The Best Tips for Taking Road Trips With Kids (& a GIVEAWAY!)

8 / 23 / 228 / 23 / 22

We’ve always loved a good road trip, but over the last couple of years we’ve done more road tripping than usual and it’s been so, so wonderful. If you follow along over on Instagram or Facebook, you know I’ve been lucky enough to work with Toyota Pacific for the last few years and upgrading to a new Toyota RAV4 Hybrid has definitely taken our road trip game to the next level. It’s by far the most reliable, efficient, and safe vehicle I’ve ever owned and it feels SO good knowing that everything is just going to work while we’re on the road. Also, the fact that it’s a hybrid has made road trips significantly more affordable, which is a massive plus given the current cost of fuel. Some of my favourite road trip features? Dynamic radar cruise control (seriously so helpful), rain sensing wipers (the best), lane departure alert (safety!), and the digital rear view mirror (perhaps my most loved feature). Toyota Pacific has generously sponsored this post, as well as an incredible giveaway to help out with your next road trip, so be sure to read all the way to the end for details on how to enter.

We’ve road tripped A LOT with our two kids and I must say – we’ve become pretty darn good at it! After YEARS of road tripping with kids, very often as the solo parent and driver, I’ve learned exactly what needs to happen for happy, low-stress road trips. Here are my best tips for taking road trips with kids…

Clean out the vehicle beforehand – If you want to start your road trip off on the right foot, this is where to start. A clean vehicle with all of the extra stuff taken out makes SUCH a difference for me. The night before we head out on a road trip, I wash and chamois my vehicle, take all of the garbage and extra stuff out, then vacuum the carpets and give everything a wipe down. While I’m out I also stop and top up both fuel and washer fluid if needed. Then when morning comes and you’re ready to head out, you’re actually ready to head out – no stops needed.

Pack lightly – I’m all about thinking ahead and having everything you’ll need, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of the travel we’ve been lucky enough to do is that when it comes to STUFF, less is more. Too much usually just equals chaos in my opinion, and in a vehicle that stuff can very quickly end up sprawled out EVERYWHERE. We always try to bring one suitcase for the family and if we’re going to be gone a while, we only pack clothes for half of the days we’ll be away with the plan of washing them part way through. Each kid gets to bring one small backpack filled with things to occupy them, and that’s it. If it doesn’t fit, it generally doesn’t come.

Prepare an activity kit – Okay, so on top of backpacks filled with their personal belongings, I always keep an organizer filled with car-friendly activities in the backseat. These are generally things that are quiet, low-mess, and reusable or usable for long periods of time. Think sketchbooks with pencils and twistable crayons, sticker activities books, road trip bingo games, magic marker activity books, pen and paper game pads, paint-by-sticker books, and notepads with colourful pens… Nothing with itty bitty pieces or caps that can be lost in the shuffle. Before a road trip I’ll often clean up our organizer and switch out a couple of activities or add something new. Happily engaged kids make for easier road trips.

Bring books – This is a MUST for us being that our kids are such big book lovers. We pack them along in their backpacks and both kids spend a good amount of our road trips reading and flipping through books. Choosing good ones – books that’ll keep their interest for a long while – is something I often help them with. For Gracen, my veracious reader, lengthy novels with storylines that really pique her interest do the trick. For Sam, reference-style books with lots of illustrations that he can flip back and forth in without having to be able to read all of the text are best. If we’re headed to the ocean, we’ll often bring an ocean anatomy book. If we’re headed to the mountains, we might bring a nature anatomy book… Something that will spark conversation and be useful while at our destination too. That being said, any book with lots of detailed illustrations, bits of info, flaps with hidden things underneath, etc. are usually a big hit.

Pack along a meal – So I know that there’s already SO much to do the night before a road trip, but I promise – if you’re able to make time to pack a couple of bento boxes and a few snacks, it’ll make for smooth sailing the next day. I always do our usual snacky lunch and focus on nutritious, easy-to-enjoy-in-a-moving-vehicle foods. All things the kids like – no spoons or forks required. Having a lunch packed and ready to go means that you’re prepared for whenever the kids are hungry and rather than trying to scout out a suitable option somewhere along the highway, you already have what you need and can just pass the bento boxes into the back seat.

Have a front seat basket – Speaking of bento boxes, I always keep a basket in the passenger seat that contains everything we’ll need during the trip. Lunches, my purse, our reusable water bottles, my reusable coffee cup, extra snacks, and anything else we may need. This makes them easily accessible, but tucked out of the way until they’re needed. One thing I try to keep in mind here (and when packing for a road trip in general) is that anything that’s loose in your vehicle has the potential to become a projectile in an accident. I try to keep things light and secured down as much as possible, but water bottles are definitely tricky.

Make time for stops – My number one tip for happy, low-stress road trips with kids… Don’t rush the trip. Plan for it to take a couple of hours longer than it “should”, make peace with that, and then make stops along the way. Let the kids out to stretch their legs. Stop at that beautiful roadside pull out. Visit the cute cafe in the little town you’re passing through. It’s so tempting to try and power through to your destination and make it there as quickly as possible, but for us, all that usually results in is stressed out parents and unhappy kids. Not worth it. Everyone seems to be happier and more chill when there’s no pressure to arrive in record time.

Bring thin blankets – You know those muslin blankets you have stashed away from when your kids were babies? They’re perfect for road trips. I actually learned this tip from my friend Lizzie and we’ve brought them along with us on our travels ever since. They’re super lightweight and fold up small, so they’re easy to pack along, but also, they’re good for allllll of the things. Use them for some extra warmth and coziness in the car, but also as a neck pillow, a sun shade, and a picnic blanket on your stop. They’re very multi-purpose and great to have on hand.

Pack along old phones + headphones – My secret travel weapon. We generally go fairly low tech when road tripping (just my preference – nothing wrong with doing it differently!), but old phones / iPods loaded with the kids’ favourite songs and audio books? LIFE SAVERS. I don’t pull them out until I need to, but in those final hours of a15 hour trip? Or on those days when you just can’t muster up the energy to answer question number 567? They’re the best. The kids love getting to use them and total silence on a long trip, even if it’s just for a short while, can be just what you need.

Well, that’s them!! What would you add? Do you have a tried and true road trip tip that makes travelling with kids easier or more stress-free? I’d love to hear if so!

ALSO – do you have a road trip planned this fall? Because Toyota Pacific has generously offered to fund one lucky winner’s next road trip with a $500 prepaid Visa card to help fuel all the fun! (Doesn’t get much better than having your adventures paid for, does it?!) You can enter for your chance to win here:

ENTER TO WIN A $500 PREPAID VISA GIFT CARD HERE

Contest closes at 5:00 p.m. PST on September 12, 2022. Retail value: $500.00 CDN. Must be 19+ and reside in BC or the Yukon to enter. Winner will be drawn at random at or around 9 A.M. on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 and will be announced here and via Instagram.

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Easy DIY Outdoor Skating Rink

2 / 25 / 212 / 25 / 21

With vacations and visitors on hold this winter, we teamed up with The Home Depot Canada to create the ultimate fun at home – a really easy DIY outdoor skating rink right in our very own yard! The Home Depot Canada has been our go-to for all of our pandemic project needs, and this was no different – we were able to get everything we needed for our skating rink at our local Home Depot location* and having a skating rink in our yard has been a total blast. Thank you, The Home Depot Canada for sponsoring this post.

Oh my goodness…. I can’t even tell you how much fun we’ve been having with this little DIY outdoor skating rink we put together in our front yard! Any time we like, day or night, we can just whip on our skates, head outdoors, and enjoy a little ice time without even having to leave home. It’s truly been the BEST way to make it through our recent cold snap – we get outdoors every day and it’s actually really enjoyable. The kids have loved it too and they’ve both become better skaters because of it.

A fun fact? Growing up, my dad, along with a few other neighbourhood parents, used to flood our local park in good ol’ Cold Lake, Alberta to create a skating rink for us kids, so the whole process has been very nostalgic for me. I think many of our lovely retiree neighbours have felt the same way because throughout the process they’ve been cheering us on, stopping to chat about it, giving us tips, asking to take photos of us, and even dropping off treats to enjoy with our hot cocoa afterwards…. So sweet!

Now here’s the thing about this particular DIY outdoor skating rink…. It’s incredibly easy to put together! I know because I’m not all that handy, I have a very limited tool stash, and I put this together myself with just a little bit of help. And truth be told, I could have built it completely on my own if need be, but my brother dropped by just to check in (he’s been a builder and project manager for his entire adult life and he’s who I consulted while drawing up my plans) and because he can’t bear to stand around, he jumped in and sped the process along part way through. He made sure not to do any job I hadn’t already done myself though, so I truly got a chance to do at least part of every task required to create our rink.

If you’ve ever considered making one, I highly recommend giving it a shot. I promise it’s doable and it’s a fairly affordable project too – especially given the fact that the wood and tarp can be used year after year.

Yours will look slightly different based on the space you’re working with of course, but here’s a detailed look at how I made our DIY outdoor skating rink…

1. First, I started by sketching out some plans. To do so, I went out into our yard, determined which space seemed largest and flattest, and then measured it so I knew what I was working with. Our total space was approximately 26 by 24 feet, so I decided to make our rink 24 by 22 feet just to give some space along the edges.

I decided to enclose our rink the simplest way possible – with a perimeter of 2×6 boards, plus additional 6-foot 2×6 boards at the joint on each side to ensure they were nice and strong. In order to hold the boards upright, I chose to use wooden stakes every few feet, so I used that info to draw up my plans. As you can see from my sketch, I thought I’d use L-brackets on the inside corners of my frame too, but once we got building we realized that they weren’t really necessary, so we skipped them!

Just for fun, I decided to include a simple bench and some posts for hanging string lights (string lights make everything better, don’t they?!), but those are totally optional. If you want minimize work and cost, I’d totally skip both!

As far as materials go, I picked up every single last thing at our local Home Depot Canada store, which definitely added to this project not being overly complicated or time consuming. (Isn’t being able to get every item on your list in one stop the very best?!) The other thing I love about The Home Depot Canada? They’ll cut all of your wood for you for a very minimal fee! Such a game changer if you’re like me and don’t own an actual saw… All you have to do is go into the store with your lengths planned and they’ll take care of the cutting for you. (Yes please!). Another option? Trying their tool rental service!

Okay, here’s everything I used for the project…

For the rink frame:

– ten 12-foot 2×6 boards

– two 8-foot 2×10 boards

– one 25-pack of 2×2 pointed wood stakes

– two 100-piece containers of 3-inch construction screws

– 30-feet x 50-feet all-purpose white tarp

For the lighting:

– twelve 8-foot 2×4 boards

– six 1 1/4 inch hook 2-packs

– two 48-foot plug-in LED string lights

I also used the following tools / equipment:

– carpenter’s square

– level

– sledge hammer

– line reel

– measuring tape

– power drill & bits

– hose

2. With my plan in place and my materials picked up, it was time to build our skating rink frame. This was a job I wanted to do quite early while it was still warmish and the ground wasn’t yet frozen. (I’m sure you could probably do it in colder temps if needed, but the stakes would be harder to pound into the ground.) To start, I set out my materials on the lawn exactly as I wanted the rink to be. This included my long 2x6s, my shorter support 2x6s, and my wooden stakes.

