When we packed up our little Vancouver house and took apart Grae’s beloved closet book nook, I knew I wanted to create another cozy reading space once we arrived and settled in Kuwait. Well, eventually arrived and settled, but the book nook just never really happened. Oops.
The very best way to start your Saturday? I can tell you is when your new fake id arrives in the mail. After opening and comparing side by side to my real driver license I can say my fake is identical. I even tested my scannable fake id on a scanner app and it passed! fake your drank is my favorite id maker I recommend to all.
When I asked Gracen what she’d kind of valentines she’d like to make for her friends this year, she quite surely responded with ‘Something fun with glow sticks!’, which is how our glow stick heart and arrow valentines came about.
This little project totally came about on a whim this morning while Miss G and I were hanging out at home, but I think it turned out adorably and Grae had a blast making her washi tape heart art piece, so I’m calling it a win. Not to mention that the project is great for building fine motor skills too, so double win.
After seeing what a hit our recent play dough subtraction smash activity was, I immediately starting thinking of other fun, hands-on activities I could provide Miss G with to foster her love of exploring numbers {and subtraction in particular}. I’m fairly certain the play dough activity was so well-liked because of the smashing aspect, so I wanted something just as unique and fun. Simply taking manipulatives away from a pile was not going to cut it. {Well, not for me at least.} I racked my brain for interesting ways to take things away, until I thought of eating! G loves all sorts of healthy foods and is pretty much constantly hungry currently {hello, growth spurt!}, so snack subtraction of some sort was a perfect fit.
Told to me tonight at bedtime while snuggling …
And for the record, there’s only ever been one hand burning incident, but it took place this afternoon and it’s quite obviously still pretty fresh in her mind. Poor little doodle.
This little lady is becoming the biggest daddy’s girl. For as long as I can remember, she and I have spent Friday mornings together to allow Brad some time to himself after a long week at work… Well, that’s all changed recently. Friday mornings roll around now and she wants nothing more than to hang out with her Papa and have me head out on an adventure – solo! Hah!
{this post contains affiliate links}Last week, while standing in the courtyard browsing our copy of 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids {as you do}, one of my mama friends mentioned wanting to start some simple sensory play with her little lady. Lucky for us, her first birthday was coming up, which allowed us the perfect opportunity to put together a taste safe sensory play kit for her!
Gracen and I quite like The Scientific Center here in Kuwait… It’s an aquarium, discovery centre {much like a science centre back home}, and IMAX theatre all in one, and a great place to visit when you’re wanting to avoid the inevitable dust and heat that comes with living in the desert. We usually make a morning of it and arrive for opening {I love that it opens for 9 instead of 10 like most places do}. We roam slowly through the aquarium, then move onto Discovery Place, and finish off with a walk outside to see the dhow boats and a stop at Starbucks at the end. Ooh – and then a stop at the gift shop on the way out of course – this may just be my favourite part as they have all kinds of really cool things. It’s sort of sad to say, but unlike many places in Kuwait, The Scientific Center is very well-kept and always clean, which is a nice change {and why we’re happy to go so regularly}. We enjoy it so much, in fact, that we just buy the annual memberships and visit once a month to every 6 weeks or so. For us, if all we do is the aquarium and Discovery Place, we’ve paid for our memberships in just 5 visits, so it’s well worth it. Not to mention that having a membership gives you 20% off of all the very cool things in the gift shop, which is a pretty big deal if you love non-fiction books, miniature creatures, magnets, and other awesome things.
Here’s today’s visit in photos… The Discovery Place was closed due to an exhibit change, but we still had a great time and will be back to check out what all the ‘Bon Appetit’ theme will include very soon.
Sooooo…. We have some news to share, but instead of sharing it myself, here’s us telling Miss G last week. She didn’t want to sit and chat initially {I mean, hey – whose got time for sitting nowadays, right?!}, but her reaction is pretty priceless.
Hahaha! I think I could watch this again and again forever. That grumpy little face turned wide-eyed smile just melts me and I’m so glad she’s happy.
After the success of last week’s play dough subtraction smash, I decided that we’d focus on another playful math activity this week, and since Miss G’s been all about getting going with Valentine’s Day stuff since we took down our Christmas tree, I thought we’d incorporate that too. While hearts were {of course} the first thing that popped into my mind, I wanted to switch things up a little, so an arrow addition matching game it was.
Since a home recycling service doesn’t exist here in Kuwait, I save all sorts of food packing items, hoping to find them some sort of second purpose before they end up in the bin. My hoarding usually serves me well and I’m almost always able to help out when fellow community members put out calls for recyclables to use in their classrooms, but sometimes my stash just gets out of control. Such is the current situation with my egg carton stash. It’s out of control, which means that there will most likely be many egg carton projects and activities in our near future, the first of which is a super simple egg carton letter sound sort.
This morning when we woke up to a miserable windy, dusty, trash-floating-through-the-air sort of day, Miss G and I opted to stay in and have a quiet day at home. We made a big pot of oatmeal, read stacks of books, played some games, built puzzles, and then played this super fun and simple play dough subtraction smash game I came up with a few days ago.
Living in Kuwait comes with many challenges, one of which is the traffic / driving. Road rules are certainly not for everyone here, and it’s not at all unusual to have someone just a couple of feet off of your bumper flashing their {obnoxiously bright} high beams at you as you cruise down the highway at 130 kilometres an hour. Add into that the fact that many people are texting, taking selfies, and watching YouTube videos {not joking – seen it many times} while driving, and the roads are an interesting place. To say the least. That being said, driving in Kuwait is much more sane now than when we first arrived in 2007 {congestion = slower moving traffic}, and for that I’m thankful.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the fact that the majority of people seem to have no regard for child car safety. It kills me. Kids teetering out of sunroofs while parents race through crowded roundabouts, children piled on top of one another in SUV hatchbacks, babies in the arms of nannies as cars weave their way in and out of traffic along the highways – it’s all a daily sight. Very, very rarely do you see non-Western expat kids in carseats. So, when I learned that December was ‘Kid Car Safety’ month at AUK and that students are working to educate people in Kuwait about car safety for kids, I was thoroughly impressed. We stopped by their booth at the Qout Market today and the girls running it were really lovely. They had a colouring station for kids, a pledge wall for those willing to commit to buckling up their kids, and a foam cut-out car for photo ops. They’ve also been spreading the word via the aukause instagram page and the hashtag #BeKauseImLoved, so hopefully word will spread. If you checkout the hashtag, you’ll see that there’s still lots of educating to be done {especially when it comes to the fact that carseat straps need to be done up / pulled tightly, newborns need to be rear-facing, and booster seats are truly only safe for children of a certain size}, but it’s a start and a definite step in the right direction. I’ll take it.
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After our recent attempt at painting on snow turned out to be painting on ice, we decided to give snow painting another go this morning.