Activity: Winter Playdough Development Fun! (With Printables!)

I have been swamped lately with all the crafts I am doing for both Bugga's Big Girl Room and the nursery for #2 (posts to come, I promise!), but in the midst of it all (and while currently 35 weeks pregnant), I am hosting a playdate this coming week for our little group of kiddos. I racked my brain to come up with something easy, and landed on PLAYDOUGH!!!! Who doesn't love playdough? Even the little ones can have fun squishing it in their hands!

I have a great recipe for homemade playdough that Bugga and I have used ALL THE TIME and lasts forever. I will post that soon too.

This post is about activities you can do WITH the playdough!

Now obviously, the kiddos are free to build whatever they want with the dough. For the playdate specifically, I am not about to run out and buy (like I have the time anyway) all the play-do accessories they have in stores that "help" kids play. Instead, I plan on using playdough mats!

These are a GREAT idea! 

The problem I found is that I didn't like the ones I was finding on the web, so I just made my own! And I included the links below so you don't have to do the fruitless searching either! Now, so you are aware, these are winter-themed, since we are in Canada and it is currently dumping snow on us every weekend. I will likely have posts in the future with other themes.

All you need to do is print out the PDF files, laminate the pages, and tape them down to a table - let the fun begin!

Download the Snowflake Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowman Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowy Hill Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Tree Playdough Worksheet here.

We Made it to One Year!

Patiently waiting for her party to begin. And yes,
of course I made her a tutu.  You can't resist
these things when you have a little girl,
no matter how much you think you will.

...well, I guess it's not like I thought we wouldn't make it to one year, but OH the year we had!!

And I hope you will forgive how long it has taken me to get to this post, but I wanted to make sure all the details were included (read: I had time to get the pictures off my slr).

Like all parents, I am confident that my kiddo is an overachiever so of course we had way more firsts during Year One than I ever expected, and what better way to commemorate all our learnings than with a fun birthday party.

Bugga's first initial decorated with a year's
worth of faces was hung over the main
food table.

Bugga was born in that wonky time period between holidays (well right behind Thanksgiving) so this adds a little wild card to who might be expected to attend birthday events between holiday travel, flu-season, and end-of-year budgeting.

The theme for this momentous event, was....wait for it..."Sydney is ONE!". I know, so far off topic. I saw a few fun ideas on Pinterest (of course) that got my brain churning, and it turned out to be a great way to incorporate all the fun pictures we had taken throughout her first year.

The food spread!

Cupcake "cake" decorated
with M&Ms in the shape
of a 1 (in case it isn't obvious).

We had the party at home, and I just made a handful of finger foods (including many that were toddler-friendly), barbecue sliders in the slow cooker, and a cupcake cake for the masses (seriously, we had a ton left over).

The biggest challenge was the "entertainment" for the party. It is not lost on me that a 1 year old could not care less what happens at her party as long as her basic needs are met (food and getting attention, of course). So I was torn as to what to have planned for the kids to "do" while the parents mingled and talked everything kiddo. Add to that the range of children's ages - we had 3-month-olds all the way up to 7 years. How the heck do you entertain this crowd? Off to Pinterest I went to find ideas.

I decorated with Bugga faces wearing party
hats all over the party space.

Bugga faces everywhere!

And we found the perfect one, and it was perfect for tasking my husband with so he could contribute to the party planning without getting caught up in the details he does NOT find enthralling. What was my solution? A cardboard maze! We still didn't have furniture in our dining room, so it was the perfect place to set up a giant cardboard monstrosity. And Mr. MOMba really got into it, adding skylights, and decorating with polka-dot duct tape and velvet curtains. And the kids loved it. Bugga loved it so much that we kept it in there for the next 6 months until we moved (yep, really slow to go after that dining room furniture, but I swear we will have some soon).

Anyway, enjoy some photos from the big event - maybe someone out there can use this for some planning inspiration! *OK, I really thought we had taken some photos of the cardboard tunnel setup, but I can't find them anywhere...I will update the 'ol blog with some pics should I ever dig them up. ** Update (10/6/2013): Found one!

She was very hesitant in giving her
cake a try. This is the before shot.

This is the after-shot! Not too
 much damage, actually.

Here's our "dining room" - you can see the cardboard tunnel
 around the back, with multiple doors, skylights, etc. - the kids loved it!

Back to Normal

Well, apparently being back to "normal" - and that means basically being primarily home in Texas for us - means that we are a lot busier! So the downtime for typing up some thoughts, observations, or projects has been few and far between!

We just completed quite a bit of travel for Thanksgiving, and survived Bugga's First Birthday Party! This means I can finally relax and enjoy the rest of this year's holidays...which seems weird but I think will require less planning, at least for this year.

I have several posts ready to go that are overdue for sharing, so keep an eye out if you are out there in internet-land keeping up with us!