D is for Dogs and Doughnuts

 Kate seems to enjoy this crepe rubber puzzle.  I'm thinking she might like a few more for Christmas.

 Kate plays with these little dogs in the tub.  They are from Alex Toys, and when you wash them with the little towel, their dirty spots fade!  Too cute!  Harry the Dirty Dog was the perfect book for us to read while Kate gave her dogs a bath.

 Kate played with homemade play dough (we have been using this same dough for a few weeks now).  I helped punch out some uppercase Ds and a few play dough dogs.

As I have mentioned in the past, Kate loves the If You Give series of books.  We spent some time focused on If You Give a Dog a Donut.

Originally, we were going to make play dough doughnuts, but I had this thin cardboard and decided to draw some doughnuts, cut them out, and decorate them with Kate.

 I ended up doing most of the coloring.

 I flipped them over and let Kate paint and use dot markers to decorate the other side.

That is Kate's dog, Boo.  He enjoyed the doughnuts.  Kate has such pretty hair; I love the way it looks in this picture.  I would love to have hair like that!

To end our doughnut fun, Kate and I made a very special trip to Dunkin Donuts where she had a Boston Cream doughnut and an apple juice because, "If you give a dog a donut, he'll ask for some apple juice to go with it".

 That doughnut is almost as big as her face!  She enjoyed every bite!!!  I read If You Give A Dog A Donut four or five times while she ate!

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake

We finished our letter Cc activities with a focus on one of Kate's favorite books, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.

She loves all of the If You Give books, and we read them daily.

I printed up a cute cat and cupcake activity from spelloutloud.com.  Kate loved the cat, but was only moderately interested in feeding the cat the cupcakes and had no interest in matching or counting cupcakes.  We'll try again in a few months.

I also mixed up a batch of cloud dough.  The recipe I used is 4 cups all purpose flour mixed with 1/2 cup of baby oil.  Kate and I both enjoyed playing with this dough!  We played outside because it is VERY messy!  It's interesting because it has a really silky texture, and it smells nice (although after an hour of play, the smell started to bother me but I have a very sensitive sense of smell!); it also holds a shape, but crumbles easily.

We used the cloud dough to make "cupcakes".  You can see how messy it is, but I will make it again; Kate loved it!

You can also see how the dough holds a shape.  You have to really squish it together for it to stay together though, and it is fragile.

I found Kate smelling it several times.  She really enjoyed the whole sensory experience.

Of course I made real cupcakes too!

I made vanilla cupcakes with this recipe:
CLASSIC VANILLA CUPCAKES
Printed from COOKS.COM
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 cup cold milk
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Bake Time: 18-24 minutes.
Yield: 12 cupcakes.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each
addition. Stir in vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together all dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture;
stir in milk.
Bake 18-24 minutes

We frosted the cupcakes with real strawberry frosting, and added some sprinkles to make the cupcakes look like the cupcakes in the book.
Here is the frosting recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup fresh strawberries 1 cup butter 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted, divided

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Place strawberries in a blender; puree until smooth.
2.	Transfer strawberry puree to a saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil, stirring often, until puree is reduced by at least half, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.
3.	Beat butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until light and fluffy.
4.	Beat 1 cup confectioners' sugar into butter until just blended.
5.	Beat 2 tablespoons strawberry puree and vanilla extract into butter mixture until just blended.
6.	Repeat with 1 cup confectioners' sugar, followed by 2 tablespoons strawberry puree two more times.
7.	Beat last 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar into mixture until just blended.

 I tried to let Kate frost a few of the cupcakes, but the frosting went directly to her mouth instead of on the cupcakes.  I even showed her how to put it on the cupcake -- nope, right in the mouth.

She liked putting sprinkles on though.  I love that her fingers were just covered with the sprinkles!

This page from the book is great; it reminds me of my kids!

Do you know how hard it is to vacuum up those little sprinkles?  They just bounce around instead of getting sucked up by the vacuum.  Ha ha ha, they taunt me!

Kate ate a bite or two of the cupcake, but she licked off all of the frosting and asked for more.

Collin only liked the frosting.

Reagan ate a mostly plain cupcake with a tiny bit of frosting just to taste it.

We saved a few for Tyler too!