Play Moulds

Stan B loves his play dough! Uncle Sean's girlfriend, Nancy, makes this amazing mix...you just have to add water and oil and heat it up over the stove. It makes the loveliest play dough on earth. I made another batch from scratch and it wasn't as good as hers but it was still very nice.

Anyhoo, he went through a stage of asking me to make him tunnels. He would drive his trucks through.

 

When his hand would go all the way through I would say, "Now it's a bracelet!" So then he'd want me to make him bracelets.

These tunnel-bracelets would also become bridges as he would drive trucks on top of the now wobbly bridge:

 

Here he is wearing play dough earmuffs:

This is the play dough I made! He uses corks, and mini animals along with the dough.

He loves to practice cutting the play dough with a knife. He'll ask me to make balls the size of apples and he'll pretend to peel them. I'll make him carrot shapes and he'll cut them. He's really into cutting things.

He is also really into making boats and putting all his animals in there...and sometimes his trucks.

I also make them food bowls and pillows upon request (the giraffe is napping)

I also made this strange stuff which some people call fluffy stuff or foam dough. I got the recipe here. It's super easy to make. Stan B liked it but it was SOOOO messy. I'll probably never make it again.

Finally, I bought some stuff called Kinetic Sand...it is strange and really amazing. It's a little messy but not as messy as the fluffy stuff. Stan B loves it. I think you can make it with mineral oil and flour...but I haven't tried it yet. I will try and report back.

 

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Turkey Day!
Here is a throwback to the last two Thanksgivings...I will post pics from today next week!

Here he is on his first Turkey Day....he ate his first solid food that day - a sweet potato!

 

Here he is on his second Turkey Day. We made Japanese food instead of the traditional fare:

Neighborhood

 Before the Bear started daycare we were walking around the neighborhood and we came upon this:

I had heard of these but never have seen them! I was so excited! It's just in front of this person's house. You can take books and give books. We got a great little children's book on soccer from this one. Since then I've discovered 2 other Little Free Library's in our neck of the woods.

We have lots of cats in our neighborhood too. Here is one of the neighbor's cats that Stan B tries to pet. Stan B would run to it and it would get spooked and run from him. So I told him to walk up to it slowly and gently extend his arms out to the cat. This is what he did: 

Ha! There are two girls (maybe 1st and 2nd grade?) who live across the street and Stan B really likes them. We don't play with them much but if they are out and we are out they usually come to our yard and Stan B puts on his charms:

Haha! 

The Painter

Stan B loves the feeling of paint more so than the act of painting itself.

He mostly paints with tempera paint. But we use acrylic once when painting some salt dough and then of course our shaving cream paint!

He mostly paints on paper but sometimes he paints on cardboard or on the table. He mostly uses his hands to paint but this one day we did foot painting:

He wasn't sure at first...

But then he really got into it:

A lot of paint ends up on him.

Here he is mimicking Jackson Pollock:

He likes painting so much he even tries to eat it:

Here is the humble artist in front of his works:

Here he is in action:

paint from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Mud Play

It's been in the 30s for weeks now. Brrrr. So we haven't played outside much at all. At daycare I think they dance and do yoga to expel energy instead of playing in the yard (maybe they go outside, I don't know.) Sunday was gloomy, windy and rainy and it was the afternoon. I said to the Bear, let's go outside and stomp in puddles and run around the block. So we went out with our umbrellas and we stomped in 5 puddles and got one house away from ours when Stan B looked up at me and said, "All done." I agreed and we turned around and went home. We took off our wet clothes and drank tea.

Here he is playing outside with mud and trucks well before the weather started becoming unbearable:

He loves that little push truck. Best thing ever. The seat opens and he fills it with mud, water, leaves, sticks, pine cones, flower petals or whatever else he can fit in there. At one point he flung some mud at me and I said, "Stan B, don't throw mud at me. How would you like it if I threw mud at you?" And he turned around and did this:

In other words, he would love it if I flung mud at him. Here he is saying, "Swim!" and pretending to swim in his mud filled truck:

Watching a Lumberjack

Stan B and I saw this big pine tree come down a course of about 3 days. It was AMAZING. It is located right across the street from our park and we could see the bottom third of the tree from the sandbox/volleyball court. In the picture above the lumberjack (I don't know if that is the proper term but I'm going to go with it.) is in the top 1/4 of the tree...it's hard to see him but he is there. You can see him much better in this pic:

From the conversation that the crew leader and the lumberjack were having I think this was the first big tree that the lumberjack had ever taken down. So, it was not only exciting for us but I'm sure it was thrilling for him.

A cut branch dropping to the ground.

 Here's a closer shot of the top of the tree:

Watch this amazing video below. Once the final big top is lopped up you can see the lumberjack being tossed around like a rag doll holding onto a chainsaw. It's amazing. 

tree from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

That evening we went to the site of the chopped down tree and Stan B walked around on the stumps. He had fun doing that:

We counted the rings on one of the stumps and there were approximately 68 rings! So that tree was living in Moscow when you were there, Grandpa!

Shaving Cream Painting

When I was a preschooler I remember fondly fingerpainting on a tabletop with shaving cream. So I decided to test it out with the Bear.

He wasn't sure at first...
 

 But then I think he got lost in it.

Close up.

Everytime I'd add some more he would slowly touch it...starting with his fingertips:

 Then we pushed the table right side up and added color. We just used regular ol' food coloring which stained his hands green. Maybe we'll try tempera paint next time.

He started directing me by telling me which color he wanted next and where to put it. He would also ask for more shaving cream.

He made  a complete mess but it was so easy to clean up. I just hosed the entire thing down which he enjoyed helping me with.

Of course, at one point, he said, "Swim?" No, you cannot swim in it but he attempted it anyway:

Here he is in action:

shaving cream 1 from erin kawamata on Vimeo.