Crazy craftiness

We've been up to some craftiness this summer. Our fun has included painting ceramic art, finger painting for the first time, lots of coloring, tissue paper and glue fun, making paper bag puppets and a trip to the Crayola Factory.

Here we are painting some ceramic shoes at our cousin Julian's birthday party:

Here she is doing some awesome fingerpainting with zia (aunt) Tina:

Here's her awesome Crayola Factory artwork:

Some more awesomeness - an underwater fish party! She had a blast gluing the tissue paper on (which were scraps left over from when I made paper "balloons" for her eco-friendly birthday party - which I am now realizing I never blogged about)

And our most recent craft, some paper bag puppets and a colorful sun. She loves these - I put them on and bark and meow at her and she cracks up! She decided she wanted to decorate everything with some shiny heart stickers. Lots of love in this house!

And here's mommy's craft of the summer. I really wanted to get Alessia some ABC magnets for the fridge, but you know me and plastics, so the traditional ones were out of the question. My sister Tina helped me make some wooden ones. And they came out freakin awesome (if I do say so myself!)

slow summer

I can't believe summer is more than half over! We've actually spent most of the summer staying at my mom's between the funerals, then Mark has been working like a dog and her house is much closer than ours. Anyway, we have managed to get some fun in: while staying up there, we made some home-made playdough, went to the pool and enjoyed yummy fruit smoothies daily.

Alessia had a blast at nonna's, but I would say the highlight was definitely the playdough. It kept her occupied forever! Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

4 tbs. cream of tartar

2 tbs. cooking oil

1 cup of salt

Food coloring

2 cups of water

Procedure:

Mix the above ingredients in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the mixture congeals.

Store in sealed container in the fridge.

We made half the recipe, and instead of food coloring, used tumeric to color it yellow. The color actually came out really well. I was afraid it would stain our hands as we played, but it didn't at all. It did smell a bit when we played with it right away (like the tumeric) but the smell was gone by the next day. I did take pics, but unfortunately with my mom'ss camera and didn't send them to myself. Alessia loved it though. I found some old cookie cutters and a small wooden rolling pin and she just went to town! It was great not having to worry about her eating the dough, though she never even attempted it.

My mom has a Vitamix that I am now addicted to. We made yummy fruit smoothies everyday that I've been craving since we returned home. My specialty:

strawberries

blueberries

cherries

kiwi

banana

(and add some ice)

YUM!!

I'm sure I could make some yummy ones with an ordinary blender, but let's face it, it's just more fun with the powerful Vitamix!! Too bad we don't have any room to store one right now :o(