DIY I-Spy Bag

For our trip to Iceland I made an I-Spy bag for Kirsten. Sometimes they are also called Seek and Find bags or Peek-a-boo bags.  I used assorted image buttons from Michael's and a set of alphabet beads.  This is a picture heavy post, so click to see the entire step by step in pictures after the jump.  This was my first sewing project start to finish that I did all by myself, ever!  So be kind, please :)  My techniques may not be right at all, but if I can do this, anyone can! Click on any of the images for a much bigger view.

Have Toddler, Will Travel - Carry-On

Yesterday I covered entertainment carry-on for my 2 year old toddler, now for the "keep my sanity" toddler related carry-on I'll be bringing along.

1) Change of clothes and a pack of travel wipes and small towel - Just in case, you NEVER know what will happen.

2) Removable Glue Dots - Will help keep her entertained with some printable scene sheets I've created, but I won't be letting her have free reign with them, so they'll stay with me.
3) Blue Painters Tape - Anything I don't want her playing with I'll put a piece of tape over, like the call button!
4) Extra snacks - Raisins, crackers, cheese sticks, carrot sticks, oatmeal cookies, baby applesauce (since that's allowed through TSA)... Rather than dealing with any sort of melt-down, I'll have a variety for her in case she really doesn't want raisins. At home she gets to choose, but then she eats what she chooses and I'm firm about it. I'll be a LOT more flexible on the plane to avoid a tantrum though. So don't judge the mommy on the plane giving their child whatever they ask for, she might not normally be like that.

5) Thermos Foogo Phases Leak Proof Stainless Steel Straw Bottle - This is the only sippy cup coming with us, stainless steel and leak proof. It claims it will keep things cold or warm for 10 hours, I'll be putting it to the test!
6) Gummy fruit and earplugs - For take off and landing to help with ear pressure, something to keep her jaw moving.  Maybe lollipops, but we'll have to try one before we go to see how messy that gets.
7) Children's Tylenol and Benadryl and a small medicine syringe - She's been congested lately so I'm sure we'll need these.
8) Stroller Blanket - For nap and then while she's playing we'll tuck it underneath her and into the seat in front of her to catch any little things she might drop.
9) A few folded grocery bags - To use as trash bags, and just to easily corral things until we take out the carry on bag to put things away again.
10) Extra earplugs for the rest of the passengers - ok, not really.  But I kind of want to pass some out to the people immediately behind and in front of us with a note of premature thanks and apology, just in case.

Have Toddler, Will Travel - Entertainment Carry-On

We're heading to Iceland shortly and I've been getting things together that we might need to have things go as smoothly as possible. It is an approximately 6 hr flight, which really isn't too bad. However, it is a 6 hour time change for us as well, and that part will be a little harder to handle. It is also almost constant daylight in Iceland right now, so I'm planning for a way to help with that.  The links are not affiliate links, I just added them so you can see what I have for her.  I'm only packing 5 "surprise" bags per direction (one for each hour), since there will be time during take off and landing where we'll be busy putting things away or settling in and not allowed to have stuff out anyway.  The surprise bags will each include 2 activity books, 2 finger puppets, a paper scene for her to build with glue dots and a snack.  Crossing my fingers that this will go well.  I'll share the printable paper scenes next week.

1) Dover Little Activity Books - 10 books, 5 for each flight  - 4-for-3 on Amazon : I focused mainly on the Invisible Picture ones (just need a pencil) and the coloring ones, they are small in dimension and will hopefully keep her pretty occupied.  I stuck to animals mainly and ABC type selections, however I couldn't resist the Little Airport sticker book and hope I don't end up regretting it.

2) Ohio Art Travel Doodle Sketch : A "drawing pad" that you can use over and over and over again, what's not to love? She loves to "color", which is basically her scribbling with any type of writing utensil.  I don't think she'll care that there is no color to this, just black lines

3) Triangular Crayons : Crayons that won't roll off the airplane tray table? Yes, please!  I can't remember if I got her the 8 count or 16 count, right now I'm hoping 8 count so I don't have 16 crayons to keep track of during the flight.  Just because they are anti-roll doesn't mean they are anti-fall.  I might need to try to whip up a crayon roll this weekend to hold them.  They're just straight line sewing, right?

4) I Spy or Seek and Find Bag : Hopefully, this works out well for her.  I think it will.  I made these for her and she has had fun looking at them a little, so I'm hoping she has the attention span to handle something like this.  I made two, one with little objects and this one with alphabet beads.

5) Finger Puppets : ours are from Ikea, we have a whole bunch from various places.  I'll be putting 2 different ones in each bag of the hour.  By the end of the ride we should only have 10 to deal with. I'll stick with the animals she loves, fishies, puppies, tigers, etc.

