Fairy and Elf Garden

Have you ever heard of a Fairy Garden?

I hadn't either until about a year and a half ago, probably on that damn addictive Pinterest.  What it is is an adorable little garden to "attract"  fairies.  You can use a planter, a big pot, or just create one in the ground, but what makes them super adorable is the itty-bitty furniture and fairy/elf paraphernalia.  You could go crazy making these things.  There are benches, houses, animals, tables, food.  Veerrrryyyy easy to go overboard.  I'm already planning the next one we make right now.

*Ahem*

I digress.

They are pretty popular in the States and not surprisingly in the UK, but I had never seen one or heard of them until I had my own wee one and was looking for a  fun, springtime, outdoor activity.

Not this past Christmas, but the Christmas before, I suggested to my step-dad that he get some stuff for Nicholas so that they could make a fairy garden together.  Somehow, we forgot to make it that spring.

Today I was taking the boys over to my parents' house to spend sometime with cousin Maya while daddy worked, and my mom had everything prepared for them to make their own little fairy/elf garden.

It was just gorgeous outside.  Bright sun, and spring (not summer) -like weather.

Even Monk came out to help with the garden. 
No, not really.  He sunbathes and preens.  Pretty doggie.

Our funny Oak oversaw the gardening as well.

Nick and Maya scooped up potting soil and poured it into the pot.
Nick loved the dirt.  I think he was more interested in that than anything else.
Scooping and dumping, scooping and dumping.

After they filled up the pot, they added two small plants.
We started very simple and small this year.

The kids took turns watering.  It was almost as popular as the dirt.

Nonni and Maya carefully arranged the table and chairs.

They added toadstools and little brick paths.

Nonni and Maya perfected everything, and Nick returned to the dirt.

There is Fairy Maya, and Elf Nick perched at their table.

There was even a little Elf Rhys!

Maya enjoyed playing with them like little dolls.
So cute!

We returned to Nonni and Pop-Pop's for dinner that evening and Nick went outside to play.  He checked on the garden and the Elves and Fairy.  This activity was a hit for sure. 

If you have any interest, I would encourage you to Google "Fairy Garden" and check out all of the amazing photos.  You can make them as simple or as ornate as you desire, and it isn't too costly to make a basic one like ours.  We ordered all of our stuff here.  Happy gardening!

Leprechaun Milk

This activity was second in a series of St. Paddy's themed activities, see the first one here (or just scroll down) (they are adorable rainbow swirl cookies, and it has a small explanation of my new obsession with attempting to do themed activities.)   This met my new criteria of being easy, fast, fun, and thematic.  I gave Nick some Leprechaun Milk with appropriate mustache straw.  It was just his regular milk with a drop of food coloring, but it was funny to see his reaction, and what he decided to pair his milk with.



Mom, seriously?  You want me to drink green milk???
(His precious vanilla milk with a tiny drop of food coloring)



Very reluctant. 
Then it was followed by an emphatic  YUCK!
After I explain it's just vanilla milk with green food coloring,
 he seemed willing to consider giving it another try...

by dipping his turkey bacon into it.  MMM!

Seriously, he dunked it in and ate it. 

Delish! Lol!

Getting into the spirit.

And again, thanks to Pinterest, I discovered this cool activity here.  Many thanks to those other crafty moms who also share their fun activities :-)

Frankenstorm

Right before Halloween, about two days before, the East Coast was (going to be hit) by Hurricane Sandy a.k.a Frankenstorm.  School was cancelled both Monday and Tuesday to keep people off the roads and out of harm's way in anticipation of the storm.  I decided to invite our neighbors over for a Frankenstorm/Halloween playdate to keep our adorable cherubs from driving us crazy by being cooped up indoors for the next few days.

Here is the fun that we had:

Decorating pumpkins and ghosts with stickers and glitter glue

Nick really liked the glitter glue

Little Ethan drew his very own face all by himself!

Jonah working hard

Leo going at it

A brief musical interlude between crafts and cookies

Practicing our cutting

Making pizza

Nick has a turn at the food prep

Our Halloween cookies to decorate

Each kid got a little sprinkle cup

Nick getting ready to decorate

Ethan very serious about his craft

And then there is Nick who goes for the pour

Mmm

Such concentration

A note about black food coloring: don't use it (or anything containing it).
 It will turn your kid's poop green (just sayin').

Devouring his cookie

Jonah using a food coloring pen

Brothers working together

Megan finishing up

Dough Experiment 6 Jello Playdough

 Jello Playdough

My expired Jello

 

Yikes, it's sticky.  Baby boy isn't going to like that.

Very unfortunate.  I have to clean this up?

 

I'm turning this into chopstick fun. 
That way N doesn't have to touch it with his hands.

The layout so he can pick up the dough with chopsticks

 

Into his front loader, THEN into the bowl

He even wanted to recover it from the ground with the chopsticks. Cute!

 

Choppers!

 

 

Playdough with Jello sounded interesting to me.  It would have a vibrant color, and would smell yummy.  I even had an expired box in the pantry, so I wouldn't be wasting, and it wouldn't even cost me a trip to the grocery store.  Ok, I thought, I'll give it a try.

 

After making it on the stovetop, I discovered it is sticky, quite a bit more sticky than most playdoughs. This is something to keep in mind while considering making it.  The vast majority of toddlers hate having sticky, dirty fingers, some more so than others.  Nick is somewhere in between, but I would say initially this was way stickier than even he would like (it did firm up a bit after setting on the counter for about 20 minutes after being cooked), so I decided to use some kids chopsticks that a friend had given me for Nick.  I hadn't used them before with Nick, because I thought they would be too difficult for him to use (he's 36 months at present), but I figured worse comes to worst I could just show him how to pick up the dough by piercing it.  I want to flat out admit I GREATLY underestimated my child's abilities.  I show him once how to put his fingers in and how to move them up and down and off he went.  He called them "snippers" like scissors, then I told him they were called chopsticks so he renamed them "choppers.". I placed different sized dough balls on a cookie sheet for him to pick up and transfer to a bowl.  Since this was the day after we had done the Mud Dough, he wanted to transfer the dough balls into a front loader with the chopsticks then dump them into the bowl.  He even used the chopsticks to pick up dough that had fallen on the ground.  He loved it.  A cool bonus was that he now loves using them at dinner occasionally too, when the food is the right size.

 

The verdict: I/Nick loved the chopstick aspect of the activity which I would definitely do again.  I think I thought the smell and color of the dough was cool, but honestly Nick probably would have enjoyed the chopstick part with any dough.  I'm not overly keen on using food- food, like Jello or cake mix in playdough. I mean what for? It's wasteful (unless it's expired like the jello and cake mix I used) and for younger kids it can be flat out confusing whether or not it's edible.  Then there was the stickiness factor, less appealing to the child, and parent who has to clean it.  And it turned my wooden spoon pink (i didn't really care that much, but use a metal one if you have one.  And the color won't run or stain anything once it is cooked.  This is true of all doughs and coloring methods, I have found.). 

Bottom line: If you are dying to try something different, go ahead, but there are better ones to do first in my opinion like:

Galaxy Dough

Cloud Dough

Mud Dough

 

Recipe (originally found here)

 

• Flour 1 cup
• Salt 2 tbsps
• Cream of Tartar 2 tbsps
• Cooking oil (canola, vegetable, for example) 2 tbsps
• Water 1 cup
• Packet of jello 1.3 oz (dry, not prepared)

 

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pot and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it pulls and thickens. Once it has become a big round blob.  Set it on wax paper to cool.  Once it cools, knead it until it has the proper consistency.