Caterpillar Snack

This morning we made our first silly snack from the cookbook Memaw gave our little family at Christmas. They all look fun and really simple, but this may be the easiest one of all!! Baby Girl did everything by herself and had a great time. Then she ate it piece by piece, which was probably more fun since she loves to eat. :O)

Cutting the banana with her toddler knife.
Spreading peanut butter between the slices.
Caterpillar snack with a "happy face," as she said.
Ta-da -- finished caterpillar snack.
Or was it? Ooops, she pointed out that we forgot to give it ears.

OK, ears are on now and she's happy with her creation. Time to eat that caterpillar. Yum!!

The Snow Queen

Today we made not just any ordinary snowperson; we made a Snow QUEEN.

But I must first thank Max and Ruby's Winter Adventure for the inspiration:

Although I'm partial, I still think our Snow Queen creation is much more beautiful:

She has a pink tiara, baby blue button eyes, orange crayon nose, pink lipstick mouth, shrubbery arms, pink and blue bangle bracelets, and a pink scarf to adorn her highness.

Then OF COURSE we had to make Max and Ruby:

Mommy's fingers were getting cold, so we made due with blue fruit snacks for the eyes and lipstick for the nose and mouth.

Banana Bread

It's a snow day today, so Baby Girl and I decided to moosh up our ripe bananas and make some yummy banana bread. The result was oh so tasty!!

BANANA BREAD RECIPE

1 stick margarine
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup mashed bananas
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup walnuts

Bake at 350^ for 45 minutes.

Pink Pancakes

Saturday morning we made pink pancakes!! It was super-easy. We just added pink food coloring to our pancake batter. To help make the shapes we poured the batter into a plastic squeeze bottle. Now I will say the colors weren't as bright as they could be; to do that you'd need to use a pureed food such as strawberries or blueberries to get a more distinct color. Jim's Pancakes has some awesome designs and ideas. But for a quick fun switch-up to the usual color, the food coloring works just swell.



The basics: pancake mix, mixing bowl (with a spout works best), whisk, food coloring, squeeze bottle, griddle.



Pink batter!!


Pour the colored batter into the squeeze bottle.



First squeeze out an outline of the shape you want to make. Then fill in with more batter.



Finished flower and heart.




Baby Girl requested a Kitty Cat with whiskers. It looks kinda creepy but she loved it.



Eating the "poor little kitty cat," as she kept saying. LOL.



Flower with stem and leaves. Make separate pieces for flower, stem and leaves, then lay together.



Daddy got a pink football. :O)



My cluck cluck. She tasted yummy!!

Scrappy Nap Mat

Baby Girl needed a nap mat for naptime at preschool, and instead of tracking down an old-school Kindermat I decided to make her one. Of course I remembered this on the day before preschool started, LOL.

I found this tutorial on a blog I love and went through my fabric stash and happened to have enough of everything to make the mat. The big pieces came from remnants I bought a year or two ago with nothing particular in mind (see honey, I finally used them) and the smaller pieces were from a dress I made Baby Girl a couple of years ago.

I followed instructions on the tutorial almost exactly, with the exception that I stitched small pieces to the top to make the pillow since my big pieces of fabric weren't long enough, used Velcro instead of buttons on the tabs to make it easier for my toddler to handle by herself, and used cotton quilt batting instead of 1" foam (because I don't happen to have big pieces of foam laying around). The batting was twin-sized and I just folded it all up evenly to insert into the mat.

The beauty of this style nap mat is that A) it's easy to make, B) has a great strap for transporting and C) is easily washable by removing the batting or foam insert.

There's even an attached blanket! I used scrap flannel pieces.

The back. Didn't I get lucky to have enough scraps that coordinated?!

Rolling it up.

All done! Now just throw it over your shoulder so you have free hands to lug all the other stuff!!

First Day of Preschool

Today was Baby Girl's first day of preschool. We picked out her clothes last night so that wasn't a chore this morning. She happily got ready and humored me by "posing" for a few pictures. She jumped up and down a lot so most of them are blurry, but this one will do:



With her are her new nap mat I made last night, ladybug backpack and froggy lunchbox. She was all set to go and when we got there she found a vacuum cleaner toy and the rest was history. Sayonara mama.