6) Portable DVD Player and a few movies : ours has about a 9" screen and it is several years old at this point so I can't find it with a simple search.  It's nothing fancy, but it will hopefully keep her entertained for a little while at least.  Her attention span will tolerate a full movie only if it's loaded with puppies or if it is Winnie the Pooh.  So we have some shorter movies that she loves, but we purposefully have kept hidden for a while.  She'll be super happy to see them, I hope.

7) MP3 Player : Mine is like this, but an older model.  I'll load up with her favorite songs, "Wheels on the Bus", "I'm a Little Teapot", "It's Raining, It's Pouring".  In another folder, I'll load it with her favorite songs to have me sing at night time, "Baby Mine", "Winnie The Pooh", "Bubbly", "Good Night Sweetheart", "Put Your Records On".  That way we can shuffle a folder, depending on whether it's nap time or awake time.

8) Favorite Books - Jamberry, Good Night Moon, and Tumble Bumble will hopefully be enough, board books are heavy and take up a lot of room.  I could probably just bring Jamberry and she'd be happy! I'll also have some books on tape on the MP3 player, and I can probably recite 10-20 purely from memory.

9 & 10) Pooh Bear and Blanket : These two go hand in hand. They are not exactly entertainment, but we won't get through the flight and naptime without them.  The blanket goes with her everywhere!  Pooh goes with her most of the time too, he's actually in a Tonka trunk just to the left of her when I took this picture.

Reducing Stains with Toddlers - Homemaking Tips

My daughter is 2, she does really well feeding herself, but lets face it... she's 2. She's going to get stains, and I'm not going to keep buying her clothes just for them to get stained right away.  Here are a few things I've started doing in the last 2 months because I was tired of the stains.

1) I keep her school menu in the nursery.  Some of you are probably thinking, "How does that help?!" But yes I use my daughter's school menu in the nursery. "Why?" So I can look at the menu and pick out the clothes she'll wear for the week based on the stains she is likely to accumulate that day. Spaghetti, go red; blueberries, go purple. I hate dressing her in stained clothing, but I know she's just going to get more stains. Now I try to minimize stain appearance, so I can dress her in stained clothing and not worry about her looking like a mess.

Tomato Sauce and Chocolate = red shirt or no shirt in this case!

2) To prevent stains at home, we take her shirt off at the dinner table and she gets her bath right after dinner.

3) After she's done eating and we're going to wash her hands and face, she always wants to touch the wall or the chair or me.  So we've started walking to the bathroom with our hands held high in the air.  I walk like this too as an example.  No more handprints to be cleaned up after.  We look silly, but it's SOOOOOO worth it.

4) This tip works for girls, more so than boys: If we are going somewhere where she has to be dressed up and there is food involved (like a restaurant, wedding, funeral, party) instead of a bib, I bring her apron.  It looks cute on her, and it covers a lot more.  Saves her cute dresses from stains without undressing her in public, but I don't have to try to feed her and fight with her saying "me do it".  Let's be honest here, she stopped wanting to be fed and started grabbing for the spoon herself about the same time she started eating solids.

5) If she does gets stains, I have the Martha Stewart Stain Guide handy.

Maybe I should start wearing red shirts on spaghetti day too!  I hope these help!

Corn Starch - Nursery Tips

Have you heard that you aren't supposed to use baby powder? When my daughter was born I received baby powder as part of a gift basket at a baby shower, and was told not to use it discretely by another mom. So I looked it up, apparently the talc can cause breathing issues and seriously, is anything safe for babies anymore? Another gift I received had cornstarch based baby powder in it, so I looked that up... safe, yay! So I keep that in her diaper bag, since it has a twist top to close it. However, on her changing table... a bottle with cornstarch from my kitchen. Yes, really. It's less than half the price.

I had a round cork topped glass bottle that I wasn't using for anything else and so I just filled it with cornstarch and I just sprinkle directly out of it every diaper change. We call it "tickle powder" because as a baby she always laughed because it tickled when we put it on her. We've been very lucky and only had to deal with 2 bad rashes since she was a baby, and they are NOTHING compared to bad rashes I've seen on other kids. I really do think the corn starch has helped with drying her from the wipes and wetness before putting a new diaper on. I just sprinkle it on and then do two pats with her diaper which sort of disperses it (I hope that makes sense) and attach the tabs after the second pat.  When she was a tiny baby I used to apply it with a cotton ball, which I still do when she has red bumps that I specifically want to target.

On another note, I received 4 tubes of various diaper cream as gifts. The first time she had a bad rash I used diaper cream on it, after two days when it wasn't clearing up at all I just used corn starch on it to keep it dry and it was gone the next day. I haven't used diaper cream since and finally gave it all to her daycare to use up. I don't know if this will work for everyone, but it has worked well for us so I thought I'd share it.

Tips for Baking with Toddlers

Baking with toddlers is easier for me than cooking with them. Most of the heat exposure is during a passive stage for the baker and there aren't usually knives involved. If there are knives involved, in the case of chopping fruits or vegetables or rinds those steps can be completed before the toddler becomes actively involved.

