PB, Pine Cones, and Birdseed

 A couple of weekends ago, when we were all still recovering from being sick all week, we spent a long weekend at home together. Normally this isn't an issue, but it had been COLD out so we couldn't play outside and we had already spent so much time in our home while being sick that everyone was a bit stir crazy!  I tried to come up with all sorts of ideas to keep Mia entertained. We played with just about every toy she owns (which is a LOT). We watched movies. We put up a tent and tunnel in our basement (she enjoyed that for about 5 minutes and then it was old news). We played with stickers and colored. We played with play-doh. We baked. We made I SPY jars out of old baby food jars, cous-cous, and random tiny objects we collected around the house (note: she enjoyed collecting the odd bits and ends more than actually playing with the jars, so evidently we need to just do some scavenging when we're bored). Finally, as a final straw, and since Sunday was actually much nicer outside, we made pine cone bird feeders. Luckily, last fall Mia and I collected a bunch of pine cones from the trees in our backyard and had put them into a container in the garage for safe keeping, so I could just hop outside and grab those instead of having to dig around in the backyard for some. So, we smothered them with peanut butter and dipped them into bird seed. We added a piece of yarn to tie them to the tree and viola! Pine cone bird feeders. Mia enjoyed eating the PB right out of the jar (or off of a pine cone), which was weird since she doesn't normally seem to like PB all that much (she's a nutella fan, though!). She also really enjoyed the mess of smearing PB and bird seed all over everything! Plus, she finally got to leave the house long enough to "help" hang the bird feeders in the front tree.  Turns out, the birds probably never even got to them as the squirrels hijacked them (pine cone and all) within a few days. Now we just have bright yellow yarn hanging from the tree.

 Mom said "Don't touch anything!"