gender reveal play dough

 Back in the day when I taught Kindergarten, on the first day of school I made Magic Playdough.  I filled plain colored playdough with food coloring and told the kiddos that if it changed colors were were going to have a great year!! When I was trying to come up with a way to tell our parents if we were having a boy or girl, I just knew this would be the perfect way to do it.  

I follow this easy recipe for making playdough......

1 c. flour

1/2 cup salt

1 c. water

1 T. oil

2 tsp. cream of tarter

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a heavy saucepan. Combine water, oil and food coloring and slowly pour into flour mixture, stirring constantly, and cook over medium heat. Cook and stir until it forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Turn out onto wax paper. After it cools a little, keep in a Ziploc bag.

After I made the playdough, I rolled it into small balls and stored it in little ziploc bags.  I packed red and blue food coloring to fill the playdough with after we found out what we were having.  To fill the play dough, I just pointed my finger into the playdough to make a little hole.  (Be sure not to poke to close to the bottom or it will show through.)  I put 5 blue food coloring drops in each playdough ball. After filling it with food coloring, carefully seal the hole where the color can not be seen!

I made this little image to decorate the playdough cup.  

{To re-use this image, just right click on it, save image, and insert it on your labels. }

And here is the final product before we took them to our families!! I thought they turned out so cute!! I just wrapped them up in little cellophane baggies from Hobby. I loved how I was able to re-use an idea I already had and that it was an idea that included Pearson in the reveal.

We met my parents (who brought Pearson with them) and Matt's parents at Grimaldi's for dinner.  We had a cup of playdough for each of our parents and then one for Pearson!!

 "I'm supposed to do what with the playdough Mommy?"

 Pearson was a little slow getting the color to show through on his playdough so the grandparents went ahead and squished theirs.  They couldn't wait to find out.  

 By the expressions on their faces I would say they are pretty excited about our sweet little boy on the way.  

 "Wait, what are they so excited about?"

 My big boy playing with the playdough announcing my little boy! 

After announcing our baby boy to the family we all had fun playing with the playdough.  

It was the perfect way to entertain Pearson until our food got there.  

 We are absolutely thrilled to be welcoming another little boy into The Link Home.  Pearson will make the best big brother.  We can't wait to watch our boys be the best of friends.  With Matt having two sisters and me having two brothers, neither of us got to experience a same sex sibling.  I'm excited that we will get to experience that special relationship through our boys.  

 Lots of fun times ahead for us!!