Soap Dough

I ran out of a supply at work, so on they way to get my children I stopped at Jo-Ann's. After getting what I needed, I paused at the clearance rack for a moment and found Soap Dough. I've never seen anything like this, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's supposed to be pliable like Play-doh, but made out of soap. It's also scented like fruit-I got a package with blueberry and orange.

Gracie didn't seem all that impressed, but it did occupy her for a while. She tore it into little pieces and put it in the water pouring from the faucet. If nothing else, it worked on her dexterity. It also turned the bathwater orange and gave her lots of bubbles to play with. I found a recipe online to make my own if Gracie starts to get into it.

Product Recall

Many children's medicines have been recalled. Check here to see if yours is on the list-mine was.

Playdate!

Shirley came over for a playdate today! Gracie loves Shirley, talks about her often, and doesn't see her nearly enough. So today was a bit of a treat for her. She completely lit up when I told her Shirley was going to come over to play.

Enjoying a water picnic.

I can't help it, I love this picture!
They are sifting sand and collecting the rocks in the bucket.

Stopping at the feltboard on the way to the bathroom to paint. It was SJ's first time painting, and with no nap, it was a bit rough at a couple of points but I think she did great overall. I'm sure next time she'll have even more fun.

Using shaving cream to clean up.

Taking a break from the action to watch Veggie Tales and eat frozen yogurt tubes.
After this, Gracie took a nap, and SJ chilled in front of the t.v. resting for a couple of hours. Then we all got ready for church.

SJ licking yogurt off Gracie's finger-a little snack before church.

Spin Painting

Carrie found me a new art project to do with Gracie! She found a magazine article about spin painting using a salad spinner and gave me all the supplies and info today. After Gracie's nap we decided to give it a shot. It was pretty fun, although Gracie is not quite strong enough to pull the string hard enough to make it spin as fast as needed. She did have fun squirting paint onto the paper though.

Trying to spin it.

Gracie's first spin painting masterpiece.

While we were painting a couple of Gracie's friends came over to see if she could come out and play. I invited them in, and the next thing I knew I had eight kids in my living room spin painting! I decided to move them outside before I ended up with tie dye carpet-good thing I did!

Friends helping Gracie pull the string hard enough to get it spinning fast.

The kids took the spinner part out of the container and decided it looked like chocolate-so they dug in! It got a bit messy at this point and I was very thankful I had moved the party outside! Luckily Gracie didn't join in at this step!

You may be wondering what Brianna was doing all this time?

Playing with her BEE, of course!
another treasure from the Munchkin Market!

I love this picture of Bee!

All of the kids' finished masterpieces. What a day!

Easel!

One of my goals for the beginning of the summer was to find a cheap easel for Gracie. I am working on a couple of custom paintings for my friend, Carrie's baby and know that Gracie will want to "help." I figure if I give her an easel with her own canvas on it she can paint too and hopefully I will be able to make progress on Jolynn's paintings without too much trouble. I was so excited when I found this desk/easel at the Munchkin Market today. The purple part folds down flat so she can use it as a desk too. Here are pictures of her first time using it.

Color Mixing for Toddlers

This camera is really going on me (I need to just break down and buy a new one!), so the color is not the best-which is too bad since we did color mixing today! Of course, Gracie has already experimented with mixing colors through fingerpainting in the tub, but this time we used what she calls "goop" (oobleck).

Yellow goop +

Blue goop=

Green goop!

And, of course, whenever we play with goop we end up in the tub. Gracie painted, then used shaving cream, and then ended up in a bath. This is the second bath that I have added Olive Oil to as my MIL suggested, and her skin and hair are super soft. However, all of her toys have a slightly slimy film on them now too.

Teaching the Important Stuff

Many of you know that Daddy and I are huge Milwaukee Brewers fans. We met most of our friends out there at Miller Park and had season tickets for a few years. Gracie spent most of her first summer at Miller Park-we know many of the employees and even had to "make the rounds" before every game to see all of our "baseball family." You may not know that before moving to Milwaukee I was a Twins fan. I grew up outside
of the cities and even spent many birthdays at the Metrodome.

I had to pick the girls up at my parents' house after work today and after dinner we put on the Twins game. Here's how our conversation went:

Me: Gracie, what's on t.v.?
Gracie: (barely glancing at the t.v.) Brew-ah
Me: (Smiling in a slightly gloating fashion at my dad)
Grandpa: You need to teach her.
Me: I DID.

Gracie being held by Corey Hart, Brewers right fielder (and Daddy's fav player).


This photo of us was in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Opening Weekend 2009.