Birthdays!

Twenty days after Little Girl's birthday, is her cousin's day.  Same year.  It snowed on the day he was born, and the whole city was a sheet of ice.  I remember well - I was stuck at home unable to get a babysitter, and wondering how I would even drive to the hospital if I could get someone to drive to my house to watch the kiddos... We have missed all of his birthday parties since he lived in Houston, but this year he was in town right around the special date, so we gave him his gift in person.  Can you guess what I made him?

Homemade play-dough!  Yes, I have "real" Play-doh in my gift closet, and yes that would have taken less time and energy.  I knew his mom would appreciate homemade though, so that's what I did.  Here's the recipe:
1c flour
1/2c salt
2t cream of tartar
1c water
1T veggie oil
liquid food coloring
dump all of that in a pot over med-low heat, and stir until it forms a ball.  Knead it on a work surface until it feels like it should :), and play, play, play!  I halved the recipe for each different color, and that worked great.  I knew I was using small containers to package it in, and the recipe makes a pretty big batch, so even after halving it, I had leftovers.
Taking from the project I did for Little Girl's birthday party activity,

I cut numbers 1-10 out of construction paper, along with a shape in the corresponding amount (the number 6 and 6 hearts, etc.), and using a glue stick glued them on white paper, then laminated each card, punched a small hole in the top corner, and connected them with a metal ring.  They turned out really cute, and they can be used for play-doh or anytime to practice colors, shapes, number recognition, counting, etc.  Little Girl has an order for some on the way!

(There's a big Playmobile school bus inside the rather large gift bag, in case you were wondering...)