Shopping at The Rocket

Rory has been playing with her shopping cart the past couple of days, so this morning I made a cash register so that we could play "store." I tried to search images of play registers for inspiration and was disappointed. Not many pictures homemade cash registers. Okay, really just one. So I opened Photoshop and made something up. It isn't fabulous, but it's functional. Rory said that she'd like to name her store "The Rocket." (?) We found a box, glued the register printout to the bottom and propped it up for use. I've decided that we'll keep her play money and old receipts in the box when we aren't using it. Maybe then we won't lose everything in two days. Maybe...

I started to make some of our own play money, but the three-year-old attention span in the other room made me decide to search for some instead. (This site has cute printable play money for free!)

I set some things to shop for (felt food, dinosaurs, boxes of Jell-O, etc.) out on the kitchen table and Rory put her money in a purse. She loaded up a few (seven) babies in the front of her cart and went shopping. She doesn't understand denominations yet, but we did exchange currency. She even told me to, "Have a nice day!"

Messy Fun

My mom used to make homemade finger paints and play dough. I still like the homemade stuff better than any store-bought kind I've ever used. The smell alone brings back floods of memories of messy summer days at the kitchen table. She bought me the same book of cool kid recipes that she used and every now and then I remember that I have it. Rory asked for finger paints the other day and I was happy to oblige.

I'm not sure that they ended up as finger paints so much as Q-tip paints, but hey, she was happy. The mess was pretty much contained, too. We stripped the kid down to her pull-ups and put some paper on a big cookie sheet. Ta-da! And I was able to get a little bit of sewing done. You know, mostly uninterrupted.

The recipe is from Feed Me I'm Yours.

Soup's On.

The only thing that would have made this meal better is freshly baked bread. Well, and adding the mushrooms. I value my marriage too much to gamble with mushrooms.

(Chicken Gnocchi Minestrone from Taste of Home.)

Addictive Artwork

Go here for some serious time-wasting fun. I found it this morning via SoulPancake, which is highly addictive as well. It's also smart, so it makes you feel like your time was well wasted. At least that's what I'm telling myself.