Toys for the imagination: Painter's tape

I'm always on the lookout for great toys or games that travel well, have multiple ways of playing/use of them and most importantly sparks my child's imagination and creativity. One of our must "toys" is currently good old fashion blue painter's tape. I love the Scotch Blue Painter's Tape, unfortunately they never seem to have coupons and since I'm not a regular to Home Depot or Lowes I never can find a good sale on it. If you happen to know of any please share with me so I can stock up.  I signed up for their facebook special of a free sample but haven't received it and its not looking good at this point.

What I love about this tape is that it can be put on about any surface and not leave marks/residue. And as a bonus I use this stuff to help baby proof our locations....maybe someday when I live somewhere for more than a few weeks/months I can try the stuff out with its "real" uses like painting!

Below is a list of games I have thought of that children can play using painter's tape, some are for older children than my son, but I wanted to have a running list for when we do get there. Right now his favorite "game" with this tape is to stick it to something/anything and then pull it off....he can do this forever. Painter's tape is a must when flying because of its endless uses and portability not to mention its quiet! Must have in the air plane carry-on if you ask me. Many of the games can be made and torn down quickly so for layovers it can get a group of kids together to burn off some energy. We have had a few successful spontaneous playgroups thanks to it!

Painter's tape game/ideas:
-Homemade stickers. I just cut off pieces and draw on the tape with a marker.
-Match game. Since my son loves to match things and play with stickers I combined these two activities and used some tape to make pairs of things (stars, flowers, etc) and put them on the wall or table top. Then I rip off one and have him find the other.
-Tic Tac Toe (I use rolled up tape balls for O's and small torn pieces for X's). How to play.
-Hopscotch. How to play.
-Place the tape in side by side lines on the carpet to use as a road for their cars/trucks or even large enough for a "lap" circle they can run in.
-Place just a single strip of tap with "center line" marks on it and its the perfect size for Hotwheel cars.
-Use the tape to make big squares on the floor. Challenge your child to jump, hop, crawl into the squares. Make small squares and you can teach the child to toss rice bags/beanbags into them.
-Use the tape to make wall sayings, build a scene on the wall with tape (house), ABC's or 123's.
-Bottle cap Shuffleboard. (will need bottle caps also). How to play.

Some other Blogs with additional ideas for painters tape:

https://play101.wordpress.com/tag/painters-tape/

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/462227/creative_ideas_for_parents_and_educators.html?cat=25

http://pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com/2009/09/kids-art-fun-with-tape.html

Did I miss some ideas? If so please share!!!

Italian Sausage vodka sauce pasta (Ben R's Recipe)

While in New Orleans last year Troy's trainee cooked us a great dinner! So I got the recipe and recreated it....well close to it that is. You can't find pre-made vodka sauce here...so that I made from scratch. We gave it a 4/5 stars.... Pretty good and I think would be perfect if I did the spicy Italian Sausage and added pepper flakes.



Ben R's Italian Sausage Pasta:
"1 box of rigatoni  pasta, 1 lb of hot italian sausage, 1 jar of Vodka Sauce (paul newman, barilla, classico), frozen peas - cut sausage into small pieces, boil the pasta, add ingredients together. If you want to get fancy, after you add the sausage into the sauce, keep the pan hot, add a half a cup of some red wine to the pan, then add that to the sauce. boom."
Here is the vodka sauce recipe I made fro allrecipes.com:

• 1 cup vodka
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (didn't have these but will add next time!)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 pound prosciutto, chopped (I used the Italian sausage instead)
• 1 large clove garlic, minced (used 3 because you really can't have to much garlic!)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (28 ounce) can roma tomatoes, with juice
• 2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine vodka and red pepper flakes. Set aside for 1 hour.
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute prosciutto, garlic, parsley, basil, salt and pepper until prosciutto is evenly brown. Pour in vodka mixture, and simmer 10 minutes. Crush tomatoes, and stir in with 2 cans of tomato sauce, and 1 (8 ounce) can water. Simmer 15 minutes. Stir in 1 cup heavy cream, and cook 2 minutes. 

Elimination Communication

"As featured on Good Morning America..... London and Angela!"
That right people London and I got our "15 min" of youtube fame today. (ok more like 20 seconds but we will take it). The video clip that I posted on youtube when London was 5 weeks old was used as an example on Good Morning America for a segment they did on Pressures to Potty. Now as much as I love that they didn't make Elimination Communication look bad, I really didn't care for the fact that they made it sound like potty training. They didn't ask me but I don't feel any pressure at all to have him potty trained, I didn't start using elimination communication to get him potty trained. I did use cloth diapers in hopes he would get there sooner though. :)

