Homemade, Edible Play Dough

Playing with play dough is an awesome way for the kids to learn, it’s even better when they can help make it and even taste it without Mom worrying where or how it was made and what's in it!

I have put together a few recipes that are non-toxic and edible (although I wouldn’t recommend eating too much of it at a time.) A few ways to color your play dough and to make it smell good are using food coloring, kool-aid and powdered hot cocoa mix. You can always experiment with different ingredients until you find a favorite to add to your dough.If you decide to color the dough, separate it into balls and knead food coloring in until the color is the shade you want and is blended in well. 

To make larger amounts, just double or triple the recipe depending on how much dough you want to make. 

This is great to make when the kids need something fun and creative to do, when friends come over for a party or play date and a neat little gift for them to give to their family and friends.

 

Practical Play Dough

The consistency of this dough is very soft and workable, much like what you would buy in a store.

Combine all ingredients into a saucepan.

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt

2 cups of hot water

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1-1 1/2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

Cook the mixture over medium heat and stir frequently. When the mixture is well-blended and the consistency of dough, remove the pot from heat and let the dough cool off for a few minutes until it's cool enough to handle, place the dough on a layer of parchment or waxed paper and knead it into a large ball.

If you decide to color the dough, separate it into balls and knead food coloring in until the color is the shade you want and is blended in well.

To make a larger amount, just double or triple the recipe depending on how much dough you want to make.

Basic Play Dough

To make a basic play-dough, you only need a few ingredients. In mixing bowl, blend together

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup of water

If the dough is a little too sticky, just add a small amount of flour until the consistency is to your liking. If the dough seems too dry and crumbly, add a teaspoon of water one at a time to make it more workable.

If you decide to color the dough, separate it into balls and knead food coloring in until the color is the shade you want and is blended in well.

To make a larger amount, just double or triple the recipe depending on how much dough you want to make.

Store dough in an airtight container or plastic baggie without any air in the bag.

Yummy Peanut Butter Play Dough

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup honey

2 cups powdered sugar

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and that’s it, you’re done!

Spray the measuring cup with oil before measuring your peanut butter and honey. They will come out of the measuring cup really easy! Use a dry measuring cup with the powdered sugar so it doesn’t stick.

This recipe has a great consistency & it’s not sticky, but the more the kids play with it, the softer it gets.

To make a larger amount, just double or triple the recipe depending on how much dough you want to make.

Store dough in an airtight container or plastic baggie without any air in the bag.

Bouncing Play Dough

To make bouncy play dough that has a rubbery consistency, you will need to add the following ingredients into a saucepan:

2 cups of baking soda

1 cup of cornstarch

1 1/2 cups of water

Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently and slowly bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the mixture has thickened and it resembles dough, remove saucepan from heat and allow the dough to cool before handling.

On a surface lined with wax paper, knead in the food coloring into the dough and it's ready to play with!

Same as all of the other recipes, To make a larger amount, just double or triple the recipe depending on how much dough you want to make.

Store dough in an airtight container or plastic baggie without any air in the bag.

Letter to Myself, for My Children and Grandchildren

A Letter To Myself To Be Passed Down To Me, From Me, To My Children and Grandchildren.

Dear Self,

This is something you need to read and understand before you decide to grow up, waste a lot of time being unhappy and make the same mistakes I have made.

 

I know how stubborn you can be at times but at least hear me out before you fold this paper in half, stuff it in a drawer and find it faded away many years from now and wonder why you never finished reading it.

You have big, wonderful dreams for yourself! Don’t ever let go of them for someone else’s dreams, successes, and happiness. Supporting someone while they support their dreams is a great thing but don’t spend so much effort helping them with their dreams that you forget about your own dreams and put them on the back burner. In other words, don’t let someone else’s successes be the product of your own failures!

Don't take yourself too seriously, eventually your views and opinions will change.  Have fun! Even if you look like an idiot, as long as you’re having fun and not hurting anyone, what does it matter what you look like to everyone else? That just means they aren’t having any fun and would love to be you instead of their own self, so strive to be no one else but yourself because everyone else is taken!

