Making a Baby Doll Cradle

O and I made a cradle for her "niney" babies using an oatmeal box. It was simple, but it took a few days since it had to dry between each step. First, I cut the oatmeal box. Then O and I painted it with mod podge glue. She LOVED doing this!

While she was painting the box with mod podge glue, I cut out strips of construction paper (O chose the colors) that we laid them on top of the mod podge.
We let the cradle dry for a day before painting it with another layer of mod podge glue. Again, this was SO MUCH fun for O. She stayed busy picking the glue off of her hands for quite a while after we finished this project :)
Here's the finished cradle. Its the perfect size for her "nineys," and she loves to rock them in it. The cradle actually turned out to look a bit like a roll of lifesavers, but O doesn't mind. I thought about embellishing it with stickers and lace, but decided to just leave it as is.

Homemade Tortillas

O and I made homemade tortillas for lunch yesterday, and they were delicious! The recipe came from her Highlights High Five magazine (we LOVE this magazine!), and I adapted it a little. You need flour, salt, vegetable oil, vegetable oil spray, shredded cheese, and water.

1) Mix together 3 cups of flour (we used 2 cups of white flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour) and 1 teaspoon of salt

2) add 1 cup of water and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (we used olive oil, and I added a little more water since we used whole wheat flour)

3) stir until mixture forms a ball

4) make 12 balls of dough

5) flatten the dough with your hands or a rolling pin

6) spray a pan with the vegetable oil spray (we didn't have any spray, so we just used olive oil), and cook each tortilla over medium heat for 2 minutes (we cooked ours a little longer because I like them when they are a bit crispy). Turn it over, add cheese, and cook until the cheese melts.



I was excited by how easy and fun this was! O had a great time tasting the dough. She kept asking "O taste?" Pouring the flour in the bowl
Mashing the dough with her hands
Rolling the dough with her rolling pin
Eating her cheese quesadilla. They were a little greasy since we used olive oil instead of cooking spray. Next time, I'll use a bit more whole wheat flour. O had lunch a delicious lunch of cheese quesadillas, blueberries, and tomatoes while standing in her kitchen helper while I cooked all of the tortillas :)

What She's Into...

Most of our Montessori work is put away until we start back with our school, but we have a few things out that see daily use. O LOVES the lentil tray! I'm so happy to see her enjoying it so much because she ignored it for months after the initial "newness" wore off.
She also is really into washing the windows!
She gets the knobbed cylinders down every other day or so. I planned to put them away for a while, but they are so big that I didn't have anywhere to stash them. I guess that's a good thing, since she has enjoyed working with them so much lately.

A Shell Memory Game

Can you tell that I love making/playing memory games? The idea for this game came from The Write Start. When I saw her post, I knew we would definitely make this game. Its so pretty and fun! If you haven't checked out The Write Start yet, you need to!

First we washed and dried the shells. Then we put the stickers on the shells. I looked several places before finally finding the same exact stickers that were used on the inspiration post (at Target). I was pretty excited especially since all of the other sea life stickers that I'd found were flashy and tacky :) O helped stick a few of the stickers on the shells, but she was a little rough and I was afraid she would tear them.
Since she's not quite ready for a full-fledged memory game, we did a matching game instead. I put a set of shells in each basket, and she chose one from the 1st basket and then found its match in the 2nd basket. She REALLY enjoyed this!Here she is with all of her matches!

Learning to Tie-Dye

We learned to tie-dye shirts at the birthday party of a friend on Sunday, and it was so much fun! O went a little crazy squeezing the bottles too hard, so I had to help her quite a bit. This is definitely something we'll do again. I read on a blog (can't remember where) about tie-dyeing every year on Jerry Garcia's birthday, and I think that's a great idea!

Crayo-Craze Crayons

I saw this at WM the other day and thought it would be a great coloring tool for O. She inspected it for quite a while. Then she colored with it a bit. She was disappointed that she couldn't make "tadoos" on her skin with it (and I was relieved). I hope she'll enjoy coloring with it more next time. I think its a great idea and very convenient. Also, the crayons are unbreakable, and there's no paper for her to peel off, which is nice. Although, I think peeling off the paper is her favorite thing about crayons :) I really want to get crayon rocks for her, but I think I'll wait until Christmas. Although, I need to go ahead and buy them since they are on sale! Here she is trying to trace her hand. She LOVES to trace her hand and our hands!

My Little Babywearer

O is practicing attachment parenting at a young age :) My mom shortened her sling, so it is easier for her to carry her babies in it. She loves wearing them in the "sing, ike O!" What a good little mama she is! She also nurses her babies frequently and loves to change their diapers (cloth, of course!). Next I've got to teach her to do EC with her dolls. I'm sure she'll LOVE that!

