It's October!

I love October, the weather cools off and there are lots of fun activities to do during the month.  Our themes this month will be centered around pumpkins and Halloween.  I've already introduced some pumpkin items into our daily play.  I added pumpkins to our farm felt board and I also broke out some of my books about pumpkins.  

 I created a little garden for our farm felt board, she likes to harvest the different vegetables (I'm not a pro at the felt yet....don't judge :)

Things that will be happening in the month of October:

• Halloween felt board- decorating pumpkins
• Halloween sensory tub
• Pumpkin pie spice play doh
• Art projects!  I feel I didn't do enough art last month, so we'll make up for it this month.
• Field trips:  pumpkin patch, corn maze/hay ride, I think we'll make a trip to the farm as well

Stay tuned for details!

Apple books

I've got apples on my mind and decided to share some books we've read lately:

What books do you read about apples?  Whats your favorite apple treat?

Upcycled pillows

So we just moved into a new house and I wanted to make some throw pillows to spice up our couch.  I had made a bunch of curtains for our old apartment and decided to use that material to make into pillow forms. 

Heres what I started with:

 Then I sewed them into whatever size pillows I wanted and stuffed them with poly fill; btw I bought a box to fill all my pillows at Joanns for $10

I bought some fabric I liked for about $30 (keeping track...$40 for the whole project) then I made up the pillowcases however I wanted.

 Heres the finished product, I decided to add buttons on the side of the yellow one, it needed a little something.

Applesauce

I bought a whole box of apples  this last week at the farmers market and decided to break out the Victorio strainer and make some applesauce.  I turned out delicious!  Baby bug "helped", she mostly played around when I wasn't using the strainer and ate a lot of applesauce!

Never made applesauce?  Its easy!  First wash the apples

 Cut them in quarters and boil them (you don't need to remove skin or seeds)

 Stick them in the strainer and turn it.  Don't have a strainer?  Find one on amazon for $40, I inherited this one from my Grandma...they last for years!

After pureeing the apples you can eat it right then or can it in a hot water bath. Enjoy!

Finger painting

I decided to try a new recipe I found on pinterest for finger paint.  It can be found here:   http://easiepeasie.blogspot.com/2010/07/homemade-finger-paints.html  

The paint turned out a little thick, next time I'll add more water.  I made a red, yellow and blue then mixed the colors to make other colors.  I rough sketched a picture of a barn for baby bug to paint.  She loved it!  This is a girl that hates getting her hands dirty, but she was in those paints!  She even asked for more the next day.

Sensory tub

Sensory tubs are always fun for toddlers...a little messy but they love to play with new textures.  A couple years ago I got these little farm animals from the Target dollar section so I threw them in with some wheat kernels.  The intention was to have baby bug spoon out the animals into a bowl, but it didn't end up like that :)...she just spooned everything out onto the floor...just go with the flow.

Ole

Today is rainy, we're stuck inside so what to do....um how about a fiesta!  I got out this book to read and we made some salsa to go with it...I'm surprised baby bug ate it because it was a little spicy but she devoured it.  Recipe to follow....

 So the farm animals in this book get sick of their regular food and decide to go Mexican, they make salsa, guacamole and nachos...oh ps all the recipes are included in the book!

No picture of the salsa, it wasn't very photogenic  :(

5 tomatoes- blanch them in water peel off the skin
1/2 bunch of cilantro
1 jalepeno (or less)
1 Tablespoon vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree!  Done, Ole