Cloud Dough

A mom at story time mentioned how much her daughter loved playing with cloud dough.

Shortly after, I Googled it and added it to the list of activities I wanted to do with Addie. To say Addie loved this activity is an understatement! It kept her attention for 40 minutes...FORTY...in a row! Plus, she needed a bath afterward which turned this into about a 90 minute activity and entertained us for a large chunk of the afternoon.

Cloud dough is made by mixing 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil (we did 4 cups of flour and 1/2 cup baby oil because there were only two of us). That's it...no super complicated recipe or cooking or anything.

The mixture kid of feels like sand that's just barely wet enough to stick together if you put it in a big clump, but that's still dry enough it falls apart if you poke at it.

Our activity started like this...cloud dough and lots of kitchen items to help mold it.

Addie decided the table seemed a bit too clean for this activity, so she used the wooden spoon to put cloud dough in the circle cookie cutter.

Hmmm...getting messier.

And messier...

Did I mention how much she loved this activity? She was smiling most of the time she was playing!

Holy cow! That's one messy little girl! She is definitely going to need a bath, and that chair is definitely going to need to be washed!

In the last couple weeks, Addie has started splashing up a storm in the bathtub - just look at those waves in the water. Wil and I are always soaked by the time the bath is done, as are the window sill and the floor, and sometimes, even the clothes in the hamper nearby!

Pop, Snore, Drum

Addie has always liked books, but lately she's started to LOVE books. She will bring you book after book after book to read to her.

Last week, Addie was reading to herself while I was doing a chore. She would get up, pick a book out of her basket, walk across the room to her princess chair, sit down, turn every page so she could look at every picture, stand up, put the book on the coffee table and then head back to her basket for another book.

Around the fifth book, she chose The Ear Book we checked out from the library.

It should be noted that Addie especially loves this particular book. I think it's b.o.r.i.n.g! To make it a bit more exciting, I made up motions and noises for many of the different pages. I move my fingers like popcorn popping when we turn to the page about popcorn going pop, pop, pop; I pretend to snore when we get to the page about hearing dad snore; I blow and blow when we get to the page about sister blowing a bubble with her bubble gum; and we both dance when we get to the page about dad drumming.

I watched her as she walked back to her chair with The Ear Book and sat down to read it. When she got to the page about popcorn, she wiggled her fingers; when she turned to the page about dad snoring and she tried her hardest to make the snoring noise with her mouth; and she broke into her bobbing dance when she saw the dad drumming.

I'm pretty sure she's the CUTEST baby in the entire world. Watching her make the motions and sounds for her book made my entire day!

Official Hair Cut

We've cut Addie's bangs a couple times on our own, but today was her first official, at a salon haircut.

Before

We took her to Little Chops in Glendale. The place was adorable! We got to pick out a movie for her to watch while she got her hair cut. She doesn't get to watch movies at our house, so she doesn't have a favorite. We picked Elmo's World since we checked out an Elmo Songs CD from the library a few weeks ago and we've been listening to it in the car.  

The chairs were cute little cars and airplanes. Addie got to sit in the yellow car.

She was good during almost the entire haircut until the very end. We were expecting her to freak out a little more, but she was fine.

After

Not sure what the tears are about...she decided she was sad and tired of getting her hair cut right at the last snip. 

She looks ADORABLE! So much better than before! Maybe now we can leave her hair down once in a while without it looking like we're neglectful parents. 

Shhhh!!

Lili got to go to Girls Camp with Arlene this year, so Wil and I watched her other four kids for a couple days while they were gone. 

Addie had so much fun with her cousins, but she didn't want to wake them up in the morning. I even tried talking her into tickling Junior, but she wouldn't go for it. Instead, she walked quietly over to the corner where her toys are and read her books until they woke up on their own. 

Fireworks!

Addie and I went to see fireworks with Lili and her family on July 4th. I LOVE fireworks!

Lili and Addie

Junior, Clarisa, Adaly & Lyzette

Me and my baby girl! 

Last year, I remember thinking I didn't want to spend money on buying Addie a special 4th of July outfit she would only wear once. "That's just silly," I thought. But then, when we were waiting for the fireworks to start all the kids around us were running around in their red, white and blue, while my baby girl was dressed in pink. It made me so sad that she didn't look festive! I went out after the 4th last year to buy her an outfit on clearance for this year. In addition to wearing it for the last few months, I made sure it was clean so she could wear it to church Sunday and again to the fireworks. 

***Editor's note - the fireworks started too late for Wil's current work schedule. Since he gets up around 2:30 a.m., he tries to go to bed between 7:30 and 8 p.m.

Hello?

I work from home, which means most of my meetings take place over the phone. I answered the phone the other day and looked over to see Addie answering hers. 

She walked around the house saying "Dada...Da, Da!" into the phone. I'm pretty sure that means she was talking to her Daddy...and that I need to start talking on the phone a little less!

Mark My Ruler

I made this growth board a while ago, but we just recently marked Addie's height for the first time. She's HUGE!