Snow Paint

To make snow paint add food coloring to water – ta da, snow paint!  I put the snow paint in several containers, because in my head Aurora and I were going to spray paint the snow, drizzle paint on the snow, and paint the snow with a nice, traditional paint brush.  Aurora humored me for a couple of minutes. 

Then she showed me a better way to paint the snow, which apparently means dumping the colored contents of the yogurt containers directly on the ground. 

Our new method of painting went through my supplies very quickly, but Aurora was not bothered.  Once the paints were gone, Aurora declared that we should build a snowman. 

In fact, painting snow was such a success that Aurora wanted to do it again today now that her Daddy could play.  This time I came prepared.

 We focused most of our attention on painting the snowmen.  We now have the bluest and greenest snowmen on the block!

Shapes and Colors

Yesterday we practiced our colors and shapes.  We identified shapes, sorted by color, but the most fun was had when we spread them on the floor and played a sort of twister.

I would call out the command -  “right foot to the yellow circle” - and Aurora would rush to find the right shape.  “Left hand to green square.”  “Thumb to purple pentagon.”  “Right foot to red circle.”

But once I called “nose to orange triangle,” no other body parts existed, and we touched every shape thereafter with our nose.  

Bathtub Soap

I have always been curious how long Aurora would play in the bath if given her druthers.  So last week when highs were in the single digits I let her go to town.  Aurora spent two generous hours in the bathtub.  One hour painting.  One hour splashing in a bubble bath.  I had to warm the water up three times! 

To make bathtub paints combine

1 T liquid baby soap

1 ½ t corn starch

½ t water

a couple drops of food coloring

Ta da – bathtub paints!

Aurora painted the tub.  She painted the walls.  She painted her self.  She giggled and giggled and giggled.  

When we filled the tub with warm water and bubbles the bath water turned green.

Dress Code

Aurora chooses her own outfits, thus her attire often generates enthusiastic discussion.  She tends to end up in costume or looking like the latest in Harajuku fashion.  Today she received comments from five employees at the YMCA, four different children and their parents at the zoo, and two various other folks.  This is because she dressed like this:

One little boy could not concentrate on the parrots because he was instead tugging at his mother’s coat trying to get her to notice the little girl wearing her “costume.”   The Ywatch employees were bewildered that Aurora, who they considered to be such a Tomboy (she favors the cars and tools), ran about in such abundant pink.  In fact when we picked her up I was tickled to see my little princess going to town as she plastic hammered a toy nail into a board. 

But my favorite comment today was from a little girl at the lions who exclaimed to her Grandma, “Grandma!  That little girl is wearing her princess dress. I want to wear my princess dress.”  To which her grandmother replied, “We went over that this morning.  You wore your dress yesterday and now it is muddy.  You can wear it again tomorrow after I do laundry.”  So many times this fall I had a similar conversation with Aurora.  Now we have four princess dresses and five tutus, so it is an non-issue!

She loves her princess dresses, but, given her druthers, my baby will always choose to be naked. 

Today’s outfit

Yesterday’s outfit

Saturday’s outfit

Friday’s outfit

Cookie Party

Over the holidays, we hosted a cookie party to decorate treats for our neighbors.  To be honest, it was more of a cookie tasting extravaganza.  Aurora treated it as an all-you-can-eat icing buffet!  Jokes on you, ladies!  These were healthy cookies (apple sauce cookies, black bean chocolate cookies), healthy toppings (almonds, coconut, dried papaya, flax seeds, chia seeds, poppy seeds, raisins, and sprinkles – okay, the sprinkles were just colored sugar, but the others are healthy), and healthy(er) icing (1/2 powdered skim milk).  

Once tummies were full, toppings began to find their way onto cookies.  Then things happily deteriorated into topping dumping, sprinkles on the floor free-for-all.  I do not know if anyone eat their dinners that night, but we had such a great time that we hope to do it again next year! 

Pillow Room

Wisconsin winter is cold, so, alas playground play-dates are on hold until spring.  Fear not!  Fun can still be had in our warm cozy home.  One of our favorite indoor games to play is pillow room.

To create a pillow room, remove all movable furniture from a room and fill it with every available cushion.  Ta da, pillow room!

Aurora bounced around for an hour or so.  She encouraged Loki to bounce too, but the cat was in a watching mood.

We were having so much fun we invited a friend and built a pillow fort. 

Turns out that collapsing a fort is even more fun than building one!

 Naturally, pillow fort evolved into pillow mountain.  The girls scaled and dove from pillow mountain until all were exhausted and ready for nap.