Keep in mind the having fun part; the most memorable moments in your life are the ones that happen from spontaneity. Do everything you have an opportunity to do for any reason you feel that you should, if you don’t, you will always wonder ‘what if I would have’ and ‘why didn’t I' and that is no fun at all!

Learn to trust your intuition; it is most usually more right than you could ever guess!  No matter what, self, always go with your gut feelings, because no one else understands you and your own way of thinking better than you, don't listen to people that you think are wrong and don’t let them persuade you that you need to change the way you think or feel.

No one else but you have any clue of who you are, who you want to be or what your limitations are, you can always tell someone but their ideas and yours will be different no matter what, never change who you are. You are much, much more than what any one person can see.

Trust your instincts, follow your dreams, do what it takes to make you happy. Feel free to change jobs, take extra classes if and when you feel the need to. Take up those dance classes, the art classes, karate and join the gym when you start to feel like it is something you love to do and make a promise to yourself that you’ll do whatever you can do to make and keep yourself healthy and happy.

Forgive yourself and others. Love yourself unconditionally. Love every important person in your life like there is no tomorrow because for some people, there will be no tomorrow. 

Love Ya, 

Forever and Always,

                                                       Me

Yummy Mud Pies!

My kids always had great imaginations and the one thing that always made me laugh were mud pies! I don't ever remember making any mud pies when I was a kid, so when my kids started making them I was entertained the whole time!

 Usually they would make them right after it rained in the summer time around the swing set, sometimes I would get some from the yard or driveway.

How is it that I couldn't graciously accept these little tokens of love from my kids? I just couldn't refuse! Finding a Frisbee or another thing to carry them around on was not a problem for my kids, the only rules I had about mud pies was that they weren't allowed to bring them in the house or eat them "for real."

 They seemed to have a great time asking me if I wanted some and I would take both hands and dig in! Pretending I was eating the mud pies while making obnoxious noises to make them laugh and getting some on my cheeks and shirt seemed to make them happier than a pig rolling around in mud on a dry hot day!

 I always had the two most important things on hand that a mom would need when the kids make mud pies. When I knew mud pies were in the making a few towels and a water hose did wonders!

How to Help Kids Make Decisions

Letting kids make their own decisions was something I thought was easy to do, show them their choices and go from there! Right? Nope, it can never be that simple! 

 Telling a kindergartener to go to their closet and pick out something to wear isn't as easy for them as it is for us. Actually, it's as frustrating for everyone and teaching the kids to make a decision early in life helps with the bigger decisions later.

 I take only two outfits out for them to choose from, if they really wanted to wear something that wasn't my idea, I take the third item out and only hold two of them up. The kids pick one of the two, the one they don't want goes back in the closet. Then I take the last two outfits and hold them up. The one not chosen goes back in the closet and even if I don't like an outfit or think they should wear something else,they feel like they have done something important for themselves. 

The older the kids get, the bigger the decisions get. They love choosing what to get to pack their lunches with but tend to want everything instead of a just a few things. I help them with the process until they are old enough to understand that they can choose one kind of cookie instead of four kinds of cookies for their lunch. They have to choose something healthy and what kind of lunch meat they want. Lunch box or paper bag. 

Later the bigger decisions start coming and they seem to know what they want and know how to make a better decision instead of them getting frustrated and saying "I don't know what I want!" and just going along with someone else's choices that might be bad for them.

Why Mom Needs a Big Purse

--> I always carried around a little purse, just big enough to carry bank cards, the check book, a couple of pens and maybe a couple of makeup items. Then along came the kids and the diaper bag!

Diaper bags aren't too awfully bad, you can take all kinds of things with you that you might need! Diapers, wipes, bottles, snacks, toys and a lot of times I had the ones that have lots of pockets so I didn't even bother carrying a purse around, I could keep my stuff there as well! Diaper bags start out as a convenience but often lead to a really bad habit, like carrying around huge purses later that could put your back out if you aren't careful!

Once the little ones are potty trained and I didn't  need that old diaper bag anymore, I tried going back to carrying around my tiny little purse but at this point, it seems like it just isn't enough.

