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One thing I'm striving for this summer is to try and not sweat the small stuff and to keep things simple when possible. So when I realized that somehow the 4th of July Weekend has already snuck up on us I decided to keep our festive play simple and go with some playdough play. We have a great basic cooked playdough recipe which can be tweaked in lots of different ways to create slightly

As we were getting ready for Little Brother's Dinosaur birthday party this month we were excited to set up a new playdough play invitation. This invitation uses one of our all time favorite playdough recipes - we call it "Chocolate Cake Playdough" because it has the amazing scent of real chocolate. For this playdough play invitation we added in a few key pieces: miniature dinosaurs, floral

The boys are already looking forward to St. Patrick's Day, which means we've been doing some fun, little things already to get ready to celebrate. Which is how we came up with this Simple St. Patrick's Day Playdough Play invitation. As with most of our playdough recipes we started with our Basic Cooked Playdough recipe and then tweaked it a little to make it match the St. Patrick's Day

It was definitely time to make up a new batch of playdough, and with the new season arriving I was inspired to create a play experience that reminded us of fall. One of my favorite parts of autumn is all the great scents that come along with the season. In the past we've used some of those same great scents to create Pumpkin Spice Playdough and Fall Spice Playdough. But this time I wanted to

I love the sweet smell of lilacs in the spring time, but it always seems like the flowers last for such a short time.  We wait through early spring and by the time they open it's usually hot enough that they don't last for long. So to savor the smell a little longer, I made up a batch of Lilac Scented Playdough! We still love a cooked playdough and used our basic cooked playdough recipe as

The other day we had a friend over and I decided to set up an easy and colorful playdough invitation. Although the boys all created their own versions of a rainbow, because of the high energy they had that day, it wasn't quite as peaceful as imagined when I set it out. (There was a lot of monster and smashing talk while they built the rainbows . . .) But, there creations were colorful! And we

Many people know the books Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn and Mark Buehner, we were pleased to buy the books in a set a few years ago. Along with the set came Snowmen at Work, which is part of the same series but not as well known. This winter the boys have discovered the book and they love reading it. In the book a little boy ponders if the snowmen (and snowwomen) have jobs

We do a lot of playdough play here, in fact we usually try to vary up our playdough play every month or so. Although there are a lot of different non-cook playdough recipes out there, we're still a big fan of a basic cooked playdough. All of our playdough recipes stem from this basic recipe, which we've finally decided to share! Ingredients: 1 cup flour 1/2 cup salt 2 teaspoons cream

As the holidays come up, it's nice to have something on hand for the other kiddos in our life. Even though we don't always give gifts to the adults around us, I do like having something little for the kiddos we play and visit with. It's even better if the gift can be something homemade and doesn't cost a lot. Last year I had thought about putting together some kind of playdough kit, but

There's something about these cooler days that instantly make me want the tastes and smells of fall food: cinnamon, nutmeg, all sorts of delicious spices . . . sometimes I don't even have to eat them to fulfill the craving, just smelling them is enough.  Little Brother and I put together this delicious smelling playdough the other day and both of us couldn't stop smelling it!  Although I