Playtime: Mary’s Park Sensory Playground

Minerva turned one on Wednesday, so we decided to go check out the Sensory Playground at Peninsula Town Center.

There is highly interactive sensory and tactile play available. The park is Wheelchair-accessible too! The surface is playground rubber.

There was plenty of seating around the playground and some seating was in a shady area. The playground is surrounded by bushes and secured fencing.

I loved that the Minerva could climb some fixtures on her own. I did have to go after my brave baby at some points, haha!

The gravity bowl was so fun for Maxine once she understood how it worked. Her first go ended with her SCREAMING for me to help her stop. By the time we left, she had been back on several times.

The park was really fun! The bathrooms were a block over from the playground, but there was a drinking fountain in the park so that was convenient. We can’t wait to go again! We will have to check out their play fountain next time too.

Also, there is a smartphone app that goes along with the play area! You can listen to the Hans Christian Anderson stories that the park’s themes are based on: The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling.  The stories are offered in 16 languages!

Mary’s Park Sensory Playground is an outdoor playground at Peninsula Town Center that was built in partnership with the Peninsula School for Autism.  

Baking with Mommy: Pumpkin Cheesecake Monkey Bread

I love to let Maxine help out around the house as much as possible. Her favorite thing to do (besides tossing stuff into the dryer) is bake! Anytime that I am in the kitchen making anything she is right there beside me. Yesterday, a friend shared an article with a bunch of pumpkin recipes and my pumpkin loving self instantly decided that I need to make it ALL. Today, Maxine and I tackled the pumpkin cheesecake monkey bread. I love monkey bread AND I love pumpkin so this was a must.

All of the ingredients, minus the butter.

Sugar and pumpkin pie spice.

ALL THE DOUGH

So when Maxine saw the kitchen setup she was so amazed by all the biscuit dough. She was SO READY  to cut things!

Bite sized dough :)

Sugar and pumpkin pie spice covered dough.

I told her the first job she had was to shake up the dough that I already had cut into quarters. She was excited to SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE and she kept repeating it while she shook up the bag.

“I shake shake shake?”

Filling up the cake pan.

I finally let her cut up the dough pieces with a butter knife and did pretty great with it!  She really enjoyed chopping it up. Her dough pieces were chopped up extra small.

Maxine cutting up the dough.

Once everything was chopped up and covered in the sugary pie spice mixture, we put all the other ingredients into the pot and whisked it together until everything was mostly smooth. I let Maxine stand at the stove to help whisk. She was so careful! She knows that the stove gets very hot and can burn her if she is not cautious.

Maxine whisking the pumpkin mixture.

Daddy helping us pour the mixture over the dough pieces.

When daddy came downstairs, he helped Maxine finish whisking! Then he carefully poured the mixture over the dough pieces. Maxine was sure to stand back so she would not get burned by the hot mixture.

The mixture poured over the dough pieces.

While the monkey bread was in the oven, Maxine asked no less than 15 times if it was done. I guess waiting for food to bake is the hardest part of recipe for her too! I wish you all could smell how wonderful my house smelled while this was baking!!

Pumpkin cheesecake monkey bread fresh out of the oven!

After it came out of the oven, I tried to flip it onto a plate but that didn’t work out too well. It fit better on the cookie sheet. It fell apart just a tad but that was absolutely perfect because that is the first part that we ate.

Flipped too soon!

Yummy!!

Delicious!! I can’t wait until the next time we bake something. This recipe was excellent and we probably will be making this again very soon.

It’s Irritating Really

 

I’m trying to figure out why doing this for your child is a bad thing?

Why are parents so critical of each other?

So what they did that. First child syndrome? Nope, it’s called parenting their own way. If they have a second child, they will probably do the same thing because that is how they parent.

I guess people will tell me that I have First Child Syndrome too when I have my kid and do things my way.

Now don’t get me wrong, Baby Sideburns is hilarious!! But this just struck a nerve this morning.