Even though you don't need the diapers and bottles anymore, you still need somewhere to keep all of your stuff and the stuff that keeps a mom and a little kid busy and happy!

This is where a checklist comes in handy!

• Bank Cards, Check Book, Pens

• Snacks and a few zip lock bags

• A couple little toys 

• Kids books

• A good book for me in case the kids fall asleep and I have waiting time somewhere.

• Crayons and either a little coloring book or scrap paper

• A book with the kids' pictures in, in case the kids at some point aren't with me.

• An extra set of car and house keys - for some reason when kids are little, keys have a magical way of disappearing.

• Cell phone charger - they come in handy when there's a long wait at the Dr. office or dance, scouts and other places you need to be with kids.

• Pain reliever/fever reducer for the kids - just in case!

• Pain reliever for Mom - just in case!

• Personal care items for Mom

• Makeup in case there comes a time when I can actually take the time to put some on!

• A schedule or calendar book to keep track of appointments and other things that you would forget about if you don't write them down.

There are tons of other things I'm sure I could get in my purse now that I have a much bigger one! When someone asks what I have 'in there' I tell them "everything but the kitchen sink, but I don't need one because I have wipes!"

After looking over my list, I'm sure there is something I forgot but can't remember at the moment what it might be.

Does anyone have a brush and a ponytail holder?

Abuse at Home or at the ER?

My son has a scar on his forehead. He's older now and laughs, says people say that it looks like the same one Harry Potter has! Remembering when he got it isn't as funny.

Who would have ever thought that a little kid, spinning in circles and walking crooked across the floor would end up hitting his head off of a cabinet and needing stitches? Not me!

Out of three kids, my youngest was the first I had ever had to take to the hospital emergency room at 18 months old and what I got when I got there, was nothing of what I expected! My oldest was eight at the time, she was a big help! On the way to the hospital, she kept talking to him to keep him from crying and held a cold wash cloth on his head.

I got to the ER and my daughter was taken and sat outside the room where a doctor and nurses spent quite some time questioning her as to what happened before they came and asked me and took a look at the wound on the little guys head.

She was as scared as her brother, she didn't spend a lot of time in hospitals or with people she didn't know.  While I can understand all of these people asking her what happened, I never could understand why the fifteen minutes of questioning a little kid before coming to me.

If I hadn't taken her with me, they would have had to talk to me first. I can truly understand asking a kid for answers because usually kids don't lie and if they do, it's easy to detect because they change their answers so frequently, but in this case, I wasn't a regular visitor, neither of the kids had bruises, their hair and clothes were clean except for the blood from his head.

I would think that taking care of his wound would have been first priority but it wasn't and that really upset me! Aren't there more things to look at than a wound on a kid to start digging and trying to find out if a kid has been abused?

After all the questions my daughter and I got and them doing their best to make me feel like a failure, they ended up taking and belting him down on a papoose board, covering his whole body with a white disposable cloth, except where they were going to put his stitches, letting him scream while they were working on him and then complaining that he wouldn't hold still  and not letting me near him to comfort him was more abuse in my opinion than they were assuming that they would find.

Did I Teach Her That?

Listening to little kids learning new words is great but what happens when they start blurting out things they hear?

Sometimes it's funny when you hear them say new words and the words really just sound like something else completely different. Other times it’s just funny when they actually say swear words until you remember you have to take them to their Grandparents house or church or somewhere that would make you look like all you do is swear!

 I remember the first time my daughter dropped a crayon in church. It was so quiet; everyone heard her get angry and say a couple words that only a drunken sailor would say! Wow! My face was red it was kind of, well...embarrassing!!

I decided after that incident at church, I would change my ways and quit using curse words. I was going to make sure she wasn’t around anyone else who couldn’t control their tongue! I was going to be a good influence on her no matter what! I remember having to stand up,holding her in church and sliding her down to stand on her own, and that's
when I realized that my button down dress had become unbuttoned almost completely! Yikes! Well, yikes wasn’t the word I used, let’s just say that everyone that was there that day could confirm exactly where she had learned to swear like a drunken sailor! Some good influence, eh?!