Edible Playdough

I tired to occupy Dominic with edible playdough today while Natalie was napping, it didn't go so well. I made the playdough based off of a recipe I heard on Jon & Kate plus 8 years ago - equal parts honey, peanut butter and powdered milk. I don't if dry milk and powdered milk are the same thing (I thought they were) but I used dry milk and it was SO sticky. I had to continually add flour to keep it a decent texture, and the dry milk made it kinda lumpy. Anyway, I have a son who HATES to have dirty hands, so the sticky playdough definitely didn't help with that :) Dominic was also awake way too early this morning adding to his crankiness. Maybe if I had used less honey...

Anyway, I did get him excited about the playdough when I gave him silverware and cookie cutters so he didn't have to actually touch the playdough with his hands - haha. He did like to eat it as long as he took small chunks - he took a big bite once and spit it all out. That was lovely.
He is into shapes so he liked that we made circles and squares and would sing the Steve song from PBS "line, line, circle, circle..."

And then Dominic's awesome mom made a car out of the sticky gooey playdough which made his day until he tried to pick it up and it smashed in his hands getting him all messy :)

Have any of you done this successfully? I think Dominic would have liked it much better if it was more like regular playdough (which we can't play with because he tries to eat it:)

For purposes of equal blog representation - here is Natalie enjoying Dominic's birthday present. Dominic woke up sick on his actual birthday (hense the towel on the couch and the bowl next to him) But at least Natalie had fun with his new toys.

The Zoo!

We went to the Akron Zoo to celebrate Dominic's birthday. He loves watching animals and was amazed by all of the animals he had never seen before. We managed to pick one of the busiest days to go to the zoo - it was SO crowded, and manuvering the double stroller around everyone elses' double strollers wasn't the best part of the trip.

I forget about how I need to upload pics to make sure they're in the right order, so here's our zoo trip in reverse...

Poor Natalie had had it by the end of the morning - she did not want a bottle for lunch and was hungry, tired and sick of being in the sun.


Dominic wasn't quite sure what to think of the penguin...



Daddy and Nic after a busy morning at the zoo.

Dominic looking for the bears...

Dominic did really well considering he is a notorious wanderer/explorer. He would ride on the stroller until we stopped at an exhibit and then jump down to go check it out. He only escaped a couple times - he did have an advantage being small in such big crowds, he could slip away really quickly.

There is a new jellyfish exhibit that was pretty cool - but hard to take pictures of. You can use the flash and see us or turn it off and see the jellyfish...

more jellyfish.

Natalie started out enjoying the zoo despite the ending results.

Daddy teaching Dominic about the fish.

Dominic is Two!

My little man is turning two! I can hardly believe it, although he's been practicing his "terrible twos" for a while now. We celebrated his birthday today. We spent the morning at the zoo and then had family over for a birthday party. The weather was perfect so we go to hang out outside - Dominic's favorite place to be.


The birthday boy after a long day - he woke up ridiculously early this morning thanks to his little sis and although I could tell he was enjoying his day, he wasn't all smiles like he usually is. I think Aunt Gracie is jealous of all the new toys he got - check out that evil look (or maybe the sun was in her eyes?)


Mom after a long day too :)



OK - so I know this cake looks like it was made by a kid, and that because I had to put it back together in about 20 min after dropping it on the floor! So I was exicited to make an "ah-ah" cake for Dominic and I was so proud of how my cake turned out, I seriosuly impressed myself. And then being a ridiculous perfectionist, I tried to clean up the wax paper the cake was sitting on and ended up knocking the whole thing on the floor face first. I had a huge mess to clean up and a cake to try and salvage. You can tell the ears are totally messed up and I could not get them to look any better - but considering the whole thing hit the floor I guess its not too bad. Plus, I still think it tasted good. Chocolate and peanut butter - you can't really go wrong with that.

Singing "Happy birthday to You!" Dominic loved all the balloons...

Eating the cake :)

Dominic was quite spoiled by all of his family that loves him - here he is trying to play with all of his new toys at once. Thanks grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - ya'll are the best!

Grandma & Papa putting together the fire truck at the pool side.

Natalie joined the festivities too. Talie girl after Grandma Gretchen fed her dinner and a full seving of cake and ice cream - that's my girl :)