Sickies and Sales

This past week was Spring Break and it was not at all what I expected. No crazy parties on the beach, sleeping in late, fun with friends; oh no! My spring break was full of coughs, runny noses and too short naps. One of the worst things about a whole week of your child being sick is that you are stuck in your own house with no one to play with. We all want our children to share, but cold germs is one thing they can keep to themselves. So what do you do with a 4 year old inquisitive little boy who is not sick at all, out of school for the week and ready to have fun and his two year old runny nosed sister?

You get very creative with things around the house

We made play dough and hand prints out of salt dough.

Both of these activities are easy to make with the kids, are made with things around the house and provide hours of fun for the kids, whether they are sick or not!

Play Dough

1 c flour

1 c water

2 teaspoons cream of tarter

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/4 cup salt

food coloring

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium high heat until the mixture forms a ball. Remove dough from pot and allow to cool. Once it is cool enough to handle kneed it until it is smooth. Store in an airtight container.

Salt Dough Hand-prints

2 cups of flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

 

Mix all ingredients well, kneading until smooth. Dough should be pretty stiff, not soft or runny or it will fill with air bubbles when baking. Form dough into a ball, of about what you can enclose in your two hands, and form into a round smooth ball. Using a rolling pin with the dough on wax paper, roll out into as round of a circle as you can. Dough will be about 1/2 inch thick. Press your child's hand with fingers splayed into the dough. Depending on child's age, you will have to help and individually press their fingers. Make sure to press deep enough without going completely to the bottom. (When it bakes it tends to raise the hand print up) Put on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 200 degrees for about 3-5 hours. Dough should be fairly hard but watch to see that it doesn't burn.

Here are Brianna's baking:

This was Marshall's back in 2008

 I also have signed up for a fund-raising bake sale put on by Austin bloggers, businesses and foodies to help the relief efforts in Japan

  If you are interested in getting involved or donating, contact Austin Bakes and join with us to bake some sweets for a very worthy cause. stay tuned for more details coming soon!