Tips for Baking with Toddlers

1. Wash hands and arms and put on a short sleeved play shirt.
2. Prep ingredients that require cutting or dicing in advance.
3. Measure ingredients into larger cups with a handle and a lip for pouring.
4. Go BIG! The batter might fit in at 4 cup bowl, but use an 8 cup to prevent spills.
5. Let them stir things, even if they don't need stirring.
6. Let them get a little messy, and don't stress about it.
7. Let them count or sing short songs as a way of "timing" things, even if they don't need to be timed.
8. Count to 5 for any unnecessary steps, so it doesn't take 3 hrs.
9. Let them set timers, they love the beeping of the buttons and if you have to reset it because they've got it baking for 3 hrs and 15 minutes, it's not a big deal.
10. Turn on the oven light, let them check it out once in a while.

When I made the Swedish Almond Cake earlier this month, my not quite 2 year old daughter helped with the entire process. She has also made cookies with hubby and we try to involve her in steps while cooking dinner too, if it's safe for her to help.

I put the butter in a mug and in the microwave for a minute, while we started so it would cool off a bit by the time we poured it in.

I used a 2 cup glass measure and measured the sugar into it, then let her pour it into my mixer bowl. I then added an egg to the glass measure and beat it with a fork, then gave her the fork to beat it some more, then it was poured in. The same process with the milk and almond extract which I measured in together, I stirred them then let her stir them (stirring wasn't necessary, but she has fun doing it) and we poured it in. I put the bowl under the mixer, then turned it on asking her to count to 5 while it ran. If your child can't count yet, ask them to sing a song they know or clap or turn around like the mixer, you can't over incorporate the liquids. I stopped it and pulled the bowl back off.

I used a mug (just needed something with a greater than 1 1/4 cup capacity) for the flour, measured it and the baking powder into it and let her stir it and pour it in. Then we put the bowl back on, started the mixer and counted to 5. I stopped it and pulled the bowl back off.

I gave her the mug of butter, told her it was "HOT" (it was just warm) and asked her to stir it gently. She did, then we poured it in the bowl. We put the bowl back on, started the mixer and counted to 5. I stopped it and pulled the bowl back off.

Now, I happened to have an extra helper, so the next step daddy helped her set the timer (took a few tries, but she loves the beeps) while I scraped the batter into the pan. Otherwise, I'd have had her help me set the timer, then given her a little water in the first mug to stir while I scraped the batter into the pan. Then we'd pour the water into the bowl and stir it a bit before putting it in the sink.

I tell her the oven is hot and to stand back and help mommy by counting to 5 and tell mommy "quick quick quick" to make sure we get the cake in the oven before letting all the heat out.

Once the cake was in the oven she helped hand wash the bowl and beater, and close the dishwasher door after I put the cups and utensils inside. I don't let her help load the dishwasher yet, because there are often knives and other things that could really hurt her.  So, I'll wait til she's older for that, but she loves to help by closing doors. Then we washed our hands and her arms and turned the oven light on to peek at the cake once in a while.

At her age she has no problem helping with stirring and pouring and when we're done she shouts "I did it!" a lot. It's a great confidence booster for her and we have fun spending time together in the kitchen. Having her help make the cake I dirtied one extra mug, that's it! I'd have used a cup for beating the egg anyway, I just used a slightly bigger one for measuring the sugar into first and the milk. It definitely takes more time to prep the batter, but it's fun and worth it.

Cleaning with Citrus Peels - Homemaking Tips

I have two ziploc bags that stay in my freezer and refrigerator for squeezed out citrus peels. The ziploc in my refrigerator has lemon and lime peels.
1) Sprinkled them with salt to clean metals: copper, brass and pewter
2) Rub them over cutting boards, letting the cutting board sit for a while, wash, rinse clean and dry. The citric acid will bleach out the stains and disinfect the board at the same time.
3) Sprinkle with baking soda and rub onto stained Tupperware. You may need to let it sit over night.

Once they've been used from the refrigerator, they go into the freezer bag.

The ziploc in my freezer has all citrus peels, grapefruit, lemon, lime, oranges, etc. Once they are frozen sprinkle a spoonful of baking soda in the center, and put them through your garbage disposal with a couple of ice cubes.

Butter Bell - Homemaking Tips

I hate trying to spread cold butter on bread, but have always been concerned about the hygiene of just leaving a stick on the counter. Until I got a butter bell I'd just deal with the cold butter.

A friend of mine, Margaret, first introduced me to butter bells and I love mine. She was getting a few for Christmas presents for her family and I had never heard of them before, so of course had to ask. I immediately ordered 1 for myself and 1 each for my mother and mother-in-law. I have the White Classic Crock Butter Bell from ButterBell.com.

A butter bell uses water to create an airtight seal, so I use cold filtered water and replace it each morning. I can have soft butter and don't have to worry about the hygiene aspect anymore.