Standing the 2x6s up on their sides is tricky when they’re on uneven ground, but I just laid them down or tapped in a some stakes where needed.

3. Next up, we attached the two long 2x6s that formed each side of the rink frame using the shorter support 2x6s. This meant that we now had 4 very long pieces – our 4 sides of the frame.

4. With that, it was time to connect our first corner. Using a carpenter’s square to make sure we had a decent right angle, we screwed our first corner together.

5. Okay, this next part is kind of important if your space is like ours and isn’t all that level. First, determine your surfaces’s high point. For us, this was just to the right of the patch of soil you see in this pic. Your 2×6 frame will sit directly on the ground at the highest point and will sit up off the ground at lower points.

Make sure your corner and attached sides are situated as you want them, then pound a stake into the ground on either side of the corner. Place your level on top of your frame somewhere in between your high point and your corner and lift your corner until it’s completely level. If you have someone to hold it in place for you, fantastic, but if not, you can prop it up with some scrap wood or even your foot / leg (safely of course!) while you screw through your stakes and into frame. If your first corner is lower than your high point like ours is, it’ll sit up off the ground.

6. Next, screw together your remaining corners. Don’t worry too much about having a perfectly rectangular rink at this point – you just want to kind of get everything tacked together.

7. Okay, now to try and get everything nice and square! Honestly, I don’t know important this is beyond how it looks, but we aimed to get it as square as possible using this set up – a reel line run from the original corner to the next one over, plus a measuring tape from corner to corner diagonally.

My brother actually ended up having two really long tape measures with him, and we found that running them both diagonally at the same time (so they form an ‘x’ in the middle of the rink) was the way to go. Basically you want to place the boards so that the two corner-to-corner measurements are as equal as possible and so your long sides follow the path of your line reel (it’s surprising how off it can be). When we started, our rectangle was far from perfect, but we just kept measuring and shifting our boards / corners until it was good.

8. When your rink frame is nice and square, begin driving in your other stakes, placing one on each side of every corner and then one every few feet or so in between the corners. Just as you did before, attach your frame to the stakes securely using your level along the way. In some places your frame might be resting on the ground and in others it might be a ways off the ground – the most important part is that it’s as close to level as possible.

If you’re just doing a basic frame with none of the extras, you’re done for now! YAY!! You’ll want to hold off on laying your tarp until you’re ready to start making ice, so don’t worry about that just yet. If you’re wanting to make a bench and light posts like I did, stick with me for just a bit yet!

9. Okay, time for our very basic bench! I figured this might be nice for taking breaks, putting on and taking off skates, and sipping on hot cocoa, and I was totally right. Our bench actually gets used a ton, so I’m glad I made one.

To make it, I used one long 2×10 and got my friends at Home Depot Canada to chop it into four pieces for me – one long piece for the bench top and three equal shorter pieces for the legs. I assembled it just like you’d imagine…. By placing one leg on either end of the bench and the other one directly in the middle. Then I simply screwed down into the legs from the bench top. (I should have taken a picture of it before we attached it, but just imagine a giant ‘E’ flipped onto its side and you’ve got the idea – hah!)

10. For stability, attach your bench directly onto the frame of your rink.

This side is by far the lowest side of our front yard, so as you can see, our frame is sitting up off the ground a good amount. For this reason, I made sure to make my bench legs extra tall, but you’ll make yours to suit your space of course.

At this point, it was starting to look like an actual outdoor skating rink, wasn’t it??

11. Next job – attaching the light posts! Originally I wanted to use 2x2s for this job simply for the sake of looks, but my brother suggested that 2x4s might be better stability wise, so that’s what we went with. I decided to use 12 6-foot tall 2x4s evenly spaced around the perimeter of my frame and recruited my littlest helper for the job.

To attach them, we simply made sure that the bases of the 2x4s were flush with the base of the frame, checked that they were level, and then screwed them into the frame with several screws.

While we were at it, we decided to add another 2×6 to the bench side of our frame in order to close in that big gap we had. If the gap were smaller I wouldn’t have bothered, but I went ahead with it since this side of the yard is so much lower than the rest and I figured it would be helpful to have that barrier in place when flooding.

12. As our final step in constructing the actual rink structure, Sam and I added little screw-in hooks to the tops of our light posts…

And our skating rink structure was officially complete!

And then it was basically a waiting game….

One thing we did do as we waited for freezing temperatures was that we used the snow we shovelled from our driveway to fill in our low side of the rink and make the ground more even. Now truth be told, it all melted before our weather got cold enough to make ice, but it was worth a shot and I do think it would have been helpful had it turned out. We also strung our lights up, which turned out to be super helpful for evening floods later on.

With everything in place and ready to go, the moment it got cold, we jumped and began making ice! To do so, we set our giant white tarp into the base of the rink (folded in half), pulled it nice and snug, and draped the extra material over the edges of the frame. Then we began adding water using our garden hose. How much water you add at a time is up to you…. We had quite a bit of evening out to do and would usually flood for about 15 to 20 minutes at a time. We’d wait for the water to freeze completely, then add another layer.

Now a few of things to know about the actual ice making process….

First of all, back in the fall we actually had our old outdoor tap replaced with a frost-free outdoor tap to make sure we wouldn’t have issues with it freezing up while trying to use it mid-winter. This was something we wanted to get done anyways, but this project was definitely motivation to get it done asap.

Secondly, and this might be obvious, but it does really need to be cold out. We started trying to make ice the moment our temperatures were consistently at 0º or below both day and night and the process was slowwwwww. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen for us for a little bit there! We’ve had the STRANGEST, most mild weather ever here in the Okanagan and when daytime temperatures started rising above 0º, everything started melting. Thankfully we got a good cold snap and the moment temperatures were consistently at -5º to -10º, making ice was a total breeze!

Thirdly, to avoid having it freeze up on you, you’ll want to take your hose inside with you after each flood. During the ice making process, we kept our hose in a big tote bin, which made it really easy to bring it in and out of the house without any mess.

Keep adding layers until you have a good, solid slab of ice. If needed, I know you can do a final flood with hot water to smooth everything out, but we didn’t need to…. Our ice turned out nice and smooth all on its own!

Once we had the base of our rink completely covered in ice / water, I did loosely tack the excess tarp to the outside of the rink frame with a few screws. I think you could probably skip this step if you didn’t want to put holes in your tarp, but I didn’t mind.

Once your ice is solid, it’s time to skate!!!

And oh my goodness – were we ever excited for this moment!! Because of the timing and weather, our ice making process was slow, but had we started once it was actually cold, it would have only taken us 2 or 3 days from start to finish, which is pretty incredible.

I mean… Does it get any better than this??

Neither of our kids are super confident skaters, but they’ve been enjoying having a home rink SO much and have gotten so much better in just a couple of weeks.

Our favourite thing at the moment? Playing hockey together as a family…

And enjoying hot cocoa afterwards of course!

So, so fun. And a definite highlight of this tough, stay-at-home year. I really can’t recommend making your own outdoor skating rink enough.

Find a full list of all of the materials and supplies required for this project here on the Home Depot Canada site.

Happy skating, friends!

*The Home Depot Canada recommends staying home and opting for online delivery or curtsied pick-up in lieu of in-store visits whenever possible. Please be sure to adhere to all government and provincial protocols in your region.

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Small Shop Gift Guide

11 / 25 / 2011 / 30 / 20

The holidays are just around the corner and I think this year more than any, those of us who have the means are making a conscious effort to support small, locally-owned shops and businesses. And because of that, I thought I’d share some of our very favourites in the form of a small shop gift guide. When you purchase these items, or items from these shops, you are directly supporting a person or a family – many of whom I know personally and consider good friends.

Dilly Dally Kids – our very favourite shop for all things kids! Seriously though – the majority of our toys have been purchased from Dilly Dally over the years. The store is owned by Tyler and Claire, a Vancouver husband and wife / mama and papa duo and they are PROS when it comes to all things kids. They stock the best of the best – quality items that are open-ended and grow with your kids. Exactly what you want when purchasing toys. They also have a fantastic selection of books and creative supplies. We have so, so many favourites, but if I had to pick, I’d say our Grimm’s rainbows, Maileg mice, Micro Kickboards, Grapat loose parts (pictured above), Holtztiger animals, and Schleich animals are our most loved Dilly Dally purchases. Check out my other top picks in this IG Story gift guide I did with them earlier this month.

Collage Collage – our other favourite, favourite place to shop for kids! Through drop-ins, classes, camps, shop visits, and chats online, I’ve come to know Erin, Collage Collage’s owner, well and I just ADORE her. Everything she does and has done with Collage Collage is incredible and it’s really so much more than a store – it’s part of the community. A really integral, really fun, magical part. Collage Collage specializes in all things creative – quality art supplies, incredible classes (virtual ones too!), and beautiful art kits. Erin is also THE BEST at finding the most incredible kids’ books, at I’m at the point where if she recommends one, I just buy it because I know it’s going to be really, really special. Some of my top picks from Collage Collage include their Stabilo 3-in-1 Woody Pencils, their highly-pigmented-last-forever puck paints, their Lyra Colour Giants Skin Tone pencils, and their and their art kits (I’m particularly partial to the peg doll kit and the weaving kit, and I’ve got my eye on their new rainbow rope weaving kit too).

Connetix Tiles – easily one of our most played with and enjoyed toys! And even better because they’re the passion project of my lovely Aussie friend Brea, her husband, and their business partner. We started with a different brand of magnetic tiles, but we’ve switched over to 100% Connetix tiles and donated our old collection to a local school because these are just that much better. The magnets are crazy strong (as in Sam can build small structures and actually PICK THEM UP without them falling apart), the bevelled jewel-like design is crazy beautiful, the quality is excellent, and they’re compatible with all other major magnetic tile brands. We use them for everything… From building towers, mazes, race tracks, castles, parking garages, animals homes, and trucks to creating art with them to using them for home learning. We’ve used them to create puzzles, to practice symmetry, to explore fractions, to do sequencing, to create patterns, and the list goes on. Brea and her husband are also constantly coming up with fun new Connetix products… They have a vehicle pack that Sam loves, they just released their giant base plates (which are also excellent as rooves), they have a ball run set coming out soon, and a GIANT pack that would be perfect if you’re just starting out coming out soon too.

