Cake Batter Treats!

Thanks to this vegan chocolate cake recipe, I am able to share one of my favorite childhood memories with Katy without any fear of salmonella poisoning.  Yay for eating messy cake batter and delicious chocolate cake 45 minutes to one hour later!

Accessorizing a Play Kitchen

Several months before Christmas, I found a play kitchen for Katy on craigslist.  Chris and I hid the kitchen in a closet, and I started making felt food.  My success making felt food inspired me to make other kitchen accessories using cardboard, old cans, and old bottles.  By the time Christmas rolled around, Katy's kitchen was overflowing with goodies.

Here's all the felt food I made, including one super-sized banana!

Some of my favorites are the carrots, corn, green beans, strawberries, broccoli, and ice cream, which are pictured individually below.  I'll link tutorials I used if possible.  Sometimes I looked at several tutorials and then combined them to get the result I wanted.

The green beans were so easy to make.  I cut a 9 x 12 sheet of green felt into two inch strips.  Then I rolled the strips nice and tight until I had the desired thickness.  I cut off the excess felt from the strip and then sewed the loose edge down to the rolled green bean.  I made a can full of green beans in no time.

The orange slices were a melding of many tutorials.

I used a tutorial from WhileSheNaps to make the strawberries, but I modified it by using embroidery floss to sew in small stitches to resemble seeds before using my sewing machine to sew the strawberry shape.

I can say with confidence I have made the one and only ear of felt corn I will ever make in my entire life because it was so time consuming.  I followed a tutorial from WhileWearingHeels to make the corn rows.  I sewed the rows to a large rectangular sheet of felt, sewed the felt into a tube shape, stuffed it, and then sewed round pieces of felt on each end to cover the stuffing in the center (these four steps are more difficult than it sounds).   I made the corn husk by cutting six leaves from green felt and then sewing two leaves together around the edges with my sewing machine to make three nice, thick leaves that wouldn't stretch easily.  I then sewed straight lines with green thread on the leaves to give them a husk texture.  I sewed the three leaves together by hand, constantly refitting them on the corn as I went.  I tied off the bottom of the leaves with a gathering stitch.  Like I said, the corn was the most time consuming piece of food I made, and I have no intention of ever repeating it.

Unlike the corn, the carrots were super easy to make using a tutorial from SunshinyDays:

The broccoli turned out great and I sure wish I could find the tutorial I used to make it...

I used a free pattern and tutorial online to make the ice cream container as well.  Someday I'll find the tutorial and give credit where credit is due...

Katy's kitchen is also stocked with cardboard boxes, cans, and bottles:

I printed labels from the internet and attached them to old tin cans using a tutorial from PiecesByPolly.  This inspired me to attach labels to old spice containers filled with small, shakeable food, like salt and pinto beans.  I filled the spice containers, used hot glue and a round piece of card stock to seal the salt and beans inside the container, and then liberally applied hot glue to the cap before screwing it on one last time.  Katy LOVES opening the old spice containers and pretending to sprinkle food out of them.  

I found printable cardboard food from ElaineChen.  I strengthened the boxes by filling them with layers of cardboard glued together as suggested by PiecesByPolly.  Stacking cardboard for the boxes inspired me to stack round pieces of cardboard to make a felt cake, which I decorated with felt, ribbon, and a removable candle.  The cake fits perfectly inside of one of Katy's tiny baking pans.

I also sewed Katy an apron using a free tutorial from AnnKelle.com.  I modified the material sizes to fit a small toddler, but I loved the tutorial overall.  The finished apron looks very clean on both the front and the back, and I was able to use a piece of fabric that I was dying to incorporate into a project.  Sadly, Katy refuses to even try wearing the apron.  

Finally, I made Katy a feeding chair for her baby that attaches to the small counter in her kitchen.  I was inspired by a cardboard chair I made for her around the same time I made her cardboard car.  While the car didn't hold up very long, the chair was surprisingly durable.  I sewed a cover for the cardboard chair using an old baby blanket and loads of trial-and-error. The finished product is functional, although not my prettiest work.  Katy enjoys feeding her baby whiles she "cooks", however, and that's all that really matters. 

The moral of this blog post is beware of making felt food.  It will suck you into the time consuming world of accessorizing a play kitchen for a toddler who will no doubt throw, step on, and crush everything you make.  So far everything I made is holding up but it's only been one month...

Conversations with a Toddler #2

Last night Chris was trying to find the tune on Katy's xylophone while Katy worked a puzzle next to him on the floor.  Chris kept playing the same few notes over and over, often having to start over because he played a note incorrectly.  After several minutes, Katy leaned over, pushed the xylophone away from Chris, and said, "No mas, papi."  Shocked at Katy's ability to so clearly express her annoyance, Chris asked why.  Katy responded, "Esta loco."

Detente!

Katy and I have been reading P.D. Eastman's Go Dog Go in Spanish a lot lately.  It's a long book for a toddler but there's something about all those dogs that Katy really enjoys.  The book contains a series of pages in which the dogs are driving cars and must stop for a red light.  When I read this page to Katy I making a stopping motion with my palm held out while saying, "Detente, perros, detente! La luz esta roja" (ahem... usually I say "la luz esta rojo" because my on-the-spot translations are sometimes messy, but that's not the point here).

For a couple weeks now, Katy has been saying "detente!" while making a stopping motion with her open palm.  She especially likes to do this to trucks she sees driving on the road: "Detente camion, detente!"  Last week, Katy was watching a football game with Chris.  The referee called a pass interference penalty on one of the players and made the pass interference motion with his hands, which is both hands pushing from the chest out with palms facing out.  Upon seeing this, Katy starting saying, "Detente! Detente! Detente!"

Maybe all this reading is preparing Katy to be an NFL referee.

Conversations with a Toddler

Katy talks all. the. time. Most of what she says is either narration, a request for something, repeating something she heard or remembers, or nonsensical babble.  Every now and then, however, she throws in a little on-the-spot critical thinking and it's usually pretty funny.  Below is one such recent conversation:

(Katy is sitting at her table drawing.  I am sitting in a rocking chair nearby)

Katy: "Mom va a dibujar?"  (Is mom going to draw?)
Mom:  "No, no quiero.  Quiero dormir.  Puedo dormir?"  (No, I don't want to.  I want to sleep.  Can I sleep?)
Katy: "No."
Mom:  "Porque no puedo dormir?" (Why can't I sleep?)
Katy: long pause, staring at my face...."Los ojos estan abiertos"  (literally translated: "the eyes are open," but knowing the context and that pronouns are still very (VERY) tricky for Katy, I know she meant, "Your eyes are open.").

I guess she was looking at my face waiting for me to close my eyes.  Silly girl.