, so we didn't finish it until the next day. After she finished drawing the faces on all 4 hearts, we joined their pipe cleaner hands (she made sure that the children were in the middle with the mama and daddy on either side) and hung them from our mantel.

Updating My Link List

My link list is badly in need of updating. I'm planning on cutting a lot of the links and adding a few. If I have a link to your blog on my list and you'd like for me to keep it, please let me know by commenting on this post. THanks!

Heart ABCs

Since we're loving these heart activities lately, I decided to write the letters of O's name on them. She was SO excited and thoroughly enjoyed putting the letters in order to spell her name. I also wrote all of the lowercase letters of the alphabet on the hearts. I planned to play with her with the hearts and show her how to make simple words. She had other plans, and she put them in ABC order. I was surprised since that's not something that I would have ever taught her to do, and I had no idea that she could do it. I'm always surprised by the things that she learns completely on her own :)

Cutting Hearts

I told O last week that I'd show her how to cut hearts. She assured me that she couldn't cut a heart, so she was SUPER excited when she found out that she could!

To prepare this activity I folded 4 sheets of red or pink paper in half and drew a half heart on the fold. I gave O the tray of paper and a pair of scissors, and she got to work. She cut along the line and then excitedly opened the paper to see her heart. She was surprised to see that she really had cut a heart! Now she wants to make a book out of her hearts, and I think that is a great idea :)