Okanagan Stitching Co. masks – my fave!!! I have several other brands of masks I bought at the beginning of the pandemic, and although they’re beautiful, I only ever wear my Okanagan Stitching Co. masks. I have several, Brad has several, and both of the kids have a couple too – they’re that good. (Here are the kids’ masks.) These are handmade in West Kelowna by Manisa, the shop owner, and I think we love them so much because the design is different than most masks. They’re super easy to pop on and off, they have great coverage over your nose and chin, they stay in place, and they sit just out from your face so you can actually breathe. Grae has 3 different types of masks and these are the only ones that don’t fog her glasses up – game changer! Just an FYI as I’ve had lots of sizing questions, I wear a size small, Brad wears a size large, and both Grae and Sam wear the kids size, but there’s a great sizing guide on the site. (Manisa has generously offered everyone here 10% off their site with the code MAMAPAPABUBBA10 too.)

Rascal Remedies rollers and sprays – these were new to us this year and they’ve very quickly become a part of our every day routine. Rascal Remedies is an essential oil wellness line formulated specifically with children in mind. If you know me well, you know that I love essential oils, but I’m also very cautious when it comes to essential oils and kids and I often cringe at the oil usage advice given to parents. And that’s why I love Rascal Remedies. Dorthe, the owner, worked closely with certified aromatherapists to ensure that their blends are 100% safe for little ones 2-3 and up. Their rollers and sprays contain only kiddo-safe oils (there are several oils that are not recommended for littles) and are pre-diluted to a child-safe potency so their ready to use. Our absolute top picks are Sofia Snooze (on the back of Sam’s neck each night before bed), Finn Focus (above each of our heads each morning before we start our home learning), and Genie Germz (on our hands anywhere and everywhere because a) it’s undergone third party antimicrobial effectiveness testing by a regulated Canadian lab and passed standard ATCC criteria and b) it smells EXACTLY LIKE ROOTBEER!!!)

Mint & Birch custom jewellery – the best of the best! It seems like there are SO many makers out there creating custom jewellery at the moment, but the items created by Jessica of Mint & Birch are in a class of their own. She takes no shortcuts and every part of the process – from cutting to filing to drilling and polishing – is done by hand. Jessica also uses ethically sourced, certified gold fill and solid sterling silver sourced from North American mills and her pieces are made to last, which I love. The difference between gold fill and gold plated is HUGE and I’ve worn my bar necklaces for two years now without taking them off to sleep, shower, swim, etc. and they’re still perfect {save the fact that Sam’s little foot broke the chain off of one of bars – must get that fixed asap, which Jessica does!} I have the stamped custom name bars, but Jessica now does engraved bars and hand lettered bars, which is just incredible. I also love her hand lettered discs, her hand drawn rainbow, her teeny tiny dotty disc, and her custom signature / image engraved bar might be the most special keepsake ever.

Bottle None shampoo & conditioner bars – my go-to!!! Yup, this was the year I officially transitioned to bar shampoo and conditioner. If you told me this pre-pandemic, I might not have believed you… I had tried 3 different shampoo bars from 3 different companies previously and honestly, they were a waste of money. All three left my hair feeling like Barbie hair – not greasy, but sort of greasy – almost plastic-y and wet looking. Not what I was hoping for obviously. What I’ve learned from Ali and Jaye, the ladies behind Bottle None, is that many bar shampoo bars are really just expensive soap disguised as shampoo. No wonder it didn’t work. :/ These, on the other hand, are salon-grade and leave my hair feeling ridiculously soft and clean. They also last 50+ washes, are SLS & SCS free, vegan, PH balanced, and scented with essential oils. My set, be BRIGHT, is scented with blue tansy and lemon (drool!) and the be YOU set G uses is scented with lavender and lemongrass. The best part? Brad and his cousins went to school with Ali and Jaye back in the day and the sister duo now makes all of their bars right here in Vernon. They also turn all of the packaging their ingredients come in into travel cases for their bars, so their products are truly zero waste.

The High-End Hippie Wellness Company shampoo & conditioner bars – Not only did I successfully transition to bar shampoo and conditioner this year, but I also found TWO local companies that make bars that a) work and b) I love. The High-End Hippie Wellness Company is also based here in the Okanagan and after years of working in high-end hotels and spas, Amy, the owner, wanted to create bars that were both environmentally-concious and luxurious. I use the Awaken Set (with peppermint and rosemary oil – yum) and although I admittedly wash his hair very rarely (is that weird?), I use the 4-in-1 Cheer Bar on Sam. It doubles, triples, QUADRUPLES (!!) as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and a shave bar, which is pretty awesome. Amy’s products are free from cruelty, SLS, parabens, phthalate, petroleum products, artificial fragrances and colours.

Modern Imagination Toys – gah!!! I can’t even with all of the gorgeous wooden things Modern Imagination Toys creates. They’re just stunning. Modern Imagination is owned and run by my friend Brigitte and her husband Geoff who are based in Squamish. He’s a carpenter, she’s a teacher, and they’re basically the *perfect* pair for creating beautiful quality toys that are well-crafted, clever, and open-ended. We have several of their items and I honestly love every single thing they make, but my top picks would have to be their custom name tracing boards, their letter tracing cards, their sorting / play dough tray, their deluxe ten frame, and their stacking bears. And if it were up to Sam? Well he’d undoubtedly pick his new bow and arrow set.

Back Country Blooms flower subscription – okay, prettiest flowers ever! They’re grown right in Lumby by flower farm owner, Amie and they’re my GO-TO for friends’ birthdays and special occasions. I usually pick them up at Nature’s Fare, but you can get a flower *subscription* where you get a new bouquet every other week. Brad’s mom got me a subscription as a birthday present this year and truly – it was the best gift ever. Your home is never without fresh flowers, it’s something to look forward to every second week, and it’s the gift that just keeps on giving! Highly recommend. You can now sign up for 2021 subscriptions here.

Kokom Scrunchies – okay, if this isn’t the sweetest little business, I don’t know what is. Kokom scrunchies are made from Kokom scarves, floral scarves traditionally worn as head coverings by Indigenous elders, and they’re just beautiful. But the best part? The business is owned and run by 9 year old Mya and her mother {and I believe Mya sews the scrunchies herself in her free time, if I’m not mistaken!} Many of Mya’s scrunchies are made in honour of Indigenous women she admires, which makes them even more special (if you follow @kokomscrunchies on Instagram, you often get to hear about the different women her scrunchies are named after). One of Grae’s Auntie’s {who is friends with Mya’s mom} gifted G the Kokom Dana earlier this year, a scrunchie named after Mya’s auntie! So special. Keep your eye out for Mya’s weekly “Sunday drops” and act fast to get your hands on one of your own.

Little Treehouses – okay, another incredibly sweet business! Little Treehouses is a combined effort of 9 year old Nathan and his Grandad. Together they make these INCREDIBLE handcrafted tree houses and tree vehicles and the little details are just beyond. I mean look at that itty bitty campfire! Nathan very generously gifted Grae and Sam his Beech tree house (there are several styles to choose from) a few weeks back and everything came perfectly packaged and ready to assemble. The package included detailed instructions on how to put the pieces together (it couldn’t have been easier) and an assortment of wooden peg people to complete the set. Little Treehouses is currently fully booked for the 2020 year, but if you pop over to their site, you can enter your email address to be the first notified when new treehouses are available.

Back to Earth – if you know me well, you know how much I love all things Back to Earth. It’s my very favourite one-stop-shop for all things health, wellness, and personal / home care. I’d venture to say that the majority of all of the products in our home – from cleaners to bath products to soaps to candles and sunscreens – are from Back to Earth. And it’s been that way for years. Even when space was at a premium and we were bringing many of our personal care and cooking items in our luggage to the Middle East, I made room for a year’s supply of my Back to Earth favourites! Back to Earth is based right here in the Okanagan and the founder, Kiley, has completed several certified herbalist and aromatherapy educational programs, so she really knows her stuff – plus works with a team of naturopaths, biochemists, herbalists, and aromatherapists to ensure that her products are as pure and safe and effective as possible. It’s hard to pick just a handful of favourites, but I LIVE for their Sacred Sage Hand & Body Wash (seriously makes me SO happy), we use the Sweet Pea Herbal Healing Balm for eeeeeeverything, I could bathe in their Bliss Body Lotion (it smells like creamsicles!), I can’t live without their Magi Blend Face Moisturizer, and their Pure Hand Sanitizer is the only sanitizer that doesn’t make my hands feel like they’re going to crack in half. Oh – and this essential oil blend couldn’t be more perfectly west coast. Love it.

Hello Good Juju – a brand new business I’m so, so excited for! Hello Good Juju is owned by Alexa, an old friend of mine, and her business partner, Lisa. Both ladies previously worked in the natural health industry for B-corp businesses and they’ve recently taken their expertise and poured it into Good Juju, a company focused on making all-natural, plastic-free, home and body products that are good for both humans and the planet. They currently have a line of shampoo and conditioner bars that are getting RAVE reviews and their line of waste-free laundry detergent strips is dropping very soon (I have some on the way and I can’t wait to try them). All Good Juju products are formulated with pure, clean, organic ingredients with scientifically proven benefits, and though I haven’t tried them yet, I have 100% confidence that anything Alexa’s hands have been on will be nothing short of incredible. All of their products are packaged and shipped using plastic-free, biodegradable, and sustainably-sourced materials, so you can feel good about that too. (Alexa and Lisa have generously offered everyone here 10% off their site with the code MAMAPAPABUBBA10 too.)

Whistle & Flute clothing – if you follow us on Instagram, you know how much my kiddos wear Whistle & Flute. It’s owned by Miranda and Ryan, a husband and wife / mama and papa duo based in Victoria. Their garments are fun, cool, and unisex, which I love – and even better? Every item they create is sweatshop free and made with safe inks and soft, comfy fabrics. I’m pretty sure we own one of everything they stock, but some of our favourites include their new raincoats and rain pants my kids lived in during our trip to Tofino (size up in these), their drawstring joggers (these fit my long and lean kiddos so well!), their Kawaii crewneck sweatshirts, and my personal fave – their zip-up rompers. (I could just eat Sam up in his!) Also, out of season and not currently on their site is their rash guard and swim short combos. We’re alllll about the sun protection in our fam and my kids live in theirs during summers.

Loulou Lollipop – if you’ve been here for a long while, you know how much I love Loulou Lollipop – since the day they launched! It’s owned and run by Eleanor and Angel – a twin sister power duo who are two of the most hardworking, kind, and generous people I know. (I remember several years ago I messaged Angel and asked if they’d be at all interested in helping me treat some NICU mamas and with zero questions asked, a HUGE box of Loulou Lollipop goodies showed up on my doorstep within days.) Their company launched the same year that Sam was born, so we had their teethers (this rainbow one – gah!), plus an extensive collection of their muslin swaddle blankets and muslin quilts which we actually still have and use today (they just get better and better with time). Their muslin quilts are my absolute favourite and I for real would love a king-size one for my bed. They’re all stunning, but I particularly love the mud cloth one and the city ones. More recently, Eleanor and Angel have branched out into the world of apparel, and I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews. I love the colours, the fabric looks buttery soft, and you could very easily create a capsule wardrobe for your little one using their pieces because they mix and match so well.

