Miss Porter and Her Craft Ideas

On my last trip to see Mama and Papa H we finally made it out to see Miss Porter. It had been far too long (we've both had babies since our last visit) and it was time to see what she and her girls were up to. By the way, you should check out her blog that she just started. I'm sure it's going to keep filling with her creative ideas and is worth bookmarking.

Well, my boys had a blast. PDG loved cleaning her fake owls with shaving cream and picking up sticks from the previous storm for her birdfeeder. MDG got a little fresh with her youngest; I think he thought she was a giggly teddy bear. Then inside PDG found their play kitchen and story stones and sunglasses and poof balls.

While I was there Porter shared a go-to idea for long car trips - an I Spy Bottle. Both MDG and PDG liked it so I figured we'd give it a whirl for our upcoming trip to see Big Sis. I rustled through my old toys and random things lying around my parents' house to find a variety of trinkets, erasers, legos, shapes, etc that could fit in the bottle. Once back at our home PDG and I used one of MDG's naps to look through the collection. He helped tell me what each one was, then reluctantly placed it in the bottle. (I think he was hoping for a little more play time with some of them. Luckily he got to keep the few that didn't fit.) Then we poured in the rice and shook-shook-shook.  Voila!

It's now hidden until the plane ride so that it can feel brand new and exciting. Fingers crossed.  But hey, even if it fails, we had fun putting it together.  And then, once it was sealed up and put away, PDG continued to get a kick out of playing with the extra rice. Scooping and pouring and hiding coins and, naturally, spilling it everywhere. We'll be pulling that tub of now-dirty rice back out again the next time it's too rainy or stifling hot to go outside for sure.

Thanks, Porter, for the ideas and the visit.  Success and fun all around.