Collaborative Art

Lately Adelyn asks me to draw pictures, then she colors them in. It's really fun. Around Halloween time, she kept asking me to draw all of our Halloween activities (Trick-or-Treating, Trunk or Treat, The "Monster Mash" at the Library...) Halloween was my favorite holiday as a kid, too!

Then she'll ask for things like, "Me, & Mommy, & Daddy, & Sarah, & Arden, flying in an airplane to France. And I have a big 'mollipop'. And we're bringing candy, and a carrot. And a happy sun, and a mean sun, and a happy starfish, with babies. And a mean starfish. And a mean baby starfish. And a fish, with a mollipop." So cute.

She got her friend Aaron a robot for his birthday,

Then she had the great idea to decorate the gift bag (with a Daddy robot, and a baby robot.) I really like how it turned out! I want to do this on our Christmas presents- wrap them with paper bags or kraft paper then draw Christmas-y stuff on them (you know, reindeer, wreaths, the Nativity, etc.) and have her color them in, then we'll add some ribbon or something. I think she'll really enjoy it- she's really into presents lately- makes pretend presents alot, etc. I'm excited to do this!

Peanut Butter Play-Doh!

The girls & I played with edible Peanut Butter Play-Doh today. It is a little sweet for me (has honey and powdered sugar) but pretty good. I halved the recipe on this site: 

(This is the "halved" recipe)

Mix together:

1 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter

2 c. powdered sugar

Add:

1 3/4 c. honey

Fold in:

2 c. powdered milk

(Be careful at this step. We have a Kitchenaid hand mixer and it started smoking at this point. I didn't really "fold" in the milk, I just dumped in a cup at a time and tried to mix it in. I forget how to properly "fold"- better look it up next time :)

It was pretty greasy, I could have added more powdered milk (but feared killing my mixer, if it's not already dead.) We used raisins and Cheerios to decorate- fun "snacking"!

 21-month-old S. got into it once I showed her how to press the decorations in.

Fruit Gobbler

I volunteered a "fruit platter" to bring to the Thanksgiving Dinner my in-laws put on. I found the link for this idea on Pinterest, the source of all brilliant ideas :) 
My girls helped me put orange slices, grapes, fresh pineapple, raspberries, & cherry tomatoes on bamboo BBQ skewers for the "tailfeathers". The feet and beak are made from an orange bell pepper, and the "snood" (new vocabulary word I've recently learned!) is cut out of a cherry tomato. The skewers had to be "hammered in", and I had to "pre-drill" a bit with a long punaise (thumbtack) before attaching the smaller parts with toothpicks. I love the yam for a head and neck- so much personality. I particularly enjoy his ethnic hairstyle, as well.

                                     

                     

I didn't expect my 1-year-old to be able to help, but she jumped right in and started stabbing fruit onto skewers, too. She's a "figure-it-out-and-do-it" kind of a girl.

On the way to Grandma's, 3-year-old Adelyn said, "I love making turkeys!" So fun to be able to explore, teach, and learn creativity with these girls. "Turkey Feathers" were Adelyn's favorite dinner item. Here he is at the end of Thanksgiving Dinner...

and the next morning, after a "pre-getting our Christmas trees-breakfast" with my SIL's family.

My Bee

Decided to dress Little Bean up as a bee this year. (Big Sis opted for a store-bought lion costume. Not as much fun as making one, but also less work) I ordered a black onesie, bumblebee "Babylegs", and yellow tights (did you know you can get any size, any color tights at welovecolors.com?), and made or "refurbished" the rest. Felt is such a great costume medium for its stiffness. Fleece is great, too, and it's more comfy, warmer, and holds up better than felt. Went with felt this year though. Got butterfly wings at the Dollar Store and reshaped, re-covered (with sparkly silverish fabric), and reinforced (wire from Home Depot) them.

My favorite part of this costume is the little stinger! Hope you had a fun Halloween.