Busy Toddler Playing Preschool Curriculum – the most incredible resource by my dear friend, Susie. You know Susie, right?? OF COURSE YOU DO. Everyone knows Susie. Plus the parenting magazine I picked up last night says that she’s one of the most influential parents of 2020, so that’s just proof of her reach. Susie is a former teacher and mama of 3 who helps parents “make it to naps, one activity at a time”. If you love doing fun things with your kiddos but would like a little more structure or feel a bit overwhelmed about having to come up with or seek out activity ideas, Susie has done all of the work for you in her Playing Preschool play-based curriculum. If you know Susie, you know the ideas are doable, use things you most likely already have, and are really fun and engaging for little ones. Highly recommend. (At the beginning of the pandemic, Susie put out a 25% off code for her preschool curriculums and said that it would remain active so long as schools were closed, and she meant it. Use the code HOME25 for 25% one or both of her curriculums.) Also, I can’t talk about Susie and not mention that she has a brand new book. It’s called Busy Toddler’s Guide to Actual Parenting and I really can’t recommend it enough. If you can, buy it from your locally-owned book shop – otherwise I have it linked in both my Canadian Amazon shop and my American Amazon shop.

Imagination Tree Invitations to Play Cards – love these! You know my friend Anna of Imagination Tree, right?? She’s been doing this blogging thing for longer than I have been (I started in 2010 and I think she started in 2009) and she’s the QUEEN of easy-to-pull-together play and learning invitations. Well, she’s taken all of her amazing ideas and created this line of incredible activity cards that make setting something fun up for your kids a breeze. Her first set was sensory play themed and her newest set is literacy themed – which is so, so perfect for us with home learning currently! Not sure what to set out for your kiddo to enjoy tomorrow? Flip through the cards, find an idea you like, and follow the simple instructions on the back. They’re split up into 3 parts – find, make, and play – and couldn’t be easier to follow. The cards also come off of the rings (so perfect in a classroom setting, especially when setting up a sub folder) and are super thick, high-quality card stock that is WIPEABLE!! ALSO – wouldn’t this set would make an incredible gift for a little one when paired with some of the activity materials? I’m picturing a little bin filled with dyed rice, some dry beans with letters in them, some markers, chalk, salt, etc. and these cards front & centre (sort of like the DIY science kit we put together using The Curious Kid’s Science Book as a focal point.)

LanaBetty – the most GORGEOUS geometric contemporary jewelry! Lana and I have known each other through social media for several years and I just adore everything she creates. She uses a combination of traditional goldsmithing and 3D design to make quality pieces that last. She loves thoughtful shapes and angular lines, and uses ethically sourced gold and silver, beautifully hand-cut gemstones, and top quality brass, yet her pieces are really affordable. I have soooooo many faves, but on my current wish list are the Little Heart Post Earrings, the Cassiopeia Gemstone Ring, the set of three Andromeda Hammered Stacking Rings, the gold filled Heart Bead Ring, and the Necklace Spacer / Detangler. I also love that all of these pieces would also work for Miss G, though I think she might be partial to the Little Cat Post Earrings. SO cute!!

Oh my gosh… And that might be it for now! (She doesn’t blog all year long and then dumps out the most massive blog post in history a month before the end of the year… Haha! What can I say??) I’m certain I’m missing someone important, but I’ll add them when I remember them! In the meantime, if you’re looking for things you regularly see in our house, you most likely can find them in our Amazon shops: US Amazon Shop | Canadian Amazon Shop. I also have extensive kids’ gift guides broken down by age in my US shop, which I think many people found useful last year. I try to keep everything I get asked about most there just because it’s easily accessible to many and simple for me, but as always, if you have the means I encourage you to try and find the items locally if you’re able to. <3

See my ‘The Very Best Gifts for Kids’ blog post here.

Making Dream Boards With Kids

4 / 11 / 204 / 11 / 20

Over the Christmas holidays, Miss G and I spent an afternoon together creating her very first dream board and we had SUCH a good time together. I mean what’s not to love? We flipped through magazines, found beautiful images and words, chatted non-stop about all of her hopes and dreams {if you know Grae you know that she’s a HUGE chatter}, and created something really special for her room. A perfect girls’ afternoon, really.

Now that being said, I’m no dream board expert, but I’m learning… Thankfully my mom is a strong believer in dream boards, so I have some knowledge about what they are and how to make them from her, plus I have done them with students in the past. Here’s how we made ours this time around…

First off, what is a dream board?

A dream board, or vision board, is a collage of images, affirmations, and words that represent one’s goals – who they want to be, what they want to do, what they want to have in their life, among other things. They’re designed as a source of inspiration and motivation and can be a really powerful tool for both adults and children alike. For kids, dream boards can be a really positive and encouraging way to foster self-confidence as they serve as a source of inspiration and a regular reminder of their hopes and goals.

Here’s how to make one with your child…

Step 1: Gather your supplies. While dream boards are most often made using poster boards and glue, I think using a cork board and tacks is very clever when dream boarding with kids as they allow for more flexibility and can easily be changed and rearranged. You’ll also need a variety of magazines and a pair of scissors, and markers, washi tape, a notebook, and a pen or pencil are optional, but recommended.

Step 2: Do a visualization. As adults, we most often focus our vision boards on the coming year, but with kids I think it’s easier to open it up and focus on the future in general. Before beginning the visualization, talk about how the future can be next week, next year, or even when they’re an adult. Turn on some calm music and invite your child to get comfortable, close their eyes, and envision what they want their future to look like. You may want to gently prompt their visualization with some guiding questions.

Sample Guiding Questions

– What things do you want to do?

– Where do you want to be?

– What qualities do you want to have?

– How do you want to feel?

– Who do you want be with?

– What will you do for fun?

– What do you want to achieve?

– What do you want to do for work?

Step 3: Create a mind map. While this step is optional, I find it really valuable when dream boarding with kids. After the visualization exercise, take out a notebook and a pen or pencil and help your child jot down the key components they visualized for their future using a mind map format. I like to place the title “MY FUTURE” in the centre and have categories like “BE”, “DO”, “HAVE”, and “ACHIEVE” branching out from around it in order to give the child a starting point. This step helps solidify the visualization and serves as a guide when searching for images, words, and phrases to represent their dreams later.

Step 4: Find or create images, words, and phrases. Something you’ll want to be mindful of here is that your magazine selection reflects your child’s interests and includes people who look like them. Invite your child to flip through the magazines to find images and text to represent their future dreams. As they go, they can use their mind map as a checklist in order to ensure that all of their ideas are represented. Encourage them to use paper, markers, and washi tape to create their own images, affirmations, and words in order to fill in any gaps or to add to the images they found.

Step 5: Create your dream board. Ask your child to sort through their images and words and group them how they see fit. Next, help them play with placement and overlapping on their work surface to create mini layouts that are visually appealing to them. As they’re ready, have them tack their clippings and creations onto their cork board using the minimum number of tacks required. Encourage them to switch things up as needed, only fully tacking things down when everything is in place and they’re happy with how it looks.

Step 6: Display and discuss. The final step! Find a spot to proudly display your child’s dream board. Somewhere where it’ll be easily seen each day is best as it’ll serve as a point of inspiration, motivation, and reflection. Sit with your child and soak it all in. Talk about their goals and dreams and together, come up with some actionable steps they can take in order to make their dreams become a reality. Encourage your child to spend some time with their dream board each day and to add to it or switch it up as they feel necessary (goals and dreams do sometimes change over time, after all!) And that’s it! In the following months, come back to the dream board with your child every now and then and continue to foster them using it as a tool and source of positive inspiration.

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Homemade Fruit Sauce

2 / 22 / 202 / 23 / 20

Homemade fruit sauce… One of my go-to snack options for the kiddos! You’ll often find my freezer PILED high with little pots of it and for good reason. It’s super easy to make, it keeps well, it defrosts quickly, and it’s a healthful addition to lunches and snacks. Low on fresh fruits and veggies? Pull out some fruit sauce! Produce on its last legs? Turn it into fruit sauce!

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You can make fruit sauce with all kinds of different fruits, but apples and pears are my go-to ‘base’ fruits. Both are grown right here in the Okanagan and since both store pretty well, I can pretty much find locally grown varieties year round. That and when cooked and blended, they both have a good texture for fruit sauce. I add all kinds of other things to our fruit sauces, but I almost always start with apples and / or pears first.

I get so many questions about how to make fruit sauce at home and it really couldn’t be easier… No recipe required!

Here’s what we do… First, wash all of our apples and pears. Sometimes I soak them in a water and vinegar solution for a few minutes beforehand and sometimes I don’t, but I always run them under clean water and kind of rub them to help remove any residue that might be on them.

Once your apples and pears are clean, you’re ready to make your fruit sauce! I like to make big batches, but it doesn’t really matter how many apples and pears you have… Just use what you have on hand.

Okay, onto the pot… I really like using a thick-bottom pot like my Lodge cast iron dutch oven for fruit sauce because it means I can basically forget about it for an hour, but if you don’t have one – no worries. You’ll just maybe want to check in on your fruit now and then to make sure it doesn’t burn / stick to the bottom.

Alright, here it is… Remove the cores from all of your apples and pears, toss the fruit into your pot, add a tiny bit of water (for this giant pot full of fruit I add 1/4 cup of water – for a smaller pot I might only add a tablespoon or two), cover it, and turn your element onto the very lowest setting. Every stove is slightly different of course so you’ll definitely want to be more attentive on your first go, but we leave a big pot of fruit covered on low without touching it for about 45 minutes to an hour usually. A smaller pot of fruit will need less time of course.

When we come back at the 45 minute / hour mark, the fruit is soft all the way through. You basically want to be able to mash it with a fork and have it fall apart on you.

After our fruit has had a chance to cool, we transfer it, along with any liquid it’s produced, into our Vitamix blender and process it using the smoothie setting (50 seconds).

If your blender is having a hard time at any point, feel free to add little bits of water at a time to help it out. The goal is to have it turn out completely smooth, so don’t be afraid to run it for more than 45 seconds if needed either.

When you’re done, you should have a perfectly smooth fruit sauce that can be transferred into mini mason jars and put into the fridge or freezer for storage. (Just be sure to leave some space at the top of the jar if you plan on freezing yours.)

Plain apple and / or pear sauce is absolutely delicious all on its own, but we often mix in other fruits and veggies too! Grae and Sam love the different flavours and it’s a nice way to switch things up too. If we have fresh fruit outside of apples and pears that need to be used up, we’ll use that, but our go-to add-ins are largely frozen fruit (strawberries, mango, blueberries, or mixed berries) or fresh spinach.

When using almost any add-in, fresh or frozen, we add it to the pot of apples and pears and cook everything together. The one exception? Spinach. (Or other greens – I think kale would probably work great too.) With spinach, we always add it raw to the blender of cooked fruit and then blend. I like doing it this way because I feel like once you cook spinach it has a taste, but you can blend it into almost anything when fresh and it doesn’t change the flavour at all. (You can check out our hulk sauce recipe here – it’s a favourite of ours and includes spinach AND chia seeds!)

