Monkey Bar Master

Look at him go! Such a big kid.

Climbing Fun

We went to the Highland Games on Saturday and had a lot of fun. The highlight was a climbing wall "ride" that Conan just loved. The guy running the ride was really nice and let Conan play on the wall for far longer than I expected each time. He's a great little climber, no doubt about it!

It was fun for grown-ups too.

Remlinger Farms

On Friday Conan and I met Tombi, Moira and Kiah as well as Grandma Debbie and Poppy and Chloe at a place called Remlinger Farms, near Carnation, WA. We had a blast.

 There are Pony Rides:

 

 

Antique vehicles for playing in:

 

An animal barn where you could buy handfuls of feed to give the animals (I bet they have to empty the quarters out of those machines 3 times a day):

 

Lots of cute cut-outs for taking pictures:

A real miniature steam train that goes on a 10 or 15 minute loop around the farm, past animal enclosures (we saw an emu!) and through a tunnel before returning to the station:

 

 

A hay barn with a hay-bale maze and a large area of loose hay for jumping in with a climbing wall along one side:

 

 

Chloe is hands-down the best 3-year-old climber you'll ever see.  She's got monkey toes.

 

 

The canoe ride was very popular, the kids called it the "duck catching ride" and made a game of trying to capture the duck decoys that floated along in the flume.

 

The carousel was also very popular:

Look! No hands!

There were many other fun rides as well, including a mini Ferris wheel, a kid-powered spinning ride, cars that drove (automatically) along a track, spinning barrels, and more. The roller coaster was down for repairs, but apparently is usually quite a popular ride. We had a great time, and it was well worth the drive - we'll do it again next year, for sure!

Kiah's Rock & Roll Superstar Dress Up Birthday

Kiah is 4!  And a Rock & Roll Superstar, obviously.

 

 

 

 

Many more pictures from Tombi's camera available for viewing online here.

Spelling Game

One of Conan's current favorite games is "spelling" words with the alphabet magnets on the fridge.  He chooses a word, and I write it down in block capital letters on a scrap of paper and put it up on the fridge (with a magnet, of course).  Then he finds the letters and assembles them in order to spell the word with the magnets.  He can spend quite a long period of time at it, and he's really creative with the words he chooses.  It's lots of fun, and pretty impressive for his age.

Stick Dragon

I got inspired to sew again recently. I loosely followed these instructions, which Tombi pointed out to me. Loosely being the operative word - I pretty quickly decided that instead of a horse, I was making a dragon.

 It turned out pretty good. Here it is in action:

It breathes fire, naturally.

The bridle has already been removed.  Everyone agrees the dragon looks more comfortable now.

I'm already thinking of half a dozen other stick creatures I want to make. 

SNOW!

Playdough Party

For Conan's birthday we had a playdough party.  It turned out really well, and it was simple to put together. I just made a dozen batches of playdough, went to the Goodwill for spatulas, mellon ballers, scoops, and potato mashers galore, and put a plastic table cloth over the dining room table.  Voila!

 

The playdough provided hours of fun for a dozen kids aged 2-5, including the birthday boy (who decided that his shirt was just slowing him down).

 

 

 

 

Some of the grown ups even got in on the playdough fun.  Because really, who can resist?

 

 

After we picked up the tools and the big peices of playdough, the plastic tablecloth made clean up a cinch.  We packed the playdough into medium-sized ziplock bags and sent them home with kids after the party.

Then it was time for cake!  We got a Thomas the Tank Engine cake from the grocery store bakery.  It was a big hit with all the kids.  I do feel a little guilt about not making a homemade cake, but realistically I just didn't have time to bake the cake as well as do the other preparations.

 

Conan got a lot of great new toys and books for his birthday, and had a tremendous amount of fun. All in all, the playdough party idea was a total success. 

Happy Third Birthday, Conan!

Playdough: It's Easy!

So it turns out that playdough is actually as easy to make as everyone says.  Who knew?

Well, OK, nearly everyone.  Despite frequently being told that it was super easy to make, I always thought it would be hard to get it to turn out just right.  This is probably because I have a vivid memory of my Mom making a disastrous attempt at playdough when I was a kid.  I'm not sure what we did wrong back then, but whatever it was, I was able to avoid it this time.  Our playdough turned out absolutely perfect, without a doubt every bit as good as the store-bought stuff.  And Conan loved helping to make it.

 

Cooking this stuff was pretty strange.  At first it really didn't seem like the goo in the pot could possibly work out, but after a few minutes stirring it on the stove it quite suddenly changed texture and voila! we clearly had acheived playdough.

 

The recipe said to add the color to the water, which did make it super easy to blend it in, but it also meant that all the playdough was the same color.  I used yellow, and then took about half the finished dough and worked in some blue coloring to make green.  (I would also have made some orange, but then I discovered we have no red food coloring - I think it all got used to make fake blood a couple Halloweens ago.)  It was pretty easy to work the color through, and kneading the dough while it was still warm helped to work it smooth.  Next time I don't think I'll worry about coloring the whole batch, and instead split it up after it is cooked and make several colors.

 

Conan's favorite thing to do with the playdough is to make cookies.  If I set him up with some cookie cutters, his toy rolling pin, a plate and a spatula, he'll really crank them out!

 

He's quite serious about the cookie-cutting process.  Here's a quick instructional video, in case you needed some pointers on how to make cookies from a real expert.

With cold, rainy weather settling in and lots of indoor playtime in our future, I'm really glad to have finally taken the plunge and made my own playdough.  Seriously, give it a try!  Take it from me: it's as easy as everyone always told you.

Here's the recipe we used:

Cream of Tarter Playdough Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups of plain flour

2 cups of coloured water
1 Tbsp. of cooking oil
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup of salt

Directions:
Place all of the ingredients in a medium size or large pan. Cook slowly on medium-high and stir it until the playdough thickens - just a few minutes. Keeps best in the fridge in plastic containers.

Play & Imagination

Conan's imagination is really blossoming. His playtime includes lots of chatter, dialog and play acting both with real and imaginary participants in his games. I love it.

Here are a couple of recent examples:



Serving Cake & Ice Cream is one of Conan's favorite games. You can have it in a bowl, on a plate, or in a cone, your choice! Usually it is chocolate or 'nilla, but sometimes it is wild and crazy flavors like sunshine, grass, or purple.



Wee-Haw, ride'em cowboy! Cowboys know a lot about horsies. And they have hats.

Update: Since I had to re-upload both of these, I thought I'd go ahead and add a couple more:



Conan's new fingers come in lots of colors. I had to help him put the last two on, he tried for a really long time to do it himself but his new fingers just aren't as dexterous as his old ones. They do look neat tho!



Here he is combining riding his trike with tying knots in his "catchin' rope". Knots are really interesting to Conan, and he spends a lot of time tying and untying them. He still doesn't pedal his tricycle, but he's getting better at steering while pushing with his feet. And he loves to wear his helmet, whether he's going for a ride or not.

Mountain Climbing

This past weekend the guys climbed Mt. Baker. Gabe's account of the climb is here with many beautiful pictures, so I'll just link to his site.

Conan was pretty interested in what they were doing, having watched all the preparations for the climb - gear sorted and tested, backpacks packed and weighed - so we went online and looked at some mountaineering pictures. That gave him an idea - he should climb a mountain! It didn't take him long to decide which one: Mt. Couch was the obvious goal. He geared up with a piece of rope and quickly reached the summit.

The Ascent.

Ready for the final pitch.

Summit shot!