One of our favourite things to do on sunny spring and summer days is to cover our sidewalks in bright colours and patterns using homemade sidewalk chalk paint. The paint, which dries with a chalk-looking finish, is vibrant, easy to apply, and washes off with a couple of rains. Perfect, right? Almost! The only {petty} problems are that it’s best used during the warmer, drier months of the year, and the beautiful sidewalk art created cannot be saved in Miss G’s scrapbooks (duh!)
With both of those things in mind, today we did some experimenting with using the paint on paper! I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but I’m happy to report that it worked wonderfully!
First off, after making many batches of sidewalk chalk paint, here is our easy peasy, minimally-messy method of making it. The key component? A blender! First off, it prevents the inevitable cornstarch poof that comes with whisking it, and secondly, I find that after a good long spin in the blender, the cornstarch doesn’t separate from the water nearly as quickly as when we hand mix it.
With our paints ready, we headed outside with a stack of black construction paper. I’m sure other papers would work wonderfully too, but I was kind of going for the old-school blackboard look. Now… I’m not going to lie. When we first started using the paints on the paper, I thought our experiment was going to be a total flop. So much so, in fact, that we ditched the paper and used our entire batch of paint on our front sidewalk instead. Going on, the paint looked like slightly muddled water… Not quite the look I was hoping for!
It wasn’t until every last drop of our paint was gone and we were beginning to clean up that we noticed how beautiful the paintings we’d banished over to the side were now that they were dry.
Instead of looking wet and barely there like this…
Once dry, they were bright, chalky, and vibrant like this! Cool, right?
With that, it was back into the kitchen to whip up another batch of paint. Together, we painted many more pieces, this time watching the transformation as they dried.
The other kind of cool thing we learned is that once your piece is dry…
You can use your fingernail or the edge of a popsicle stick to scratch off designs and patterns! Fun, right?
How did our afternoon of painting end? Hah! Like this! Miss G was done, dinnertime was nearing, and we still had some paint leftover, so out it went onto the sidewalk. Of course, which two year old can resist walking through regular puddles, let alone rainbow-coloured ones?!
Well, and because feet were okay, hands must be okay too, no?
♥
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Though we had plans to go to Stanley Park this morning for a big pop-up play date, Brad called as we were headed out the door to let us know the ultimate frisbee tournament he was coaching at was just a few blocks from our house. Not having time to do both, I let Miss G make the decision… Her choice? The tournament. I’m willing to guess that Papa + his students + live sports would beat out a playground visit any day. While we were there, the girls absolutely showered her with attention. She got hugs, secret handshake lessons, flower crowns, bubbles blown for her, and plenty of in unison ‘Awwwwwww!’s. It was a good morning.
“Mama, I made you a seat. You’re sitting on it and I’m sitting in your lap.” 
The other day, while quickly picking up a couple of craft supplies at the dollar store, Miss G and I stumbled upon these adorable miniature clay pots. We both laid eyes on them at the same time, and just as I was thinking, ‘Oooh! I must have those pots!’, she asked, ‘Mama, can we please take home those baby pots?’ Ummm, yes – we certainly can, baby girl. 
To get started, Grae helped me gather up some things – plain organic greek yogurt, 
While she was busy playing, scrubbed the pot well with hot soapy water. Then I mixed up approximately one part yogurt with one part granola, and scooped it into the pot. Next up, I covered the yogurt mixture with a little bit more granola and generously sprinkled cinnamon on top.
Using a daisy-shaped cookie cutter Miss G got in her Easter basket, I cut little flower shapes out of pineapple, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
Then I carefully speared them onto our tiny wooden dowels. I did contemplate colouring the dowels green beforehand, but I didn’t have any natural green food colouring on hand and didn’t feel comfortable using the real stuff since it would be directly in the food. Oh well! Maybe next time…
To put it all together, I simply placed the ‘flower lollipops’ (as G calls them) into the yogurt mixture. Because of the thickness of Greek yogurt, and the fact that it’s 1/2 granola, the flowers stayed up really well. 
Gracen was tickled pink with her edible flower garden, and not only did she request additional flower lollipops during breakfast, but she also requested another flower garden yogurt parfait for afternoon snack. Yay for healthy and fun munchkin meals!
Watching: Local musician 
While living in a city that gets as much rain as Vancouver does can be a little deflating some days, I know that we’ll miss it dearly once we’re back in the sandy desert. So instead of letting the past week of rain keep us indoors today, we decided to get out and enjoy it. After a morning walk and a long play at the park before lunch, we decided to head back outside this afternoon. We brought along with us a baking sheet, some liquid food colouring (the neon kind), and some white construction paper to do an easy and fun art activity… Rain splatter painting!
To get started, Gracen laid a piece of construction paper down on the baking sheet and fully enjoyed dropping splots of food colouring all over it.
Once she had the food colouring exactly how she wanted it, we simply let the rain do its job. At this point, it was raining quite hard, so the splatter effect happened quickly. Grae loved watching the colours pop up off the page and land back down on the page in little dots. At some point during the process, she’d say “This one is done!” and we’d pop it inside the house to dry and grab another sheet of paper to splatter.
The end result is beautiful, splotchy, watercolour-esque paintings, just like this one. Fun, right?
While I’m not ready to hand over the car keys or let her navigate her way across a busy road just yet, I am ready {and more than happy} to let her put together some of her own meals. Given the proper set up, it’s something she’s totally capable of and she’s so, so, sooo proud after having done so. A couple of days ago, she 
We’ve done this many times now, and what I’ve learned is that it’s best to let her create her pizza masterpiece directly on the parchment-lined baking sheet we’ll use to bake the pizzas. After that, I kind of just let her go. I’m a big fan of not directing our activities all that much (well except when it comes to safety, I guess), and really, it doesn’t matter which order the toppings go on in all that much. The finished product will undoubtedly be delicious no matter what. 
