Salt Dough Creations

On Tuesday the children and I made salt dough cut outs.  What fun that was!  I made the dough and cut it into equal pieces for the children, rolled them out and tossed all our play dough cutters into the middle of the table and let them go to town.  Once they had cut out what they wanted to, and lets say I rolled that dough out at least 50 times, between all the children, we placed our pieces on cookie sheets and baked them.  Half my children left just after lunch (with no school the girls dance was moved to the middle of the afternoon, instead of after school like usual) so I decided that we would wait until today to paint our master pieces.

Now today was the special day to paint these little trinkets.  Out comes the large garbage bags to cover my table, the 14 jars of paint and all the paint brushes I could find around the house.  To town the kids went with painting.  What kid doesn't like to paint????  Once we were done painting our cut outs on to what else.... FINGER PAINTING of course.  What a blast, what a mess!  But the joy they had doing all of it and the joy I had cleaning off 6 kids and all the paint brushes. 

Here's the recipe I used for our salt dough:
Ingredients: (I tripled the recipe and found it was more then enough for 6 kids)

• 1 cup of fine salt
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of water (may add more)

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, combine the salt and the flour
• Make a well in the salt/flour mixture and add the water
• Knead until smooth and shape into a ball
• When not in use, wrap in plastic or store in an airtight container 
• Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes or until hard

HINT: To get a softer dough you can add more flour. Adding more salt will lend a more granulous affect. To add color to your dough, use different types of flour or add food coloring or paint.
Knead to get an even color.

Additional pictures are displayed on: Ducky's Photos

OH NO!!! Crayons and heat

While doing laundry the other day my husband started folding the clothes..... low and behold he was taken away while pulling one of his cream work shirts out of the basket and a nice bright green stain was down the front of it.  He at first thought he split some chemicals on it at work and didn't notice at first. Well wrong he was, each and very piece of white and cream clothing was covered in green streaks and stains.  In the bottom of that endless load of laundry was the wrapped to yes a GREEN CRAYON.  We were both horrified to see all these "good" clothes destroyed. 

Once calming down I good to my great buddy, the Internet and did some research on different ways to get crayon out of clothes.  Now with living in a small town, alot of these recipes are out of my reach.  But I found one and so far it has helped with some of the clothing.  I haven't tried it on some of the delicate materials... I am still waiting to see if this load comes out good or not.

So here is the best concoction I found that I also have around the house:

What you need:

• Bleach for colored clothing
• Car part lubricant
• Paper towels
• Liquid dish washing detergent
• Laundry detergent

Steps to work out that nasty crayon:

1. Examine all articles of clothing from the offending batch of laundry. You will want to remove the crayon from all pieces of clothing at one time. It's going to be tedious and time consuming, but it's definitely a process worth going through
2. Lay the stained area of clothing on several paper towels. Four or five paper towels should do the trick. Try not to have any layers of material under the stain or you may end up with more mess than you bargained for.
3. Spray the stains with a car part lubricant. Let it sit for a few minutes. Flip the clothing over and spray on the opposite side. Let the fabric sit for a few minutes more.
4. Pour a little liquid dish washing detergent onto the stained area. Gently rub the detergent into the stain. The wax will work it's way onto the paper towels. Replace the towels as needed. Continue to work detergent into the stain until all of the crayon is removed.
5. Wash the clothing with laundry detergent and color-safe bleach. Use a hot water cycle for 15 minutes or on the heavy load option. Rinse the clothing in warm water.
6. Verify that the stain(s) have been completely removed. If there's still crayon residue on the clothing, repeat steps above.
7. Clean the drum of your dryer before drying any more clothing in it. If you fail to clean the drum, you'll likely end up with crayon marks on your clothing again. After cleaning the dryer, dry your garments as usual.

OK so now I have learned 2 things here.  One is that car lubricant works well on alot of things, not just the car.  It hasn't been the first time I have used it!!!  Second is that I MUST ALWAYS, ALWAYS, check the darn pockets of clothing.  I can't really just blame my son on this one, it is also my fault for not doing laundry correctly, by skipping that step.  Now I have 10 times the work to do.  Yeppers 10 things need a good scrubbing.

Baking up a storm!

Wow, its been a while since I have blogged last.  Things have been crazy here, with Christmas activities in full gear along with a lot of life challenges putting some hick-ups in there too.

Well today I decided that I needed to get some Christmas baking done.  I am running outta time.......  With only having one extra little one with me today, I thought it might be a good day to do some.  We started out with the good old sugar cookies.  We will be using these next week for our Christmas party.  Then on to the many, many other new and creative goodies I have decided to make this year.  I have been trying to make healthier food choice for my family and the kids in my care.  So with that, I did some (OK alot) of research on healthy Christmas baking, along with the research I also did a number of tweaks to many of my recipes.  These tweaks come from a good friend of mine that has showed me that you can make a everyday recipe a little healthier by exchanging some ingredients for others.  With all this the kids and I ended up making 8 different baking goodies through out the day.  We were tired, a mess, but had such a blast doing it.  With my little man crawling on the floor eating as much of the batter droppings as he could get, to my daughter feeding the other boy icing while I am taking cookies out of the oven and have my back turned to them.  Hehehe, they don't think I know!!! MOMMY has eyes in the back of her head, she can see and hear everything!  (I remember my mom saying this to me and number of times when I was young).  So in the end it is so much fun cooking and baking with little ones, and ya its a mess but hey, they get to learn new things and well make that mess.  What are kinds for!?!?!?  A decoration? Nope, surely not (at least not mine, they can't sit still for more then 2 minutes at a time).  After 10 hours of baking for me, I thought that is it, no more!  Well then I look at my kitchen, ummmm ya there is more! Not baking now but doing the dishes, putting away all the baking ingredients, and sweeping the floor.  It was much needed that's for sure, I think what the little one didn't get the dog did, but after a while, they both were a little to full to eat much more, so that leaves me with the job of sweeping up too, I don't like sweeping!!  So all is made now just to let them set over night and cut them all up and package them tomorrow.  Yummy, that means taste testing!

