Penguin Game

Big sis LOVES LOVES LOVES penguins, so since my creativity seems to have disappeared, I searched various blogs for penguin related crafts and activities. Today, we tried one that I stumbled upon via makinglearningfun.com. I made all the materials ahead of time using the printables on the site (printed all the game pieces on cardstock and laminated using packing tape as it was all I had on hand at the time!).
To play the game, we each started out with 15 fish cards. We took turns drawing from the card pile - the cards either showed 1, 2 or 3 fish (both the numeral and a fish representation). Whoever feeds all of their fish to the penguin first is the winner! Big sis loved the game...we didn't play it for terribly long, but I know it will be one she'll go back to for a while!

Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake

Little sis turns 2 this month and I always like to try making a fun cake/cupcake. After searching for some I thought she might like, she narrowed it down to this Minnie Mouse cake:
http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/coolest-minnie-mouse-birthday-cake-61.html

I decided to just make one tier, as my girls really prefer cupcakes, so I made a two-tier 6-inch cake with 11 cupcakes. It's nowhere near professional and there are multiple things that I wish I would've tackled differently, but boy did little sis' eyes light up when she saw it! She just kept saying, "Minnie!" and "Ears!" and "Bow!"

Here are some pics through the whole process...

A day before making the cake, I pulled out some really old fondant (we are not planning to eat this) and made the bow (along with some small ones in case I decided to put Minnie heads on the sides of the cake). This was just my second time working with fondant.

I also found some clip art and made the Minnie Mouse cupcake picks..leaving some blank and adding little sis' new age as well as a Happy Birthday greeting on some (using Word's Waltography font...so perfect!)

That same day, I tried my hand at gumpaste for the first time and made the ears. Learned LOTS on that experiment. After kneading in the color pink in the fondant and black in the ears, I was quite tired of kneading. The black in the gumpaste was very challenging for me...there has to be an easier way. The color turned out more black-gray, but it works. I also rolled the ears a little too thin, which made it a challenge to stick in the craft sticks that would help support it once stuck in the cake. Finally, I later discovered that I made the ears a little too big. I think I initially cut them out at the right size, but they grew bigger as I tried to insert the craft sticks.
The next day, made the cake. Decided to do one from scratch and used Wilton's Golden Yellow Cake.

Next came time to ice the cake and add the bow and ears. I wish I would have set the ears back just a little bit further, but oh well. I was pleased that the tinted fondant and tinted icing (used Wilton's Buttercream Recipe) turned out to match very closely.


Finally, added the decorating details and iced the cupcakes. First, I wish I had fresh fondant on hand...fondant circles would've looked much better. (I ended up using a tub frosting that I had on hand...didn't have much buttercream left plus I had tinted the whole batch pink.) Second, I had intended to frost my cupcakes following Wilton's swirl instructions, however I didn't realize that I did not have the needed icing tip until it was too late. I improvised and came up with the not-too-whippy look below.So that's it! Not exactly as I had envisioned, but likely perfect in little sis' eyes!

Colored Water Droppers

Okay, so I couldn't think up a better name for it. Thanks to Tired, Need Sleep who pointed me toward the site that has these available for download (makinglearningfun.com).

I went to the site, printed out a few of big sis' favorite letters/animals, and placed them in a plastic sheet protector. Then, I emptied out some almost empty food coloring droppers (I had two sets and just combined them) then added water to what little remained. (I actually kept squirting it back out and adding new water to further dilute it...tried to minimize the staining/damage potential!)

Big sis had a blast squeezing little drops of colored water on each circle!
We also discovered some other fun things about this...how the water blobs slid so easily on the sheet protectors and combined to make one bigger blob, and how sometimes the letters/designs maintained their shapes when you placed a paper cloth on top. (This killed the slowly-budding environmentalist in me as I try to never use paper towels, but it was just too neat to pass up!)

It was a fun activity!

Snow Ice Cream

So a fellow Mommy friend passed along a recipe for snow ice cream that she found somewhere on the web, and after waiting for a new snowfall...we finally got to make some! I can't eat ice cream but had to steal a taste...it was really good! (Although I think I used a dash too much vanilla...)

Here's the recipe and some pictures of our fun!

Ingredients:
16 c. snow
1 c. sugar
1 TBS. vanilla extract

2 c. milk

Big Sis just couldn't wait...she had to dig into that snow!

Mix together in the mixer.

For us, it made a lot so I put the leftovers in the freezer...we'll see later how well it stored!

Snow Day Inside!

Over at Tired, Need Sleep, I found what I thought to be a great idea! When it is too cold outside, she brought a tub filled with snow inside for some play time! We decided to try this with our girls today, although we didn't pick the best time. Big sis loved it and had lots of fun. Little sis misunderstood...she thought we were going outside and was quite disappointed to learn that we were not! We'll try again soon! Here's an early pic of big sis playing. Later, we brought in some measuring cups and made "snow castles".