Tasty Playtime Treat! :)

Over the weekend I had a spur of the moment idea that it would be fun to make some playdough for Ethan. He is really starting to get into coloring now, so I thought this would be a nice creative outlet as well for him. We had plenty of time on our hands with Daddy at work, so what better way to pass the time? I remembered an episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 that I had watched awhile back (before it became just Kate Plus Eight) where they made edible playdough. Being that Ethan is just 2 and still enjoys putting things in his mouth occasionally to figure out what they are, I thought it would probably be a good idea to go the edible route...

So, I searched for Kate's recipe online and found this recipe. It calls for equal parts of peanut butter, honey and powdered milk with some added flour to achieve the right consistency. On another site, I read that powdered sugar was also a nice alternative to the powdered milk (and tasted better), but to use 2 parts of it for every part of the other ingredients.

So, I used one cup each of peanut butter and honey, then just 1/2 cup powdered milk and one cup of powdered sugar. I mixed them all together in my KitchenAid stand mixer. I added some flour at the end, but I didn't measure how much.

And here is Ethan ready to play with the final product...

It didn't take him long at all to figure out that he could eat the playdough...hmm...

We had fun playing with the tasty dough, but I did find it to still be too greasy. I think that I should have added even more flour to remedy this and give it the proper consistency. If I decide to make another batch, I think I will also stick to just powdered milk instead of the powdered sugar, as it was plenty sweet!

Earlier in the morning that day, Ethan and I visited our local farmer's market for the first time. I was hoping to find some local honey to use for this recipe, but unfortunately, no one had any. We did manage to score some homemade strawberry jelly, strawberry-blueberry jam and fresh harvest grain bread. It made for a very tasty lunch for us! I think we will have to continue to check out the market to see what other tasty goodies we can find. :)

In other news this week, I had a bit of a scare when my dishwasher wouldn't start one evening!! Not exactly what a 36-week preggo woman wants to discover when doing dishes by hand is probably one of the most miserable chores to do while pregnant. Fortunately, I had my two handymen available to help get it working for me again! :)

Poor Ethan also got his first time-out ever this week. :( When he was in trouble the other night, Josh told him to follow him to the corner and stand there until he stopped crying and could behave himself again. We really had no idea what he would do, but decided to try it out. Much to our amazement, he stood there, with his little nose pressed into the corner as he composed himself. Awesome - time out success!! Unfortunately, Ethan earned another timeout the very next day when he wouldn't listen to me. I was again surprised at how well he took his punishment and that it seemed to be quite effective. Later in the day I warned him that he was going to get another timeout if he didn't stop ramming his Chuck truck into the wall. He quickly stopped, but I guess he felt that Chuck was the real instigator and he proceeded to give Chuck a timeout in the corner for the rest of the evening. Too funny! I swear that boy never ceases to crack me up with his antics!

I also finally realized today just how close we are to this baby boy's arrival. Just 4 short weeks!! Wow. Where did the time go? That being said, I decided that I need to start taking advantage of the time that Ethan and I have left during the day as a twosome, before things get really crazy around here again. So instead of staying cooped up inside the house as usual this morning, we made a trip to a local park to play! Despite the heat, I lasted for an hour and by the time we left, we were both covered in sweat and craving something cool. We stopped at McD's for a delicious frozen strawberry lemonade and some tasty chocolate chip cookies. ;) Yum! As you can see from the pics, Ethan thoroughly enjoyed his time on the slides at the park and I hope that we can make it there again soon.

It appears he wore himself out as he is currently in the midst of a 3+ hour nap now! :)