So a quick recap…

– wash and core apples and pears

– put them in a pot

– save spinach and kale, add any other fruits or veggies to the pot (berries, mango, even carrot!)

– add a little bit of water (1 tablespoon to 1/4 cup)

– cook covered on very low heat until fruit/veggies are fork soft

– allow cooked fruit/veggies to cool

– transfer the cooked fruit/veggies to a blender (including any liquid in the pot)

– add fresh spinach or kale if desired

– blend until completely smooth

– transfer into small jars for storage

These will keep in the fridge for about a week and for ages in the freezer. To defrost them, I simply take them out of the freezer and let them defrost on their own either on the counter at room temp or in the refrigerator (depending on how much time I have). You can also pop them into your kiddo’s lunch bag frozen and come lunchtime, the sauce will be thawed and ready to eat! Bonus? It serves as an ice pack in the meantime.

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Bento Box Ideas for Kids

1 / 5 / 201 / 5 / 20

Oh, school lunches. I want them to be super nutritious and at least little bit different each day… And it’s a definite bonus if they’re simple and quick to make! But most of all, I just want to know that Miss G is going to like them and eat them and not come home at the end of the day staaaaarrrving. {Please say it’s not just me.}

The biggest game changer when it comes to making lunches that are simple, full of variety, and *easy* has undoubtedly been BENTO BOXES for us. I started using them even before Grae went to Kindergarten for outings and meals-on-the-go, and I don’t think I could ever switch over to packing traditional bagged lunches. I know I’ve said it before, but here’s the thing about bento boxes – filling several little compartments with bits of different foods feels so much easier and so much less intimidating than creating a packed lunch from scratch {and then having to find bags and containers to hold it all}. Thankfully Grae and Sam love snack-style meals (I find that most kids do), so that’s a bonus! Plus bentos make it super easy to pack zero-waste meals, so they’re a win all around in my opinion.

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First off – the bento boxes themselves… We’ve tried many over the years (too many), and hands down our favourite bento boxes are Yumboxes {the colourful ones you see above}. They’re great quality, they’ve lasted us YEARS, the inserts pop out for easy washing, they fit inside a regular insulated lunch bag, and most importantly – the compartments are individually sealed off and leak-proof when it comes to things like yogurt and fruit sauces. If we could have just one, I’d definitely choose the Yumbox Original which is the green 6-compartment box. This is our go-to and the bento we use most often and I love it because although it’s not massive or heavy, I can cram a really good amount of food into it. That being said, I do love our other Yumboxes too… Our aqua Yumbox Panino is fantastic when I want to send a larger item to school (especially something like a bagel or sandwich} and our Yumbox Tapas is perfect for days when a particularly big lunch is required as it’s a significantly larger. You can see a size comparison in this Instagram post {which also includes the MiniSnack size}. The last bento box in the photos, the stainless steel one, is our other go-to… It’s just a basic stainless steel bento put out by President’s Choice (our grocery store’s brand) and it’s crazy affordable (we’re talking in the range of $9 to $15 range – the price fluctuates) and great for packing really simple lunches. Unfortunately it can’t be purchased online as far as I can tell, but you can see it here and do watch the seasonal shelves of Superstore around back to school time as they’ve brought it out the last two years. I usually use a little stainless steel sauce cup in ours just to add an extra compartment, which works great.

So what to put in your little one’s bento box once you have one…

My go-to formula is a whole grain + a protein source + plenty of fruits and veggies + a little sweet or treat

I also try to include a source of good fat, but at the same time, I remind myself to look at what my kids are eating over the course of a day or a week and to not stress too much about what they’re getting in a single meal.

Here are some of my go-to bento box ideas for kids…

(Yumbox Panino | mexican pasta salad, apple blueberry sauce, kale chips with nutritional yeast and hemp hearts, oatmeal chocolate chip almond butter ball made with agave instead of honey)

Pasta salad – Making pasta for dinner? Reserve some plain noodles for tomorrow’s lunch! Mix up a whole grain or veggie pasta with some black beans, corn, and peppers, a little drizzle of olive oil and some garlic, cumin, oregano, and chilli powder for a Mexican inspired pasta, or try a more Greek-inspired version with pasta, chickpeas, cucumbers, peppers, olive oil, and some oregano, garlic powder, and onion powder.

(Yumbox Original | grape skewers, rainbow veggies, all-natural black liquorice, vanilla chia pudding, homemade granola made with almond butter and agave instead of honey)

Breakfast for lunch – Leftover breakfast? Turn it into lunch! Anything goes here… Try chia pudding paired with your favourite granola or pancakes turned into sammies with the addition of pumpkin seed butter, a little pure maple syrup, and some hemp hearts and chia seeds. Things like leftover breakfast burritos usually pack up great, as do bagels!

(President’s Choice Stainless Steel Bento Box | berry fruit salad, cucumber lettuce cream cheese roll-ups on Silver Hills Bakery Turmeric Wraps, medjool dates stuffed with almond butter and mini dark chocolate chips, popcorn with vegan butter, nutritional yeast, and pink salt)

Roll-ups – Grab your favourite wrap or flat bread, fill it up, roll it, and then slice it into sushi-style chunks. Try pairing seed butter with chia jam, hummus with carrot matchsticks, or mini cucumbers and lettuce with a vegan cream cheese. Sprinkle the chunks with hemp hearts, sesame seeds, or a touch of sea salt and you’re done.

(Yumbox Tapas | watermelon hearts, cantaloupe hearts, chunky salad, strawberry apple chia kind fruit bar cut into bites, mini whole grain bagel pizzas)

Quick pizza – Turn a mini bagel, a sprouted grain english muffin, or a whole grain pita into pizza with the addition some tomato sauce, your favourite vegan cheese, some veggies, and a sprinkling of oregano. Broil it in the oven for just a couple of minutes to get the cheese bubbly and golden and you’ve got lunch!

(President’s Choice Stainless Steel Bento Box | peppers, carrots, cucumber, and pita bread with homemade hummus, rainbow fruit, pretzel / dried cranberry / mini dark chocolate chip mix)

Dip & dippers – Probably the most popular ‘main’ in our school bentos… Miss G LOVES hummus, so that’s our go-to, but a white bean dip, pesto, or seed butter with cinnamon are great options too. Pack your dip alongside whole grain pita bread, sprouted grain flatbread, pretzels, carrot and cucumber sticks, or apple slices and let your kiddo dip away.

Okay, now for fruits and veggies! Obviously you can pack all kinds of fruits and veggies just as is – washed and chopped – and they’re perfect just like that, but if you’re looking to switch things up a little, here are some ideas…

Fun Ways to Pack Fruit

Fruit salad – Chop up a little assortment of favourite fruits, mix it up, and you’ve got fruit salad.

Skewers – Everything is more fun on a stick! Thread berries and grapes onto reusable mini skewers to switch things up.

Sauce – Simmer seasonal fruit in a covered pot with just a touch of water and blend once soft. Apples and pears make a great fruit sauce base and you can even add spinach to them without changing the flavour… We call it hulk sauce!

Rainbow fruit – Arrange some freshly chopped fruit in rainbow order, and voila – rainbow fruit!

Fruit shapes – A little more finicky, but if you’ve got an extra couple of minutes, use a mini cookie cutter to chop things like watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple into fun shapes. (We have several of the mini Wilton cutter sets and they work great.)

Fun Ways to Pack Veggies

Chunky salad – Chop up your kiddos’ favourite veggies, drizzle them with a little olive oil and a sprinkling of Herbamare, and top with sesame seeds or hemp hearts.

Sticks & dip – A classic combo. Chop some veggies into sticks and pair them with a little pot of hummus or dip.

Chips – Turn kale, carrots, beets, turnips, and other thinly sliced veggies into crispy chips by tossing them in a tiny amount of avocado oil, sprinkling them with a little garlic powder and sea salt, and roasting them in a 400 degree oven until crisp. You’ll want to watch these closely and remove the chips as they become ready.

Rainbow veggies – As simple as arranging freshly chopped veggies in rainbow order in your kiddo’s bento box!

Veggie shapes – If you’ve got time, take a mini cookie cutter to your peppers, cucumbers, and carrot slices to switch things up.

Happy lunch making! For more easy bento ideas, you can follow our hashtag #bentosbympb and you can see all of our favourite reusable food containers and accessories in the ‘Feeding Kiddos’ section of our amazon shop.

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Soft, Squishy Gluten Free Play Dough

12 / 5 / 1912 / 5 / 19

Oh my goodness, guys. If I could only count the number of times I’ve been asked lately, “Do you have a gluten free play dough recipe??” I’ve lost track. I actually do have a tried, tested, and true gluten free play dough recipe – my baby play dough recipe! But it’s not a traditional play dough you’d keep on your shelf for days on end, so naturally I had to give creating one a try. Now here’s the thing… We’re not gluten free, nor do we have anyone in our day-to-day that’s gluten free, so I’ve never had to learn to properly use gluten free flours. That being said, I used our usual go-to play dough recipe as a jumping off point and I’m actually very pleased with how this gluten free version turned out. It’s soft, it’s squishy, it’s sort of heavy like my usual play dough is, and I actually really like it. And I’m a bit picky.

Now a few things to know…

I’ve only tested this recipe with this one particular flour – Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour (CAN). You can certainly trying using a different brand / type of gluten free flour, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work. I did try creating a recipe with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour, but I liked the All-Purpose Baking Flour better for this purpose.

With all of the gluten free play dough recipes I tested, I noticed that the finished doughs had a tiny bit of surface stickiness that our traditional play dough just doesn’t have. It’s not a ton of stickiness and it doesn’t make the dough any less fun to play with, but a couple of things to note… First off, when making and playing with this dough, make sure that your hands and work surface are completely dry. Just a tiny bit of extra moisture can add to that stickiness. Secondly, if you’re finding your dough a little too sticky at any point, add a little bit of cornstarch (probably no more than a teaspoon at a time) to your hands, your work surface, and/or the surface of your dough.

Lastly, I’m not quite sure how this dough will last long term just yet. While our regular play dough recipe lasts for months on end, I only made the dough a few days ago, so it’s too early to tell just yet. So far so good, though. I just checked on it and it’s as though we just made it. You’ll want to store this dough just as you would our regular play dough – in an air-tight bag or container at room temperature away from heat sources (so no top of the fridge).

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Okay, disclaimers out of the way… Let’s get on with it, shall we? Here’s what you’ll need:

Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour (CAN)

table salt

cream of tartar (CAN)

vegetable oil

glycerine (CAN)

liquid food colouring (CAN)

boiling water

cornstarch

And this is what your finished dough will look like… Pretty, right?

We went for soft, pastel-y colours this time around and only used a tiny bit of food dye, but if vibrant colours are what you’re after, you can do that too. Just follow the instructions in my recipe at the bottom of this post carefully.

