Pasta, Pedicures and Play...

Yesterday we hosted a playdate at our house with a friend of Sofia's and the three girls played together so well. First was just some playing on their own and the big girls were so good to my little babydoll. A few times, Olivia would come to "check on me" but then she happily returned to her sister and girlfriend.

Mixed in with just good ol' fashioned playtime, were food coloring pasta for necklace making and pedicures. Both lots of fun and all three girls enjoyed very much. And EASY! Fun and easy, everyone likes that combination.

We colored the pasta before our playdate so I could allow the pasta to dry in enough time. I let the girls help me pick out the type of pasta we used and the colors for each. Little things like that and they think it's the best thing in the world. After they did their "important job," I handled the messy stuff.

1. Place 1/4 cup white vinegar in a plastic bag and add 2-3 drops of food coloring.
2. Put pasta in the bag, seal and shake it up. The girls liked helping with that part too.
3. I put down wax paper on baking sheets. After each pasta was placed in the bags and the colors were to our liking, I poured them out onto the wax paper covered sheets.

5. If it had been warmer out, I might have just placed the sheets outside to dry in the sun, but yesterday was a very rainy day. Instead, I dried them in the oven set at 200 degrees and for about 10 minutes each.
6. Behold our dried colorful pasta!

After some playing together, the three girls were excited to sit and make their necklaces. I tied one larger piece of pasta to the end of our necklace strand and this way they could lace the pasta without the pasta falling off the other end.

So much fun and a very good hand-eye coordination task for the girls, especially Olivia.  

Sofia's friend put hers on right away but the girls wanted them to hang on the doorknob for daddy to see when he got home from work. How pretty are they?!?

Tea time in the girls' room with their friend...I love Olivia's little seat.

Little sister was tasked with bringing the tea items from the basement into their bedroom. She came downstairs to me to say "Mommy, I have to go get the stuff for our tea party!" She didn't care that the older girls were telling her what to do.

Just before lunch, we did pedicures. I have a ton of nail polish that the girls love going through, but I picked out just some of of their favorites to have them choose from and they really had fun with it.

Pretty little toes. Sofia and her friend painted each toe a different color while Olivia opted for just the one color. She wanted to be different.

Quiet play time waiting for their friend's mom to come pick her up. They were so great together and it really was such a fantastic morning. Sofia and Olivia talked about it the remainder of the day and I was happy that despite the rain, we did some very fun things indoors.