Craft time

William still kind of sets his own schedule, but the one part I have figured out is the early morning nap.  Very predictably, William gets tired about an hour after he wakes up.  He will go down for a nap so easy at that time, which has become a special time for Eliana and me.  Most mornings we do some sort of craft.  "Craft" being a loose term meaning anything from gluing paper to making and playing with playdough.  Basically anything we can do on the kitchen table.  Here are some of our activities:

Making Oobleck
Mix two parts cornstarch with one part water, plus a few drops of food coloring.  This was so fun!  Oobleck is a solid that turns into a liquid when you touch it.  Eliana and I were both fascinated.  It cleaned up really easily with water, which is always a plus with craft time.  We also watched this youtube video to prepare up for our experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHlAcASsf6U

Shaving Cream
I let Eliana "paint" with shaving cream.  We just put some on a piece of paper, and Eliana swirled it all around.  One neat thing was tracing letters in the shaving cream, and then erasing it with a swipe of the hand.  This was pretty controlled at first, just on paper.  However, I left the room for a couple of minutes to check on William, and I returned to find Eliana like this!  Shaving cream was a little sticky and slightly harder to clean up, but Eliana really loved it!

Playdough
I found a really easy recipe for making our own playdough that resulted in super smooth and soft dough.  
In a bowl, mix together:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tablespoons cream of tarter
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Then add up to 1.5 cups of boiling water (with a few drops of food coloring if desired).  Stir until forms a sticky ball.  Allow to cool, then knead the ball of dough on the table until all the stickiness is gone.  If needed, add some extra flour to get the right consistency. 

Eliana did a great job stirring this mixture.  The best part was that if she spilled any of the dry ingredients, it didn't matter because we could just scoop them back in the bowl.  Between making and playing with the playdough, this kept her occupied for at least an hour, which is really impressive!

No Bake Brownies
Eliana was my assistant when I made no bake brownies.  I let her lick the spoon when we were done.  (By the way, she discovered that she likes chocolate now...)

All the time now Eliana asks to do a craft.  It is nice to have a bit of structured play included in our day.  And now a few bonus pictures of our handsome guy --

On a picnic, Eliana wanted a little cuddle time with her brother.

A little bit of tummy time, with some great head control!

Love him