One other thing to note? This dough does have a mild “smell” to it… Most likely thanks to the fact that the gluten free flour contains bean flours, I’m guessing. It’s not terrible and I’m sure you could probably add a tiny bit of extract or kiddo-friendly essential oil to eliminate it, but we didn’t and it doesn’t bother us.

Okay, here’s the dough in action. I love seeing these kind of pictures because I feel like they give me good insight into the texture of the dough (holy #playdoughnerd alert). Anyways, it squishes…

It cuts…

And it’s really soft.

Here’s the recipe…

Soft & Squishy Gluten Free Play Dough

1 cup of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour | CAN (packed down into the measuring cup as much as possible)
1/4 cup of table salt
1 tablespoon of cream of tartar
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of glycerine

a couple of drops of liquid food colouring
1/2 cup of boiling water (measured in a dry measuring cup – as in the same type you’d measure flour in)

2(+) tablespoons of cornstarch

Measure out the flour, salt, cream of tartar, vegetable oil, and glycerine into a large mixing bowl. Give the mixture a really good whisk.

Add your food colouring to the measuring cup you’ll use to measure your water in. Top the cup up with boiling water. (By adding the food colouring to the water measurement, you prevent adding too much liquid to your play dough – especially in cases where you’re adding a good amount of dye to achieve a more vibrant play dough colour.)

Pour the coloured water into your dry mixture and mix it super well with a wooden spoon, banging it off every once and a while. You want to incorporate all of the dry mixture into the dough here, which may take a little bit of effort. You may feel like your dough seems too dry or too wet to become a good play dough here, but don’t worry – trust the process. :)

Leave your semi-mixed dough on the counter to cool for 5 or so minutes.

Afterwards, dump the mixture out onto the countertop and knead it really well. Probably a picky #playdoughnerd thing, but we have granite counter tops and I much prefer kneading our play dough on a wooden butcher block or cutting board. At this point your dough will feel too sticky, but not to worry. (I feel like the wooden work surface helps cut the stickiness a little bit, which is part of why I find it helpful.)

Once your dough is well-kneaded and uniform, remove any dough from your hands, give your hands a good wash, and dry them completely.

Now measure out your 2 tablespoons of cornstarch either onto your work surface or directly onto your dough, and knead some more. You want your play dough to eat this extra cornstarch up. This should take care of that stickiness, but add an additional tablespoon if you feel like you need it (we tested this recipe 5+ times and 2 was our magic number each time).

And that’s it! You’ve got gluten free play dough!!

When it’s not in use, keep it in an air-tight container or bag at room temperature (away from heat sources) and hopefully it’ll last a long time.

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DIY LEGO Kit

11 / 28 / 19

Last Christmas, I made the kids each one of these DIY LEGO kits and I’m so glad I did. They were a super easy project and they’ve been so great for taking along on our travels and vacations. We don’t use them in transit (too many small pieces to be used in a car or on a plane for me), but they’re perfect for down times once at our destination {usually in an airbnb}.

I wish I would have taken proper step-by-step photos of the process, but truly they’re not even needed – it’s so easy.

First off, here’s what I used to make two kits:

Of course if you’re making just one kit, you could get away with a single carry kit, a smaller base plate, and a smaller LEGO brick box. Or if you have a different carry case already on hand, you could easily use that and just refer to this material list and the following instructions as a basic guide. Whatever works! In the past, we’ve even made the most basic portable LEGO kits using old-school metal lunch kits.

Now to make the LEGO kit! Here’s what you’re going to do:

1. Start by measuring the inside of your carry case’s lid.

2. Measure out a piece of baseplate that will fit nicely inside the carry case’s lid and mark your cut points with a pencil. For this particular case, I made my base plate 16 centimetres by 23 centimetres.

3. Using regular scissors, carefully and slowly cut your baseplate down to size.

4. Using your scissors or a sanding block, round the edges of the baseplate piece so there at no sharp / pointy corners.

5. Apply several mounting squares to the bottom side of your baseplate and press them down firmly to ensure they’re well adhered.

6. Peel the sticker backings off of the mounting squares, position the baseplate inside the carry case’s lid, and press it down firmly. I like to take a few minutes and really ensure a good stick here.

7. Place the dividers into the carry case to make sections for the different LEGO colours. I chose to add only two dividers – one between the green and blue sections and one between the orange and red sections.

8. Fill the carry case with LEGO! I chose to separate mine by colour because I’m a total sucker for rainbow anything, but you could do by brick type / size too! Whatever floats your boat.

And that’s it! You’ve got a DIY LEGO kit that’s perfect for taking along on the go.

What I love about this particular carry case is that the clasps are crazy strong, so I don’t worry about them flying open as the kids carry them {and inevitably fling them around – especially in Sam’s case}. Also, I feel like two clasps are always better than just one… Just in case!

The other thing I love? The lids of these particular kits open completely flat, which is so, so helpful when building. (The lids on our metal lunchbox LEGO kits have never opened flat, which can be a little annoying, just fyi.)

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A Special Day in a Box Gift Idea

11 / 21 / 1911 / 21 / 19

With Christmastime quickly approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about gifts for the kids… We’ve kept it pretty minimal for the last few years and have just done a really good stocking for each of them, plus their usual book and jammies on Christmas Eve, but at this point, even filling a stocking feels unnecessary. Our kids are truly the luckiest and really just don’t need anything at all. With the help of my friend Crystal {of Otherware}, I’ve come up with an experience gift I’m super excited about and I just know they’re going to LOVE it. I’ll be sure to share it here afterwards, but it’s a lot like this ‘a special day in a box’ gift idea I used earlier this year to plan a special day with each of my kiddos.

Now a little back story first… As much as I’d love to take credit for the idea, Grae was actually gifted an ‘adventure in a box’ by her uncle and his girlfriend a few years ago and I just thought it was the sweetest, most clever gift ever! It was presented in a little box with a beautiful ‘Adventure’ sticker on top and inside were little notes and items that explained the day. BRILLIANT, right?! Firstly, it meant a really special day with two people she loves, and secondly, it completely avoided the addition of STUFF. Something I appreciate beyond measure. {Plus I just really love a good DIY kid’s gift.}

Here’s a peek at how I put together my version of ‘a special day in a box’ for Grae and Sam….

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First up, supplies… You’ll definitely want a box (I bought mine at the dollar store) and a photo representing each of the stops on your child’s special day (I snuck out one night after bedtime, quickly went around town and snapped them on my iPhone, and sent them off for printing at London Drugs that same night). Once those things are ready, scour your drawers for items like paper, scissors, fine liners, tape, glue, baker’s twine, tissue paper, card stock, labels – whatever you think you might need to put it all together!

Alright – now to put it all together! First up, create a label for the top of your box. It can say anything you like – I went for ‘a special day just for you’, but ‘let’s go on an adventure’ would be cute too. Whatever floats your boat.

Stick or glue the label on the box and that’s done.

Next up, write a little note to your child explaining the gift… I did this on a tag-shaped piece of paper with a little baker’s twine through the hole at the top and went for rhyming and cheesy and wrote:

Sam,

I’ve got a special day planned just for me and you,

So look in this box and see just what we’ll do!

Love,

Mama

Now to prepare the activity cards… Again, this can look however you like, so feel free to make it your own! I had my photos printed as squares (4×4 if I’m not mistaken), then cut out card stock rectangles that were slightly larger. When I glued the photos onto the card stock, I glued them nearer the top so the finished cards would look similar to polaroids (not that my kids would know what those are – hah!), and wrote a little note at the bottom explaining the stop and what we’d do while there. I finished off the activity card with a number sticker in the top corner just because I had them and I knew they’d provide Sam with some good exposure to numerals {do teachers ever stop thinking like teachers?!}

Here’s a look at what Sam’s special day in a box included, though keep in mind that we live in a small town with very limited options and I gifted these to my kids for Valentine’s Day, so smack dab in the middle of our cold, snowy winter… Had we lived in Vancouver at the time – oh my gosh – the possibilities! Or had it been when the weather was nice? So many outdoor options!

Anyways, with that disclaimer out there, his special day included a stop at the dollar store to pick out a Hotwheels vehicle (his absolute favourite), a trip to the mall to ride those cars you put a dollar into, a stop at the bookstore to browse and select a book, and a visit to his favourite cafe to have a warm drink, play with the trains, and enjoy a baked good.

Now I will say this… As much as I maybe felt like some of these options were a bit lame and more focused on STUFF than I would have liked them to be, Sam thought each stop was absolutely incredible and was nothing short of STOKED throughout our adventure. I actually don’t think the activities matter a ton. Of course you want them to be things your child enjoys, but I think it’s more about the time together and the fact that this is a dedicated ‘special day’ than anything else. I could have told him that we were going to the park right by our house that we go to all the time and my guess is that he would have been thrilled with that too.

And here’s a peek at what Grae’s ‘special day in a box’ included… You can actually pop over to CBC Parents to read my ‘Build an Adventure Day in a Box’ post all about G’s day.

Alright, time to finish off the gift! I lined my box with a strip of tissue paper, then set the activity cards in, making sure they were in the correct order with the last stop in the bottom of the box and the first stop on the top.

Then I wrapped the activity cards up in the excess tissue paper, put my little note on top, closed up the box, and that was that… A special day in a box ready for gifting.

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Fall Leaf Colour Sort

10 / 8 / 1910 / 9 / 19

Honestly? I wasn’t ready to dive into all things fall just yet, but when we returned home from our Seattle and Vancouver trip to freezing cold weather (we’re talking zero overnight and 4 degrees by the time we were heading off to school), I decided we’d better get on it in case we skip fall altogether this year and transition straight into winter {fingers crossed that DOES. NOT. HAPPEN.} So today, while Sam and I were out on our morning walk / scoot, we kept our eyes peeled for beautiful fall leaves and collected them in a little bag along the way. Once we got home, we rinsed them off, dried them, and put them to work in all kinds of really fun, really simple activities, one of which was this fall leaf colour sort.

Here’s what we found… There wasn’t ton of colourful leaves on the ground just yet, but we still managed to find several leaves in browns, reds, oranges, yellows, and greens which was good enough for us!

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Now just for fun, we decided to do this little activity in our beloved Ikea sensory table… When we were down in Vancouver, I picked up 4 of the smallest TROFAST bins with sorting activities just like this in mind (previously we just had the 2 larger bins) and they worked perfectly. I folded pieces of brown, red, orange, and yellow card stock in half, pressed them down into the base of the bins, and our fall leaf colour sorting game was ready to go!

That being said, you certainly don’t need a fancy sensory play table for this activity… You can just as easily tape 4 pieces of card stock or construction paper to the table or floor or use a set of 4 bowls or containers. Work with what you have on hand!

Next up, I set the leaves around the edges of the table and invited Sam to come and take a look.

Given that he’s 3 {soon turning 4} and we’ve done plenty of sorting activities (our car and truck colour sorting was one of his faves), this leaf colour sort was a total breeze for him even though I wondered if a few of the leaves might be a little tricky….

