Despite the rain, we bundled up, walked the 40 minutes to Hauptstaße, and then hiked up the steep cobblestone hill {Brad pushing G in her stroller, bless his heart} to Schloss Heidelberg (aka Heidelberg Castle) today. Miss G wasn’t at her best and it undoubtedly would have been more fun on a day that it wasn’t pouring rain, but my goodness – was it ever fascinating to roam around a castle as old as this one, soaking in little bits of the history.
Here’s a peek at Miss G’s first ever castle visit…
Early this morning my little love padded across the flat, her gorgeous ruby starlet sparkle dress in hand, and asked, ‘Mama, will you please help me? I’m dressing up like Cinderella.’
Because pretty much everything is shut down from Christmas Eve through Boxing Day here in Heidelberg, today was our first real day out and exploring with Grandma Charlotte. We took her down to the main pedestrian / shopping area in the city, went out for a delicious lunch, explored side streets, shops, and playgrounds, and walked along the river. Grae napped in her stroller, so we were pretty much out and about all day and then finished off the evening with a stop at the park across the street from our flat and a game of Hungry Hippos. ☺
Gracen’s been loving the tiny build a snowman play dough kit we brought with us so much this trip that I decided it was time to make a full batch for her to enjoy during our downtime at the apartment. I gave her some options, and she decided that chocolate play dough was the way to go. {Mmm… A girl after my own heart!} The only challenge while on vacation, of course, is not having a fully-stocked kitchen. Based on our favourite ever no-cook play dough recipe, I popped some ingredients onto our grocery list and hoped for the best. Relying on my limited French to read the German labels at our local market, I searched the aisles for cream of tartar and glycerine without any luck. I’m sure I could have gone elsewhere and eventually found what I was looking for, but I thought to myself, why? Back in the old days when I was babysitting or nannying at least 5 days a week, I relied solely on one from-memory play dough recipe {quite possibly the simplest recipe ever}, which consisted of three ingredients – flour, salt, and water. That’s it. And while it didn’t yield the stretchiest, softest, shiniest, last-for-at-least-6-months sort of dough, it was fun to play with and the kids loved it nonetheless. So back to the basics it was. And you know what? Our super simple no-cook chocolate play dough turned out great! In the words of Grae, it’s ‘so SO soft’ and ‘smells DE-licious!’
Along with all sorts of other lovely items from back home, tucked inside Grandma Charlotte’s suitcase was this gorgeous little handmade doll carrier and I’m not sure who is more excited. Gracen has absolutely fallen in love with it and happily walked on her own for the entire duration of this afternoon’s adventure, all because she had her baby bunny strapped to her chest.
Besides a Christmas Brad and I spent at Railay Beach a few years back while I was {unknowingly} pregnant with Miss G, this year’s Christmas was probably our most non-traditional. Our tree was a house plant strung with baubles. Our turkey dinner was dinner out at a restaurant. Our usual snow was rain. And our family members came in the form of Grandma Charlotte arriving on our doorstep this morning and surprising the heck out of Miss G (a definite highlight of the day). Different isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in fact, it was a really lovely day and I’m absolutely thrilled we got to spend our first Christmas away as a family of 3 here in Heidelberg – it just would have been that much better with all of our family members here, of course.
Our day started at 5:40 a.m. when Miss G awoke raring to get the day going. We opened stockings in our dimly lit living room, made a big breakfast together, and Brad announced that he had to go for a quick trip to the store shortly afterwards. Of course, he wasn’t going to the store, but to the train station to meet his mom and help her back to our flat to surprise Gracen. It felt like he was back in no time at all, and when he arrived, he opened the door and announced, ‘Look at what I found while I was out!’ He stepped out of the way to reveal Grandma Charlotte with her suitcases in tow and Gracen’s flapping, hopping, and shrieking began. The first words out of her mouth were, ‘What in the WOR-WOLD?!?’ and then she later declared it the ‘Best. day. EVER.’ Gracen helped unpack her suitcase full of all sorts of Canadian goodies and opened a string of never-ending gifts. The rest of our day consisted of a long walk in the rain, a playground stop, naps for everyone in the house, dinner out, and an early bedtime for all of us.