Keeping it clean

I have two wee ones in my care one of whom is my own and one that comes in for care.  These two little ones seem to always be sick.  If its not one its the other.  We have had so much go around the daycare since I have open in the beginning of September.  I have dealt with the cold, flu, teething, ear infections, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, and a whole lotta pink eye (both of them have had it twice now).  I clean, clean, and clean and they still pass it around.  As a caregiver and love children it breaks my heart to see one sick.  My oldest son is 6 and between him and my daughter I don't think the two of them together have been as sick as my youngest have and he is only 8 months.  Its been such a task to keep these kidlets healthy.  I thought of not taking sick ones, but I know as a working mom for a few years its hard to always take time off, you need the money, you need the job, but you don't know what to do with your poor little one who is sick and just wants to be held or sleep.  I love the fact that my parents know they can trust their children in my care when they are sick.  I use Lysol almost nightly to try and clean the toys they use, I don't know if I can even count the number of cans I have gone through the last few months just trying to keep up with illnesses.  I thought it might be a good idea to let others know of a few good cleaning tips also.

Choose toys carefully. Look for washable toys and throw out items that won't come clean, Where possible, avoid porous, stuffed or otherwise difficult-to-scrub items.


Wash 'em regularly. You don't need to scrub toys weekly, as many day cares do, but perhaps once a month or at least when toys are visibly dirty. Throw toys into the top rack of a dishwasher or the washing machine, or hand wash them in dish soap and water or if plastic you can use bleach and water. Not all toys indicate whether they're dishwasher safe, so use your judgment. If you're concerned that something might melt, wash it by hand.


Blast germs when required. Disinfect toys and other surfaces (say, toy boxes or crib rails) if you, your child or a visiting playmate has been ill. A bleach-water solution or non-aerosol disinfectant such as Lysol should do the trick (Be sure to read ingredients and labels carefully.) Note that if your dishwasher or laundry machine uses 130-degree water, disinfectant is unnecessary, but if you feel the need to use it, go ahead, its not going to hurt anything but those bad old germs.


Give stuffed toys the deep freeze. If your child has tested positive for dust-mite allergy, put their stuffed toys in a plastic covering and freeze them for three to five hours once a week. "This kills most living dust mites," These microscopic, spider-like mites are one of the most common allergy and asthma triggers. To find out if your child has a dust-mite allergy, ask your family doctor for a blood- or skin-prick allergy test.


Ditch bath toys with holes. Sure, you can and should squeeze water out of tub toys, hang them to dry in a netting bag and wash and disinfect them as above. But bath toys with holes can become a breeding ground for mold, so why not avoid them altogether? I don't always agree with this right away, but once I notice any toys getting that lovely black guck in them then I toss them at that time.  I do know people that will not allow any such things to be used by their child because of the mold, but I also find my children enjoy the good old plastic sour cream contains or the used up bubble bath containers just as much as the actual bath toys themselves.


Keep washing those hands. This is important especially after school or visits to the playground. A recent University of Arizona study found that children's playground equipment and daycare centers were the most frequently contaminated public places of over 1,000 surfaces tested. Washing hands before kids play with their home toys can keep them from spreading bacteria around. "The average child has up to six colds a year, but regular hand washing can cut that in half".  Good news though is that we are more aware of illnesses these days and most people do proper cleaning and hygiene to keep them away.

I have all children in my care wash their hands before and after every meal, after we come inside and of course after they use the bathroom.  I don't always agree on being 100% clean because then your child doesn't get immune to anything and will get sick when out in the public, but at the same time, I do believe in a safe and healthy environment for all.  Kids will be kids and you can't blame any one person on your child getting sick, it just isn't right.  Its not fun to deal with a sick or icky child but take the right measures and most are able to recover with in a few days and are back to their normal busy selves.

Paper Mache

Ok so Monday I thought we would do something really fun.  I looked up how to make paper mache, I knew you could use glue and water for the mixture, but I was hoping for something a little more kid friendly if possible.  I found a very easy recipe, of 2 parts flour to 1 part water.  I thought great here we go its easy today.  Well, we I joking myself, you don't do paper mache with toddlers!  I am still cleaning up spots today and that was 3 days ago.  I was thinking, we would make a cute project for Remembrance Day, where we make paper mache army hats.  I was so wrong, my older to kids (one is just about 4 and the other just about 3)  had a blast doing it, but they used so much glue mixture, it would have taken a month for the hats to dry not 2 days like I had planned.  My oldest boy, yes boy!  Wouldn't have anything to do with the glue, I tried to get him to help me make one, seems how he is only 2, I knew he wouldn't be able to do it himself.  The moment he put his hand in the glue he cried cause he was dirty,  we worked for a few more minutes and it wasn't happening for him.  So I cleaned him up and off he went to play.  My babies also had a blast getting dirty of course we had it in both their hair, the chairs, floor and yes even my hair had some in it.  So in the end most of the kids loved the mess, had a bath afterwards and my house was a disaster!  I didn't even attempt to clean off the table cloth, all I did was roll it up and toss it out.  Good thing it was just a plastic one I was thinking a little!  So if you ever get the great idea to do paper mache, how about you wait till the summer, do it outside, and maybe try it with older kids not babies and toddlers.   It was a project we tried, it failed and now its on my not to do list.