Outside Play & A Couple Princess Crafts

At last week's Sharing Saturday, I featured 2 Big, 2 Little's Playing with Water. I knew we had to try it and we did. Both Saturday and Sunday. Hazel loved it!! She has a water and sand table, but we found she always put the sand in the water so we made it a sand only table. We took some of the water toys from there and some from her bath for this though. We also used our colored water spray bottles that we used for snow painting this winter.

She insisted on bringing out her chair so she could sit while playing.

She had some of her kitchen toys out from her sandbox as well. She was whisking the color into the water.

Then when she got a color she didn't like anymore, she dumped the water and refilled it.

You know she enjoyed it since we had to do it again today when we played outside.

This time she got her wind-up duck working and checked to see what would float. I told her the duck wanted the water to be orange so she made him orange water.

We also had to make her a house on her swingset. The house we built at school this morning was taken down by the other kids as soon as she switched to another toy and she got really upset so I promised her we would make one outside today. I sewed the edges of these and bought large clothespins. You can see more here. We have also added her pillow pet and a blanket so she has a place to rest in her house.

She also could not wait to try out her new red chair. We had bought her one ages ago and last summer it broke, so she has been asking for a new one. We found one at Christmas Tree Shop and bought it. This is the first time I let her bring it out and opened it up for her. She was very excited about the drink holder even if her sippy cup didn't fit in it.

I know I shared this book before, The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven. It is a cute story about the adventures of a paper princess a girl draws and cuts out and then the wind blows away. The princess wants to get back to her girl and this is the adventure of getting back home. Well since Hazel is still in the scribble stage of drawing, we found these people cut-outs and bought the girl ones at AC Moore for $1. We used watercolors on them. I tried to make the dress like the forest and the tights like the night sky and the feet like watermelons, but the colors ran. I still think they came out lovely though.

My Princess

Hazel's Princess

The other night I also needle felted Hazel a new princess. I used pipe cleaners in this one for stability. She loves her.

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How We Spent a Rainy Day

So this morning we looked outside and saw a bunny in our yard. Then the male mallard came for some food. Plus we always have grey squirrels and morning doves, robins, sparrows and some finches around. Hazel was so excited to show me each of them. I love leaving food out for them so we get lots of wildlife in our yard. Then it started to downpour. We decided not to go to our class at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary even though it was not cancelled since it was on and off pouring. Plus we both felt a bit rundown from our overscheduled May, so we decided we needed a day at home.

Our Big Bad Wolf

We decided this was the perfect time to try out Lorie's (from Reading Confetti) idea on Retelling the 3 Little Pigs. When I saw this the other day, I knew we had to try it since Hazel LOVES the Three Little Pigs!! So first we went to our craft room and made the three pigs. We couldn't find our googly eyes, so we had eyeless pigs, but Hazel did not care.

Our 3 Pigs

Then Hazel wanted to paint while we downstairs so while she painted I hot glued the sticks for the stick house. Then when she finished painting we came upstairs and built the straw house and stick house and brick house.

Straw House (with some spots taped)

Stick House (with structure hot glued)

Brick House

Then Hazel put on the wolf nose I made from construction paper and we retold the story acting it out.

The straw house got blown/knocked down. Then onto the stick house.

Then onto the brick house...

Then we had to do the whole thing over. We changed the structure of the straw house to be more like a teepee.

Then we did it again with Mommy being the wolf.

After some lunch and stories, we worked on the favors for our friends (Hazel's godparents' daughter) first birthday party. Her mother asked me to make star shape crayons. I agreed and then found out she wants 100 of them. Needless to say we will be busy doing this for awhile. We spent a bit of time unwrapping and breaking the crayons. Luckily the ones our friend bought unwrap relatively easily!! I made a few trays of them. Unfortunately our star mold only does 6 at a time so we need to make it 17 times. The party theme is red, white and blue since her birthday is Memorial Day weekend, but they didn't want to buy that many boxes of crayons to do them in red, white and blue, so they are rainbow. For directions, I blogged about it here.

Then my little girl wanted to play fairy dance. She literally dressed as a fairy and danced around. I really should have pulled out the video camera for you to get the full effect, but it was fun to watch her show.

She kept asking me sit down to watch the show.

Then she wanted me to be a fairy with her. So she dressed me up as the butterfly fairy and we danced together.

Then she wanted to switch costumes. This of course gives you a better view of the butterfly fairy costume. The wings are a bit big for her.

Her pink wings were too small for me, so she decided I needed a feather boa instead.

Sorry all the pictures of me were taken with me holding the camera away from myself. So how do you spend a rainy day?

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Check out the great giveaway at The Magic Onions. Armadillo Dreams is giving away a $50 gift card there.

Mixed Berry Scones

A couple of Sharing Saturdays ago, Jamie at Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom shared her recipe for fresh strawberry scones (and homemade strawberry milk). We have gotten scones a few times at Starbucks lately so Hazel has been asking to make them. I told her I needed to find a recipe, so when I saw it, I knew we would be trying it. We followed her recipe for the most part except we used mixed berries--strawberries, blackberries and blueberries--since that is what we had. We also added a teaspoon of cinnamon since Hazel wanted to--she seems to think cinnamon goes in everything. I figured it wouldn't hurt in this recipe, so we did it.

Hazel cracked the egg all on her own and did not get any shell in the bowl!! Then she whisked while I gathered the next ingredients.

The next thing we needed to do was make some lemon zest. Hazel had never seen this nor do we use lemons too often, but I pulled out my zester and let her try. She had fun. Then she whisked all the liquid ingredients--including the zest.

We set that bowl aside and started on the dry ingredients. We used white whole wheat flour and this is where we added the cinnamon.

Then we added the butter and I used forks since I have misplaced my pastry cutter to break it up. Then we added the berries. I chopped them all a bit. And finally added the liquids from earlier.

But then it got hard to stir, so we used our hands.

Then we followed the directions to take it out and cut it and put it on the pan and in the oven.

I baked mine a little longer than the recipe said. Then we let them cool a bit, but we did eat the first ones warm.

We all enjoyed them. In fact I think Steve ate three or so for breakfast this morning! Thank you, Jamie for the recipe!!


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