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Again this year, I hosted a Mardi Gras playdate. It was such a popular activity with my MOMS Club that it filled up in 12 hours and even had a wait-list! Next year, I might just have to host two!

I tried my hand at making a king cake from scratch this year. I even made it with yummy cream cheese filling like Chad prefers. I learned a few things that I know to do differently next year, but overall it was a success.

In addition to eating king cake, we listened to traditional Mardi Gras music, and had fun making jester hats.

Molly and her friend, Allison, happily modeled their new hats.

Molly is her father's child when it comes to cake. She licked all the sugar and icing off the king cake, then asked for another piece. Clearly, she does not need to be able to see to do this!

I made sure that both girls were sporting their Mardi Gras fashions for the day. Here they are taking in a little reading after the party.

While being snowbound due to record breaking snowfalls we had a lot of time for some 'H' activities. I loved my friend's idea for this week: "H for housebound, hot cocoa, and holy moly this is too much snow!!" Though very funny and so true, we stuck to our Valentine theme of "H is for hearts."

Molly had fun gluing and sticking hearts for her letter H project.

For our stART project, we read the story Clifford's First Valentine's Day.

We then used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to paint hearts,

and then turned our heart stamping into valentines for some very special people!

Molly practiced her counting with Valentine candy. She enjoyed some candies along the way, and Mommy may have had a few too!

I made these alphabet matching cards as another aid for learning lowercase letters. Molly quickly realized that the colors for the pairs matched, so next time we'll try something a little different.

Other activities this week:

These word puzzles are also a fun toy to help with lowercase letters.

Finally, in honor of the Vancouver olympics, a friend hosted a "Make a flag" playdate. Molly was so proud of her new flag.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Earlier this week we were invited to join Keira, Allison, and Riley for bowling. This was the first time bowling for all four 2 year olds.

Keria's dad, Jason, went over a few instructions: 1. keep your hands out of the ball return and 2. stand behind the dotted line when you bowl. And then we were off!

After Molly would bowl, she would run to me yelling "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" very excitedly, but forget to watch her ball roll down the lane!

The girls did a great job taking turns and watching each other bowl. Molly made sure to keep an eye on her competition.

Molly has talked about bowling all week. She raved about bowling with the green ball and has asked Chad if he'll take her bowling again. Sounds like a great daddy/daughter date!

A huge thanks to Jason for teaching the girls, and being so patient with all of them!

What do you do for fun on a wintry day? Make Play-Doh suncatchers to bring in a little sunshine, of course! So, today I hosted a playdate to do just that. All the kids enjoyed squishing small balls of Play-doh and creating a rainbow of colors on the Contact Paper.

When put together and hung up, it turned out really nice. Though, it didn't last in the window very long. Molly insisted on wearing it like a bracelet, and then it eventually wound up crumpled in a ball. But, she had fun playing with it all day!

Molly has had so much fun wearing her butterfly fairy costume. On Friday, I took the girls to Harmony Hall (an assisted living community) for a costume parade. She was in good company with Nemo, Elmo, The Cat in the Hat, and a Hershey Kiss.

She then donned the costume again when we went Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. Though before we even left the house we had a costume malfunction, which set us back 45 minutes! We finally got ourselves together and headed to Grams and Pop's house. Molly was happy to get some candy as well as a book.

We then headed to Molly's friend Simon's house to go trick or treating with our playgroup friends, each with a 2 year old and a less-than-one year old. We managed to get a picture of them all (and me). Left to right you've got Maya, Molly, Simon, Matilda, Leah, and Keira.

Of course, that shot was a miracle to get, as most of the time the picture looked more like this.

The rain held off (mostly) and the kids did great trick-or-treating. They hit a lot of houses, leading to acquiring a lot of candy for a 2 year old.

After everyone dug into their new-found loot, and Molly finished off 3 pieces of candy in less than 2 minutes, there was much fun and enjoyment while on the sugar high.

We all had a great time! You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Molly had some friends over today for a sponge painting playdate. I originally found the idea online to put the paper and sponge inside a Ziplok bag to avoid a mess, but it was decided that it would be easier just to sponge paint normally. The girls had a great time and ended up with several pictures each. We made sure to get in a lot of playtime too.

In honor of National Blueberry Month, we hosted a Blueberry Ice cream Sundae Playdate on Tuesday. I made homemade blueberry (from the blueberries we picked on our Memphis trip) and vanilla ice creams and had various sprinkles and toppings.

Everyone enjoyed eating ice cream before lunch!

After everyone left, Molly snuck back into the kitchen to eat more toppings. This is how I found her! And then she insisted on having sprinkles on her plate for lunch.

This morning I hosted a bubble burst painting playdate. After being rescheduled twice, it was finally a nice day to be outside! Molly did a great job. It was a good thing the bubble soap was only colored with food coloring since she liked to put the wand right up to her lips.

There was a lot of mommy help needed with painting.

There was even time for sliding and car rides.

Everyone had a great time and went home with some beautiful paintings!

If you are interested in trying bubble painting, mix 15 drops of food coloring with 4 oz. of bubble soap and you're set!

Molly and I hosted a Mardi Gras playdate today. I was given a boxed king cake mix, and finally had a reason to make it. After the baking was complete, I resolved to leaving the bread making to my mom. Kneading dough is  a mess! But, the king cake turned out well.

Molly wanted to wear all of the sparkly necklaces before her friends came over. She wore at least one bead all day, and cried when they had to come off for nap time and her bath. She made sure that Daddy and I were appropriately adorned too.

In addition to playing Mardi Gras music, and eating king cake, we had a mask-making craft for all the kids. I intended to take pictures during the craft, but I had to attend to my own crafter. I was lucky to get Molly to hold her mask like Daddy's glasses for a quick pic.

On a side note, as I was preparing pizza for dinner tonight, Chad asked Molly if she liked pizza, and she quickly responded, "I love pizza!" It was so funny to hear her say that. She is doing very well with her words and sentences.