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Jan 28, 2015

Thank you for stopping by

As a stay-at-home mom, I am challenged every day with a daunting task of figuring out how to entertain my kiddos as well as keeping them away from fighting over toys, snacks etc., and, at the same time, keep myself in sane state.

I believe it is an issue of every mom who takes care of her offspring every day, especially at their preschool age. I am delighted with the fact that at least Daniela goes to pre-kindergarten which leaves me only Tiziano and Kaia at home. However, on snowy days like yesterday, when schools are closed due to the wheather condition, all of them are home so I need to think how to bust this winter boredom with some activities, #brainstorm.

Even though we have tooooons of toys that were once brought by family members and friends (against my will), these are a few simple things that make them play for longer period of time such as: cardboard boxes and home-made playdough. Hence, I thought I could share my recipe, even though some moms may already have their favorite one. The one that I am going to share has been in our house for a quite long time; there are myriad of them and believe me so far this one is my favorite. This playdough is our every day routine – a day would not pass without it. And this is how I found my recipe for boredom at the same time – a few cookie cutters and there are no kids at home :-).

Here is what you need:

1 cup water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
food coloring
small saucepan
1 cup flour
a few drops of vanilla

Heat water combined with salt, oil, cream of tartar and food coloring.
Remove from heat and add flour and vanilla.
Stir well, then kneed until smooth and voila! it’s ready to use :-).

Once you make it at home, you will never ever buy playdough from store. What is absolutely awesome is that even those little ones can play with it and eat it with no visit at ER. It is ridiculously easy and can be stored in a zip lock bag for about 6 months (providing that if you add cream of tartar), but mine never last so long. There are times when I forget to put them bag in a zip lock and I find many, many pieces under the table, carpet.. Hence, I keep making play dough almost every few weeks. My advice is: GIVE IT A TRY!