Edit to Add: I'm VERY sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to this post with more details about making the sling! The sling is about 11 inches wide and 21 inches long. It's reversible, so you need to cut 2 pieces of cloth with these dimensions. At each end cut the cloth with a curve instead of a straight line. You sew the 2 ends together (after sewing the 2 pieces back to back and turning them), and the curve forms the pocket for the baby. You can see the seam at the bottom of the picture. I know those are terrible directions, but I'm no sewer (although I'm trying to learn!).

Muffin Tin Monday

We missed last week, so O was very excited to see her muffin "tin" today. She had grape tomatoes, goldfish crackers and raisins (I'll be so glad to see the last of these goldfish. We only buy them for special occasions, and we had LOTS leftover from O's birthday party), banana peppers and prunes (the girl LOVES prunes and begs for more!), blueberries, and organic peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread (O's new "fave-it" sandwich!).

Btw- I want to make sure readers know that I am not promoting goldfish colors by making a felt set of these goldfish. We do not let O eat these because we avoid dyes, preservatives, and pretty much anything artificial as much as possible. However, I really think they are cute, but just for play food not real food :)

ChasingCheerios@gmail.com

Stephanie at Montessori Free Fall had a great idea that I'm copying (I hope she doesn't mind!). Lots of people have been asking questions on the blog, and I try to answer everything in the comments section. However, I don't always see the comments (they are sometimes sent to my junk mail), so I may miss a few. Also, I don't know if you remember to check back in the comments section to see if I've answered your question. So... I've created a Chasing Cheerios email address. If you have any questions about anything at all, then you can just email me and I'll email you back with the answer :) Hopefully, that will make it easier on the readers and me! Thanks, Stephanie, for this great idea!

Chalkboard Birthday Cards

The chalkboard is great for making birthday cards, too! I uploaded a pic from our birthday card photo shoot to snapfish, and I'll make a postcard to send to Grandpa for his birthday. He's going to love it, and O had a great time making it! Also, I discovered that I love writing with wet chalk :) We left the chalk out in the rain last night, and it was so much more fun to write with it when it's wet. I really don't like the feel of chalk on my fingers, so this was a very pleasant discovery. I think we'll just use wet chalk from now on!

Learning to Water Ski

O is ready to learn to ski ("ike mama and dada"), so she practiced today in the grass. I think 24 months is a bit young for skiing, but Elliott is determined to teach her next summer. We'll see...

Making Wrapping Paper :)

O and I had a great time wrapping a present for one of her friends today. We started with a piece of newspaper. She painted it with her dot painters. Then decorated it with stickers and colored with markers a bit.

Then it was done! We had a great time with this project, and O was very proud. She told me that she want to "get in O's car seat and mama drive to see Momo NOW!" The party is not until Sunday. I hope she can wait that long!

The best part about this is, not only was it fun, but its recyclable! We'll be wrapping all of our Christmas presents in newspaper this year. Although we will use the gift bags that we reuse every year :)

Rainbow Felt Goldfish

I finally found the time (and motivation) to finish sewing the felt colors goldfish that I cut out before O's birthday :) I'm not sure why I couldn't bring myself to start sewing these fish because it wasn't difficult to do, just a little tedious. Anyway, I'm glad they're done, but I think I'll wait until Christmas to give them to O. They'll make a nice advent gift (I'm super excited about the advent calendar I have planned for O! I'm going to start making it next month, and I have started working on a list of tiny gifts and activities for it).

Sorting Body Parts...

... using Mr. Potato Head, of course! O loves Mr. Potato Head, so I thought she would love a sorting work with Mr. Potato Head parts :) I chose 3 sets of eyes, 3 arms, and 3 sets of teeth/lips. I showed O how to put the different body parts in the different openings in the tray.
She caught right on and had lots of fun! This work will definitely go on the new shelf once we start school!

A Miniature Matching Game

I can't remember where the idea for this miniature matching game came from. I think I saw it on a blog about a year ago. If anyone knows, let me know :) To make this game you need as many bottle tops as you can find (Thanks, Auntie EB for saving your bottle tops for us!). I cut cardstock circles to fit into the bottle tops and put tiny matching stickers on the cardstock. Quick, easy, and fun! First, the girls matched the pairs while looking at them. O was much more interested in playing with the leftover stickers :)Then we turned them over and played a game of memory. There were too many pieces for a 2 year old, and O was not at all interested in playing. My 4 year old niece loved the game, and we had fun playing!
I can't wait to make more memory games using bottle tops! I think it would be very funny to make one using the faces of family and friends :) I'm adding it to my list! This would also make a great category sorting activity. Once I add a few more tops to the game, I'll show O how to sort the fruit, vehicles, clothing, and animals into their categories.