Book Advent: Day 16 {Gingerbread Man Party!}

If you are new to Oopsey Daisy, I am taking it kind of easy with big projects to focus on Christmas this year. We just moved into a new home before Thanksgiving, and as much as I'd love to do a ton of intensive crafts... right now, I can't even walk into my craft room!  In fact, everything is still in boxes.  And the boxes and I are friends until Christmas.  I am doing my best to focus on enjoying the magic of Christmas with Little Man, who is almost 2, and soaking up all the joy and wonder of Christmas-time this year!

I have been looking forward to this day in the book advent for a long time.  We read one of my all-time favorites, The Gingerbread Man.  This story is just perfect for kids... how can you NOT love a gingerbread man?!  There are tons of fabulous activities you can do with this, too.  We whipped out just a few for our little gingerbread boy party! 

By the way, this worked out perfectly because we were stranded in the house all day.  Mr. Oopsey Daisy accidentally took my keys with him to work!  I get restless easily and love my daily errands, but we really had a ton of gingerbread fun!

It all started with these little gingerbread man bean bags.  For this project...

* I used a template I found online and cut out 5 little gingerbread men (and women!) out of felt.  

* I hot glued the eyes, mouths, ricrac, and buttons before sewing.  

* Then, I just sewed all the way around their little bodies and left an opening to fill them up with rice.

* Filling them with rice was a bit tricky.  Because they're so small, I used a knife to work the rice into all of those little nooks and crannies!

* Finally,  just sewed up the opening!  

That's it!

This little guy is supposed to be Little Man!

Here is our little army of gingerbread people.  Aren't they cute?!  One is supposed to be Little Man, one is me (the brown-eyed beauty!), and one is Mr. Oopsey Daisy.  But because I had extra felt, I made two more for fun!

After reading the story, we did all kinds of things with our little bean bags!  We named the colors of the buttons and pointed out ways that the gingerbread men (and women!) were the same/different.  But Little Man's favorite part was doing a little bean bag toss.  We tossed them into laundry baskets.  Later on, even when I was using the baskets for laundry, Little Man shuttled them around!  What a sweetheart! :)

Next, we made gingerbread playdough!  Have I ever mentioned that I have no sense of smell??  Well, I am a 4-sense gal who relies on her husband's rather weak sense of smell.  I asked him to help me with my spices, but he tells me that it smells just like gingerbread!  We had so much fun playing with this today--it's been ages since we had playdough out! 

I let Little Man use cookie cutters to cut out his own gingerbread cookies. He kept trying to "eat" his cookies... it must have been that yummy-smelling dough!  

He was totally wrapped up in this for a while.  Success!

Finally, we mixed up our own batch of gingerbread cookies.  We made just 1 giant gingerbread cookie.  I did my best to sculpt a body!  As we baked it, I turned the oven light on, and I told Little Man to make sure that the gingerbread boy didn't try to run away!  He did this dutifully!  Then, once he had baked and cooled, I let Little Man design this cookies just the way he wanted.  He loved being in charge of the sprinkles!  After seeing the addition of the M&M's, his favorites, he couldn't wait to eat the gingerbread man tonight!

I didn't think he would like gingerbread all that much, but I was wrong.  He loved it!  I asked him which part of the gingerbread man he wanted to eat first--the head, arms, or legs.  He just replied with, "M&M's!"  He enjoyed this a lot!!  Of course he had to practice acting out the favorite line from the story, "Run, run, as fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"  He got some good exercise with all of his running laps today!

Here's one of my favorite sights... when he chooses to re-read a story I've taught him.  Life is good.

Thanks for making Oopsey Daisy part of your day!

PS If you would like any of the recipes I used today, just let me know!  I'll post them tomorrow if you're interested...