Pinterest

I think I was a little later than most on this Pinterest craze.  I joined in December but didn't pin anything until a month or so ago.  I have found some really good ideas on there, but mostly I look for recipes. 

I did come across this little activity and it was easy, so this weekend we set out to make it.  I hope to make these every year so we can see how our little ones grow.  They are stones to put out in our garden.  I recommend reading the entire directions before making them.  We did not...the stones cracked a little and I had to take them out of the oven because I did not put them on wax paper.  Oh well, trial and error.  They still turned out good, just not as good as they could be!  But they're going to be outside, so I don't care. Check out the website here (this website looks amazing).

Super easy: mix salt, flour and water and shape them into the appropriate size circles

Press hand to make the mold

Thats it.  We used a toothpick to write the year and we sketched their first initial into the hand as well.

I thought about it and depending on how many kids we have and how many years they let us do this, we could have a lot of handprints in our garden.  We may need multiple gardens but we'll deal with that when the time comes.
This was a little more challenging with Gavin.  He just tried to claw his way out! 

We baked them for 3 hours at 200 degrees on one side and then 2 hours on the other side.  This part took the most planning, we couldn't go anywhere or cook anything else during that time.  If we had done this a few weeks ago we probably could have just put them outside for a day to dry out.  I'll try to remember that for next year.
Day 2 was painting the stone.  I thought about leaving them natural, but decided that Reegan would have more fun if she could paint it and through the years it would be neat to see which colors they picked and how they designed them. 

I picked gray and navy for Gavin and Reegan, of course, picked pink and purple.  She did almost the whole thing by herself, only needed a little guidance.

Gavin was not impressed with this activity.  Thats quite the stink face...

I think they turned out great.  I did not account for the fact that these are going to be outdoors in the rain, so I need to go back to Hobby Lobby to get a waterproof seal for them.  (Gavin's pinkie finger is not deformed but he wouldn't straighten it, so this is what we got :)

Another pinterest idea I got was making pancakes and putting them in a muffin pan to bake.  They were good, tasted just like any other pancake, but were easy to grab on the go. 

I have a few more projects I would like to complete, but I start work in 2 more weeks, so we'll see about balancing it all.  I'm excited for more Pinterest posts, but they're looking to be in the far off future.