They weren’t (hah!) He basically moved at this speed until every last leaf was in the bin of the corresponding colour.

Sorting is such an important skill and building block for other future skills that I absolutely would not consider something like this – something that’s really “easy” for him – a waste of time. Reinforcement is super important for kiddos and “easy” activities are excellent for building confidence, so go on and do those too easy activities anyways!

See that yellow and read leaf over the edge of the table? When activities are fairly easy for your little one, it’s a great opportunity to guide the learning a little further, really discuss what’s happening, and model new language. When Sam decided that that leaf should go in the yellow bin (I would have done the same), I said, “Oh interesting. How did you decide to put that leaf in the yellow container?” We then went onto to talk about how it’s MOSTLY yellow, more yellow than red, even though the TIP is red, etc. and it was the perfect chance to reflect on his choice and use some comparison language in our conversation.

Here’s a peek at the other two fun little things we used our leaves for…

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A post shared by Jen | Mama.Papa.Bubba. (@mamapapabubba) on Oct 1, 2019 at 1:01pm PDT

This simple leaf matching game from Little Pine Learners…

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And our super simple fall leaf crown from years past. {Isn’t he darling?? I just want to smush on him!}

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The Very Best Green Smoothie

9 / 14 / 199 / 15 / 19

With Grae back to school, I feel like I basically have two main goals at the moment… 1) Getting us all ready, out the door, and to school on time, and 2) keeping everyone {especially my preemie babe Sam} healthy with all of the gross school germs currently being reintroduced into our lives. So far so good, but we’re only two weeks in, so fingers crossed for a fairly healthy winter. Being a NICU mama I feel like I have lots of little tricks for avoiding sicknesses as much as we can, and one of those things is definitely daily green smoothies. This particular one is the very best green smoothie I’ve ever had (truly!) and everyone seems to like it – even the green smoothie critics I’ve encountered. While it’s got lots of great greens and nutrition in it, I think the key is that it’s nice and sweet and has a little punch of tartness from the pineapple and orange… Basically it tastes good vs. TOO healthy like some green smoothies do. That being said, it is healthy… It includes lots of leafy greens and fruits, plus it’s got vitamins, healthy fats, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, iron, fibre, and more. A definite win-win in my books.

Here’s the full list of required ingredients: kale, spinach, banana, frozen pineapple, frozen mango, avocado, oranges, hemp hearts, chia seeds, and pure apple juice (which is optional but does make a difference in the finished flavour of the smoothie). We use the stuff from our local apple orchard that is absolutely to die for and freeze it into easy to use ice cubes since juice is not something we keep on hand usually.

Now you can just use this recipe to make your smoothie each morning as usual, but what I like to do is prepare smoothie bags in advance. Basically that means I haul all of the ingredients out, fill multiple bags / jars / containers with all of the ingredients save the liquid, and I have pre-made smoothies ready to go for the week {or more}.

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Now I will say that last winter I made up a ton of smoothie jars, strategically placing everything {well except that coconut yogurt that was a mistake – hah!} in order to ensure I’d be able to get everything out come smoothie making time, and let me tell you, it was an epic fail. Even the jars that you’d think would be easy to dump out were a huge pain in the butt and I think I wasted more time scraping ingredients out of jars than it would have just taken me to make the smoothies from scratch in the mornings. Lesson learned. I would maybe try the jar method again in the future, but certainly not with these jars… They’d have to be something with a wide enough mouth that I could stick my whole hand in them to retrieve ingredients if needed.

While I’m not happy about it, I’ve resorted to using 6 of my very precious use-only-for-gifting-play-dough-kits-zip-close-bags this time around as they were my only option (I haven’t bought plastic bags for regular use in several years now and I don’t have enough glass containers to spare), but I’d really like to invest in a set of large Stasher bags or something similar to use as dedicated smoothie bags. (I just found these on amazon and they seem to have good reviews and are super affordable.) Anyways, until then, rest assured that these 6 bags will be used again and again until they can’t be used anymore…. (We’re the people who wash out bags from bread and tortillas to reuse multiple times before sending them off for recycling.)

Alright, now onto the very best green smoothie smoothie bags!

First up, a big kale leaf. We often use lacinato kale {because it makes amazing kale chips and is what we have on hand}, but you can use any type you like. One leaf per smoothie bag. We have a Vitamix so I don’t even bother removing them stem bit, but if you don’t have a high-powered blender, you may want to.

Next up, a handful of spinach per bag… Literally just however much you naturally grab. Smoothie recipes are just one of those things that always turns out, so no need to be finicky or exact.

Add a ripe banana to each… The key here is ripe. A green banana won’t do you much good as you’re really counting on the banana for some sweetness here.

Now, 1 cup of frozen pineapple. Pineapple is what makes this smoothie in my opinion, so if you have to choose, be more generous with it than less generous.

Next up, frozen mango… I cup of that per bag too.

Add half an orange…

And half an avocado… (You can skip this if needed, but healthy fats are important – especially for kids and avocado does add a creaminess to smoothies too.)

Okay, almost there… Next up, about a teaspoon and a half of chia seeds and a teaspoon and a half of hemp hearts. You can add any other nutritional add-ins you love here too.

Lastly, two ice cubes worth of frozen apple juice. We don’t keep juice in the house usually, so this ice cube method works really well for us, but you can also just add in a splash before blending.

And that’s it! Seal these up and store them in your freezer for super quick and easy smoothies on busy mornings {or afternoons, or whenever!}

When you’re ready, simply dump the contents of your smoothie bag into your blender, add about 2 cups of water {or a little more or less depending on your blender’s abilities and the consistency you’re going for}, and blend! I use the smoothie setting on our Vitamix A2500 Ascent Series, which is 50 seconds long.

This recipe makes a good amount of smoothie… We get four smoothies from each smoothie bag… A small / medium one for Sam, Grae, and I and a big one for Brad. That being said, if you’re an adult who enjoys smoothies as breakfast, I’d say this makes two BIG adult size smoothies that would fill you up.

The Very Best Green Smoothie Smoothie Bags

1 leaf of lacinato kale
1 handful of spinach
1 ripe banana
1 cup of frozen pineapple
1 cup of frozen mango
1/2 of an orange
1/2 of an avocado
1.5 teaspoons of chia seeds
1.5 teaspoons of hemp hearts
2 ice cubes of frozen pure apple juice

2 cups of cold water

Fill bags or containers with the ingredients above, seal well, and freeze. When ready, dump the contents of one smoothie bag into the blender, add approximately 2 cups of cold water (or a little more or less depending on your desired consistency and your blender’s abilities), and blend until smooth.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Serves 4.

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Vegan Lemon Zucchini Muffins

8 / 27 / 19

Is there anyone who is NOT drowning in zucchini this time of year?? My zucchini is doing terribly at the moment {in fact my entire garden is pretty sad this year}, but thanks to my friend Stesha, there’s been no zucchini shortage around here! I’ve been grating it up and throwing it into soups, sauces, veggie ground for tacos, and wherever else I can get away with it and there’s still more! We LOVE our super cakey {and also vegan, naturally sweetened, and whole wheat} chocolate zucchini muffins, but sometimes a girl just needs some lemon in her life, am I right? {I freaking. love. all. things. lemon.} After completely winging a batch of lemon zucchini muffins and having them turn out flavourful but too wet and zucchini-y, I came to a brilliant conclusion… Why would I not just adapt my chocolate zucchini recipe?? It’s crazy delicious and nearly fail-proof, which would make for a good jumping off point, right?

RIGHT.

I’m so stoked on how these turned out. They’re super lemony, tender, and I hate myself for saying it, but MOIST. (Gag! Grossest word in existence.) The only thing I may experiment with next time around is using a combination of traditional whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour as they’re almost too tender and flaky if that’s possible. {If you try it, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!}

The other thing I’ll say about these {and most of the muffins I make} is that because the veggie content is so high, I usually keep what we’re going to eat in the coming few days in an air-tight container in the fridge and then freeze the rest to pull out one at a time when needed. They freeze well and this ensures that they don’t turn to mush as healthy muffins sometimes do.

Aren’t they pretty too? I was surprised to see that they’d turned a yellow-y hue when I pulled them out of the oven. I guess that’s what happens when you make muffins loaded to the brim with lemon zest and juice, hey? {Hah!}

Here’s how to make them…

Vegan Naturally Sweetened Whole Wheat Lemon Zucchini Muffins

2 tablespoons of ground flax or chia seed
6 tablespoons of warm water

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

zest of 4 large lemons

1/2 cup of good olive oil
1/2 cup of pure maple syrup
juice of 2 large lemons
1 teaspoon of good vanilla

1 1/2 cups of finely grated zucchini, deseeded if necessary

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, measure out the ground flax or chia seed and warm water. Stir to combine and set aside to thicken. {This mixture is two flax / chia ‘eggs’.}

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Whisk until thoroughly combined and sprinkle lemon zest on top.

In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the olive oil, pure maple syrup, lemon juice, and vanilla.

Add the liquid mixture and the flax eggs into the dry mixture and gently mix with a spatula until almost combined. Add the finely grated zucchini and give the mixture a few more gentle stirs. {A word on the zucchini… If you pre-grate your zucchini like we usually do, by the time you go to use it, there will most likely be some liquid that has drained off. No need to include this. Simply pick up the zucchini by the handful, allow it to drip over the bowl for a few seconds, and then add it to your mixture, tossing out any liquid that’s left in the bowl afterwards. Do not squeeze your grated zucchini dry before adding it… The moisture from the zucchini is what makes these muffins so dang good.}

Line your muffin tin with silicone muffin liners and distribute the batter evenly amongst the cups. Bake for approximately 20 – 24 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. I sometimes like to turn my oven to broil for the last minute or two of the baking time in order to get the muffin tops nice and golden and just a touch crispy, but be sure to watch your muffins closely if you choose to do this… Broil is no joke.

Remove the muffins from the oven and allow them to sit for several minutes before removing them from the pan and placing them on a cooling rack.

Once completely cool, store in an air-tight container on the counter or in the fridge for a few days or freeze the muffins and pull them out as needed.

Enjoy!

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Little Blue Truck Play Dough Kit

8 / 22 / 198 / 22 / 19

Two of my favourite things? Kid’s books and play dough kits… So a book-inspired play dough kit?? Oh my gosh… A match made in heaven!! We made this Little Blue Truck play dough kit last year when all of the Little Blue Truck books were on heavy rotation in our house and it was such a hit.

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For the purpose of the kit, we decided to use the original Little Blue Truck as our inspiration, but they’re all so good {well, with the exception of the spring one – it’s not my favourite if I’m being honest}. They’re just such fun books to read aloud… They have great rhythm and rhyme and they have really sweet messages behind them too – win! I’d highly recommend all of these:

Little Blue Truck

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way

Little Blue Truck’s Halloween

Little Blue Truck’s Christmas

There’s also a new one on the way, Goodnight, Little Blue Truck, that I’m super excited to get my hands on.