That being said, we’ve made 
Here’s her mini pizza, ready for the oven. I cook ours for about 5 to 8 minutes at 350 degrees, then crank up the temperature and broil them for just a minute at the end.
I can’t even explain how proud Miss G is after creating her meal on her own… She exudes pride. And my personal opinion is that when kids take part in creating food, they are much more likely to eat it.
The verdict? A total hit. A pizza assembling station is always a hit in our house. 
Every once and a while, I seem to go through a paper roll collecting stage. I have no idea why, because I truly never have anything planned for them, but it happens none the less. When I noticed a little collection of them today during nap time, I decided we’d put them to use this afternoon.
Though we really haven’t done a whole lot of paper tube crafts, I remembered how much Miss G enjoyed the 
Next, came shaping them. The good news is that it wasn’t difficult. For the triangle, square, and rectangle, I basically made the required number of corners by folding the tubes, then played with the shapes a little bit until I was happy with them. You can see exactly how to form the heart shape 
At this point, Gracen was still asleep and I just couldn’t wait test them out. So I didn’t. ☺
When my little lady woke up, she quickly discovered the stamping station I’d set out for her, and she was thrilled.
She stamped away testing out each shape thoroughly… 
Her personal favourite? My impromptu bow tie stamp dipped in purple paint (of course). 
This afternoon, my girl drew this… According to her, “My whole famileeee”. Melt my mama heart.
Based on my beginning 
It’s such a simple morning meal, but it’s healthy, can be made a ton of different ways, and almost tastes like dessert for breakfast. ☺ They change from one time to another, but here’s our usual line up of ingredients… 1/2 a banana cut lengthwise, plain organic greek yogurt (you could use sweetened yogurt if that’s what you’re used to), some almond butter (any nut butter would be delicious), a strawberry sliced up, and something to serve as sprinkles (today we used unsweetened coconut, but we’ve also used chia seeds and hemp hearts). 
This morning, I set out the ingredients as a little ‘build your own breakfast’ station and Miss G assembled her own banana split. Just as we’ve done together previously, she laid the banana pieces down first, added a couple of big scoops of greek yogurt, topped them both with almond butter and strawberry slices, then sprinkled the whole thing with coconut.
Breakfast is served!
Because there were a couple of butterflies enjoying the orange when we were ready to take them outside, I decided to make the somewhat risky move of taking the orange slice, butterflies perched atop, outside on its own. The hut was positioned close to a door, and luckily neither flew off before I safely got outdoors. In fact, this little one continued to slip up juice from the orange for quite a while, even once completely free to go.
With our two hungry butterflies already outside and the rest of the fruit removed from the bottom of the hut, it was time to take the entire enclosure out. Though I’ve done it on my own in the past, this truly is a two person job. I gently shooed the butterflies hanging out near the bottom of the enclosure up to the top, collected the four flaps at the opening, and Brad unpinned it from the ceiling. Walking very slowly in order to keep the enclosure taut and not squish any butterflies, we brought the whole thing outside, laid it on its side in the grass, and opened up the bottom.
While you might expect them to be in a rush to fly off to their freedom, for the most part, they’re not. Except for one, I retrieved the butterflies from inside the hut by gently coaxing them to climb onto my finger, then brought them out into the open.
The cool part is that most will hang around a while, giving you a great opportunity to see them up close without mesh intruding on your view.
This is also a great time for little ones to ‘hold’ a butterfly too. All you have to do gently coax the butterfly {without touching their wings obviously} into climbing onto your finger, then place your finger on the edge of the child’s hand to make a careful transfer. You can do it lots of different ways, but I personally like putting the butterfly on the topside of the child’s hand as it prevents the gut reaction of closing the fingers around the butterfly when it decides to fly off.
When they decide to go, some will fly off high into the blue sky until you lose sight, while others will land on a nearby plant. Another possibility is that they’ll fly for a bit and decide to touch down on the grass, so be sure to be mindful of where you’re walking.
I’m so, so glad that we decided to do raise butterflies with Miss G this year. As each butterfly eventually made it’s way off, Gracen would call out, “Buh bye, butterfly! Have a funny day!” – a happy goodbye. It’s been an amazing learning experience, and without a doubt, she’s learned a ton. She uses all kinds of new words now and can tell you all about the butterfly life cycle and butterfly parts. Best of all, she’s learned this all in a hands-on, meaningful way without actually realizing that she was learning. ☺
This was an on the fly idea that came about tonight during dinner. G was wearing her bathing suit (as you do when you’re 2 and a 1/2 and hanging out at home) and asked for a ‘special, special, soooooo special bath’ tonight. No go-to ideas came to mind, but my little doodle eating dinner in a ruffled polka dot bathing suit gave me one! … A pool party bath!
I filled the tub up nice and full and added a few drops of aqua gel food colouring to give it a pool feel, then collected a few pool/summer things – beach balls, a watering can, a pail and shovel, some water wings, and a water bottle. For extra fun, I loaded our little bubble machine up with solution and placed it so that the bubbles would flow down into the tub from up above. Gracen grabbed her sun glasses and her pool towel, and we were good to go.
Such a simple idea, but Grae just thought it was the best thing ever. Things did get a little wild when she began trying to pop every single bubble before they hit the water, but it was all good fun. Part way through, we took out our window crayons and added a ‘party wall’, which was just as much fun to splash off as it was to draw on. ☺
One thing our family just can’t go without anymore is coconut oil. From the kitchen to the beauty cabinet to the first aid kit, it truly fits the term ‘multipurpose’. We love it so much in fact, that we have several different jars stashed around the house at any given time. Here are the ways we (Gracen and I especially) use it in our home…