Elimination Communication, EC, isn't about potty training, its not about catching pee/poop, its a natural, non-coercive, its goal is not to be potty trained....its goal is to successfully have communication between baby and parent about baby's elimination needs.  Noticing your child is trying to tell you something they want and you are helping fulfill that need. Its the same as noticing a kid making a licking their lips or rooting as communicating with you they are hungry. Yawning or rubbing their  eyes to communicate to you they are sleeping. EC is just noticing your kid is grunting/doing the wiggle circular butt move/curling their legs a certain way as telling you their need to eliminate. Then just like you give them food, putting them down for nap, you take them to the potty....they don't HAVE to drink/sleep or go potty....but often times they do.These are things a child is born to communicate with their caregivers from day one. But not one that western cultures teach caregivers to look for. I myself  found it strange at first when I was told about it while on my travels in Asia. I thought people were trying to make their kids grow up to fast and expecting way to much from them or simply it was impossible for a newborn to do, or you had to hover over you child all day/night. However once I saw it in practice and realized how that a newborn was clearly "telling" their mom they needed to go.... well once you know the cues its hard to ignore. I don't think we give newborns enough credit.

Now I consider myself to have an EC graduate. What this means is that London successfully communicates with me when he needs to eliminate. He uses the "toilet" sign-language motion to tell me. He is working on saying potty/pee/poop as well.  This does not mean he is potty trained. A potty training graduate can remove their pants/underwear, get themselves on their potty, use the potty, wipe themselves and then get their bottoms back up. London isn't close to doing this yet. Right now he tells me he has to go and I do the rest. I'm in no rush to get him potty trained either. We just show him what we do and he tries to copy that. He can get lose underwear off by himself, he can get on his little potty chair almost correctly, he tries to wipe but usually falls when he does since he wipes from the front. He can't get his pants up  or on at all. He physically can't do some of that right now, its getting closer but we aren't there yet. 


Here is a great website for more information if you interested- Diaper Free Baby.
And we only did EC part-time. Never diaper free! London was in cloth diapers till he became a graduate!


Here is the full video that got GMA attention!-

Geocaching

All ready to go!

 Per wiki- "Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System(GPS) to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (tupperware or similar) can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek," or I like to call it "adult treasure hunting".
Here is a little video explaining it:

The Cache

It was briefly mentioned in my Day In The Life Of post. But I wanted to talk about it a touch more since its one of my new things in feb! The official Geocaching website is where I got started. I entered in my local info and found 9 caches in the area. I wanted an easy one for my first try.
This one was in a park that I have been to before and really liked. My coordinates were S 19° 51.230 W 043° 59.769. I plugged this info into my GPS and off we went! I do need to add here that I have never used the walking GPS guide before. When we got to the park I was doing the guiding and I got us lost. Troy then took over and realized I never hit the "start" button so thats why it wasn't telling us where to go but only showing me a distant map. Oh well at least we figured it out! So with Troy's guidence we came to the area. I saw the box first (or troy let me think I did!). 
 Unfortunately this cache is not maintained well and I'm pretty sure people are stealing the trinkets. :( I found a very weathered/tattered log book and that was it. No pen, no "gift", the log book wasn't even in a weather proof container. There was a piece of trash..... a bottle lid-which I took because hey I wanted SOMETHING! LOL The log book was just laying in a water valve box.

Me signing the log book

It was so very disappointing that was all to be found. I logged my info in to the book and we left a pen and a "gift" for the next person. I hope no one steals it. And I'm not sharing what it was.....if you want to know come and find it!
As much of a disappointment this cache was it was really fun looking for it and i'm not letting one bad one put a bad taste in my mouth. The rest in this area seem difficult to find (location hard to get to with a child). We will have to wait till we move/travel to do it again, but we will keep this up!

View of the park from the cache. (not the pretty part)

Day in the life of...

Did a little project for some online friends and wanted to share with you all. Two days here actually. A weekend day with daddy home and a normal everyday with just london and I.

DITLO

Fried chicken....not like grandma's.

So I tried to make Grandma B's fried chicken..... FAIL! I burned my hands so bad from oil while flipping the chicken I'm not cooking till they heal. No pictures because it was that bad and my hands hurt to bad to take photos. :(
I tried to do it from memory, maybe that was the problem. Here is what I did.... (PLEASE help me out on what I did wrong).
Bought whole chicken with skin cut up (I need to learn how to do this myself I think!). Rolled chicken pieces in a salt/pepper/flour combo till coated. Heated up frying pan with 1/2 inch thick canola oil. Places chicken in pan. Waited about 10 min till skin was brown then flipped..... pour oil on my hands in the process! Cooked another 10 min then put chicken on papertowels to dry off a touch. They LOOKED fine but when I cut into it they were still pink and undercooked. But I would have been burning them if I let them cook longer. So the skin tasted great but the chicken was bad. My ideas of why it may not have been as good--
Maybe the pan was to hot?
How long do you let it cook for?
Next time vegetable oil not canola oil?
Tongs not spatula to flip with!
I would LOVE to learn to make Grandma B's gravy also but I can't remember how she did it and i'm sure in true grandma form she has no idea on measurements. UGH! Alice if you read this---HELP!