While I wasn’t sure what colours of play dough we’d do for this kit, a few flips through the pages of the book and it was settled. We’d go with rich, fall colours just like the ones in the illustrations.

Here’s a look… We did a deep, brick red, a charcoal grey, a mustardy yellow, a coppery brown, and a mossy green. Of course you could switch these up and do any colours you and your little one like though!

To make the play dough, I actually did 5 separate batches of dough (one for each colour) and then split each batch in half to make two kits – one for us to keep and one for us to gift. Depending on how full I want our kit to be, I usually do two or three batches of play dough, so 5 batches split in half gave us the perfect amount. You can find our go-to play dough recipe, as well as our tips and tricks to making the perfect play dough, here. For this particular kit, we skipped the scent and used our favourite Wilton gel colours.

Here’s how the dough fit into our go-to play dough kit container, the GLIS divided box from Ikea {US | CAN}. (One thing to note is that while these dough balls are not wrapped in anything, the GLIS containers are not airtight, so I do gently place the dough into a large zip-close bag and then back into the container both for gifting and for personal storage. In an air-tight bag, this play dough will last for months and months, whereas if you just leave them loose in the kit, you’ll notice them drying out and becoming sort of crystal-y fairly quickly.}

Next, we gathered up our animals and vehicles… We already had all of the animals in the story in our collection of Schliech and PAPO figurines, so that’s what we went with. You can find them here:

goat
horse
cow
pig
chicken
chicks
sheep
duck (this is a goose, but it looked more like the duck in the book than our duck figure did)
toad (ours is a green tree frog by Safari Ltd. that I can’t seem to find on amazon)

These figurines are beautiful quality and while we’ve built our collection slowly over many years, they’re definitely more pricey than others. If you’re giving this as a gift and you’d like it to be more affordable, I would recommend going with Safari Ltd. or Wild Republic figurines… Or even the ‘no name’ ones available in big toy stores and dollar stores. You should be able to find all of the story characters and more, at a fraction of the cost.

{One other thing to note is that while I always use amazon links in my posts as those seem to be the most universally accessible for most, we buy almost all of our figurines from our very favourite toy store in Vancouver, Dilly Dally Kids. It’s owned and run by a young local family and they’re amazing and the most sweet, helpful people ever. They also ship all over the place and have really good shipping rates, so I’d highly recommend checking them out.}

We also happened to have a perfect little CAT dump truck on hand too (we found ours at Winners, but you can also find it here), so the only thing we purchased was a little blue truck from our local teacher store (but this one or this one would be amazing!)

Weird, but one of my favourite things about putting together play dough kits is figuring out how to best fit everything into the GLIS box… We went with all of our little animal friends in the big spot on the left and the trucks in the middle spot in the front.

To finish off the kit, we added some natural wooden matchsticks {to be used as long grass, fence posts, or anything else the kiddos dream up} and a handful of autumnal trees from our Safari Ltd. Tree Toob.

Here’s the finished kit… Wouldn’t this make a lovely gift for a special little someone?

My favourite part about play dough kits is that you set them out and the kids have everything the need to start playing / creating…

And open-ended play invitations like this tend to appeal to a wide range of ages, which I love.

One thing I tend to get asked about play dough kits is, “How are they supposed to play with it?” and my answer is always that there is no right way to play – so long as they’re following the basic expectations you’ve set out for play dough play of course. I find that kids don’t really need instructions when it comes to enjoying the combination of play dough, loose parts, and figures… They have plenty of imagination and the best thing oftentimes is for us to stand back and observe.

They might create scenes that look similar to the ones in the story…

They might use the play dough and parts to retell the story…

Or they might do something completely different – which is 100% okay.

Either way, they’re most likely flexing their imaginations, hand muscles, and fine motor skills, which are all great things.

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Backyard Truck Garden

7 / 30 / 19

It feels like we’ve had a slow start this year, but summer seems to be here in the Okanagan and Sam’s been enjoying his little backyard truck garden again!

Here’s what inspired us creating a truck garden… This hilly corner of our yard filled with dirt, rocks, and loads of debris discarded by our big old tree. Now if we knew that this home was our forever home, we’d probably do something different, but without wanting to invest a whole lot of time, energy, or money, a truck garden turned out to be a fantastic solution.

Of course every yard is going to be different, but I do think the truck garden concept could be adapted to many different spaces, hilled or flat.

Another fun part of this project? Other than the little orange pilons and some paint, we only used things we already had on hand to put it together.

First up were these road bricks… They started out as regular old bricks left in the yard by the previous home owners, so I painted them grey with a sample of outdoor paint I picked up and then added some little yellow dashes freehand using some acrylic craft paint from the art cupboard. More than a year later, these have held up super well. What I love about them is that they can be moved and configured how ever Sam likes, and they give him an opportunity to do some heavy lifting.

The other little upcycle / repurpose project we did was turning some wood and flooring scraps into these road planks.

I had previously seen this idea on my friend Chelsey’s site, Buggy and Buddy, and when I found a bunch of wood scraps left in one of the sheds, I knew it would be perfect.

I just painted the boards a charcoal-y black colour using an outdoor paint we already had, then freehanded the white dashes using a small paintbrush, some acrylic craft paint, and an old metre stick as a guide. And voila – wooden roads and ramps!!

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Then we added all of the fun stuff… Our kids’ garden tool set for raking up branches, creating dirt mounds, etc., a big bin of DIY blocks Brad and his dad made using some 2×4 and 2×8 scraps that were also left in our yard, and Sam’s collection of Green Toys and Wonder Wheels trucks. All of these have been gifted to him over the years and they’ve seen endless hours of play. They’re big, sturdy, and made from recycled plastic. These are the ones he has currently:

I also created a little picnic space at the top of the truck garden using our kids’ picnic table from Ikea and a little black and white striped umbrella, but I didn’t find that it got used a whole lot last summer, so I skipped it this summer and kept those items on our patio below instead.

It was a cute little set up though!

Possibly the biggest hit of the space? This little sit-on excavator we got during a campaign I did with Canadian Tire. Sam just LOVES it and could spend ages scooping up loose dirt and moving it to a different space or filling a bucket.

I can’t tell you how much play this little space has seen!

Here’s a look at the whole thing… It’s certainly not the prettiest thing, but it’s such a great spot for playing in the dirt, getting filthy, and enjoying trucks.

One final addition that’s also been a favourite? These PVC pipe ramps! While this wasn’t something I felt comfortable taking on myself, I took advantage of my brother being in town and he helped me pick up the largest piece of PVC pipe Home Depot carried and then cut it in half vertically. We sanded the edges and created these ramps that smaller cars can ZOOM down!

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Morning Routine Flip Chart

7 / 25 / 197 / 25 / 19

My summer wish? Slower mornings that are still productive enough to get out of the house and have some fun before nap time rolls around at noon. Plus, with Brad home for the summer, a couple of hours to work each morning too… Hah! Too much to ask maybe, but we’re giving it a go and so far this morning routine flip chart has been super helpful!

Here’s the thing – while I usually work on all things blog / writing gig related from about 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. during the school year, I find that during the summer, I’m just more tired and less motivated at night… I don’t know if it’s because we spend a good amount of time hosting guests and travelling during the summers, but when we’re at home and without houseguests, I honestly just want to go for a walk, tidy the house, prep things for the next day, and then chill on the patio or watch a show with B at night. And since he’s off work for almost all of July and August, I figure that a couple of hours each day where Brad’s the go-to parent is a reasonable request, right? Not going to lie – he wasn’t super on board with the plan because a) he loves nothing more than sleeping in and would happily stay in bed until 10 or 11 everyday of the summer and b) because having to get up AND feed the kids breakfast and get them ready for the day is just something he’s not used to doing. But since making our morning routine flip charts, the kids are able to be more focused and independent, which I think has been helpful for everyone.

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Here’s what we used to make the charts:

our morning routine flip chart printable
a legal sized file folder
a pair of scissors
a ruler
a glue stick
pencil crayons
adhesive magnetic tapeor adhesive magnetic squares

{This brilliant file folder idea came from this chore chart I saw on Pinterest back in the day, so I can’t at all take credit for that aspect of the project.}

Bahahaha – can we just stop for a moment and appreciate the hilariousness that is taking blog photos with a toddler?!? Gotta get in where you can, right?? Oh, Sam!

Alright, back to it. With all of our materials gathered, Sam and I got to work putting together his morning routine flip chart. First job? Colouring in his ‘job pictures’. As he coloured, we talked about each picture and what they meant and I helped him out here and there when he asked me to. (Don’t mind the pencil grasp… We’ll be working on that soon… He’s not shown a ton of interest in pencil / paper activities just yet, so I want to be very gentle with my guidance so as to keep his interest up when it does arise.)

Done! {You’ll notice that there’s an extra empty box on the printable… This can be used if you want to swap one of the jobs out for something that better suits your little one’s morning routine – just drawing a little picture, write in the name of the job along the bottom, and you’re good to go!}

Next up, I cut the job cards out just outside the dotted lines. While I did that, Sam worked on cutting up some of the scraps using his spring scissors. {Because cutting scraps into the teeniest paper shards is still scissor practice after all, right? HAH!!}

Next, I opened up the file folder and set the job cards out in the order I thought made most sense for how our mornings go, but obviously these can be put in any order that works best for your fam! Because the file folders I bought had some text on the inside, I opted to use them inside out, so you’ll notice that I’ve placed them on what is actually the back of the file folder here. Once I had them placed and spaced how I wanted, I glued the job cards down using a glue stick.

At this point Miss G joined us to make a morning routine flip chart of her own… She doesn’t ‘need’ one like Sam does and is very used to getting ready for school in the mornings either on her own or using her morning routine jaror morning routine chart, but I find that a) having a visual does help her stay focused and on track and b) switching up the visuals every now and then helps to keep things fresh and interesting.

With all of the job cards glued down, I used a ruler to draw straight lines down from in between the job cards to mark where I’d need to cut to create flaps.

Then I trimmed the bottom of the file folder off {making sure to leave enough space to add a magnet above each job} and cut along the lines I had previously drawn to make the flaps.

Next up, I measured out one inch chunks of magnetic tape, ensuring I had 14 magnets total.

Then I adhered one magnetic strip above each job.

In order to get the placement bang on, I stuck a second magnetic strip {magnetic side down, sticker side up} on each of the adhered magnetic strips, then removed the sticker backing one at a time, and closed the flaps, pressing the magnets down firmly to ensure a good stick. (Does that make sense?)

Then I added “Sam’s morning routine” to the top of the chart…

And trimmed off the excess file folder at the top.

This is what it looked like once done and hung on the side of our island in the kitchen and I’m happy to report that it’s been a total hit. His morning routine flip chart has totally let him take charge of getting ready for the day and even though he does need help with a few of the tasks, he’s able to be the one driving the process, which I think is really empowering.

He just checks in with his chart to see what’s up next…