Winter break was quickly coming to an end and I had promised my great niece Amelia, that we could spend a fun-filled day together. She was so excited to come to Aunt Ellen & Uncle Justin's house, she couldn't contain it. My goal for the day, was more arts and crafts and less tv.
She arrived early Wednesday morning, ran into the house dropped her shoes and said "What are we going to do first?" Justin had already headed out to do cattle chores before she arrived, but he hadn't had breakfast yet. So our first task of the morning was making Uncle Justin breakfast! Amelia is gluten intolerant, so we had to be careful and wash our hands when were finished so we didn't have to worry about cross-contaminating anything. For a 6 year old, she sure is one sharp little girl when it comes to her allergy. Uncle Justin came to the house after chores and was excited to have breakfast and chat with Amelia on what all she was going to be doing for the day. Before he left to continue farm work, he told Amelia that he would be back before she had to go home.
Next up on the agenda, we dumped a big bag of rainbow colored beads. We started to put together a rainbow pattern, then her initials, and then her imagination ran wild. I began to iron the beads together, once she had all her patterns laid out just like she wanted. We made little trinkets for her to take home and keep as a memory of her fun filled day.
The next fun thing on the agenda, was making a suncatcher. She had the option to pick out any type of shapes or animal she wanted and of course she picked the unicorn. So we got the cricut out and watched as it cut out the unicorn shape. We then applied transfer paper to the one side and began attaching colorful tissue paper to the other side. The end results were marvelous!
Amelia wanted to do a science experiment, so I quickly got on Pinterest to find a couple good ones. Amelia received a science experiment kit from Santa and it's been all that she can talk about lately. We pulled out the food coloring, lined up some clear plastic glasses and started pouring water. We did every color of the rainbow! We then took paper towels and folded them in half and split them between the 2 glasses that were side by side. Then the magic happened! We watched as the water brought the colors to the top of the paper towel and eventually when the 2 colors met at the top, they mixed to form a new color. Now that was cool! After that, we made a homemade lava lamp. Amelia helped me measure out the baking soda, oil, vinegar and food coloring. She was able to carefully mix them together. Once you placed the vinegar/food coloring mixture into the baking soda/oil mixture, the bubbles started to appear and it looked like a real life lava lamp!
It was time for lunch and we kept it simple, just hamburgers and cottage cheese. I promised her we could watch one movie, so she wanted to save room for popcorn. Once we finished lunch, we went and curled up on the couch and watch Dog Gone Trouble. What an adorable movie! The weather was dreary and starting to turn cold again, so this was the perfect little afternoon reset we needed.
Once the movie was over, we went to baking. I had picked up gluten free cake mix while I was grocery shopping a couple days ahead. We had planned to make cupcakes but then Amelia asked if we could make donuts instead. To her surprise, I had donut molds and it was officially the best day ever! While we were making donuts, Justin and one of our employees had come back to our farm to load up some of the mama cows and calves to move to another farm. Weldon's kids were also on winter break still, so his 6 year old son Edward was along as well. Amelia and I went down to the cattle barn, so she could see the baby calves and meet Edward. The 2 had fun climbing a rock pile while the boys loaded cattle. We quickly raced back to the house to pull the donuts out of the oven just in time. Then we carefully took them out of their molds and set them on the cooling rack. Amelia chose 2 colors for the frosting, so we mixed that up and got the sprinkles ready while the donuts were cooling. It didn't take her long to frost them and eat a few in between!
We finished cleaning up the kitchen and it was time to head for home. We packaged up the remaining donuts, her beads and suncatcher and then headed towards her house. When we arrived, her little sister Fiona was excited to see us. She kept saying "Aunt Ellen, I miss you!" She also was very fond of the unicorn suncatcher and thought she needed to claim it as her own.
I love spending time with the nieces whenever I can. They bring so much joy to us!