For some reason or another, I ended up giving my DSLR a bit of a break today, I don’t have a ton of photos and several of these are from my phone, but here’s our day in pictures…
The stockings were placed by the house plant with care…
What a lovely Christmas Eve we had today… We woke up to the most gorgeous sunrise, and after having some breakfast, enjoyed some low-key time around the apartment. We read books, played with play dough and unifix cubes, and Gracen danced her way around the apartment in her favourite ever dress {from Over the Loom}. When we were ready, we set off to the playground across the street and stayed there for most of the morning until we were chilly enough to warrant bringing hot mugs of tea over to sip on. There were walks and naps in between, and then we all sat down together to make the dinner Miss G had requested – turkey and rice soup. Afterwards, it was back outside in search of pretty lights and a playground to play at. We arrived home with rosy cheeks, and Miss G opened 2 little wrapped packages, just as she always does on Christmas Eve – one containing a pair of cozy jammies and the other containing a holiday book to add to her collection {this year, How Many Sleeps Till Christmas by Mark Sperring}. After she was snug in her bed for the night, Brad and I put on Love Actually, poured some wine, and wrapped up some gifts to place under our house plant turned Christmas tree {hey, you do what you gotta do, right? ☺}
This morning we met up with good friends and toured around the city together. It was a day filled with cafes, restaurants, walking, glüwein, and Christmas markets, and though it wasn’t the most munchkin-friendly day, Miss G managed to hang in there until falling asleep in her stroller about 3 minutes after leaving dinner. With Brad staying at a local pub for football night, I was going to make the 35 minute walk back to our apartment as quickly as possible for bedtime, but instead, I bundled my sleeping babe up tightly and leisurely made my way through the glowing shops and market stands, enjoying them one last time before they disappear tomorrow morning. When we eventually arrived at our apartment, I lugged my sleeping girl upstairs, set her into her bed, and listened to her sleepy murmurs as I removed her boots and jacket in the dark. I covered her up with her duvet, and she was out for the night. It was a good day.
One of Miss G’s favourite holiday activities last year was making play dough gingerbread people. Our little bin of simple materials kept her happily engaged for hours and her cousins loved it just as much as she did, so there was no doubt in my mind that we’d do the same thing again this Christmas.
Sometimes I forget just where we live. While our actual building and apartment are nice, the area of Kuwait we live in? Ehhhh, not so much. It’s a newer area, so it’s definitely in development (we just got roads recently which was huge, and we’re hoping waterlines might make it in before our time here is through) and it’s largely inhabited by third world nationals whose extremely low paying jobs are sadly still better than what they could find in their home countries. And while it can be sad and draining and frustrating to live here sometimes, I’m actually really glad that we do. In a country where {I think} it’s very easy to slip into the ‘more! more! better! more expensive!’ mindset, living in Mahboula keeps you grounded. Humble. Grateful.
And Miss G? Well, she’s just as happy exploring sandy lots and rubbish piles. In fact, today when I suggested we go out on an adventure, she quickly retrieved a bag to collect treasures in. I was skeptical, but sure enough, she found a few things she just had to take home (a pretty rock, a marble, and a plastic figurine). Here is our morning in photos…
Gracen and I have been busy crafting up all sorts of fun homemade ornaments for our tree this week, and this cute little Santa is the latest addition to the fleet. I’ve made these with several classes of students during my time teaching, and while they’re a perfect project for older kids, Miss G and I had a great time working on one together.
With our last crafting class of the year coming up in just a few short days, Miss G and I wanted to prepare some simple gifts to share with the little friends she’s made at Bright Minds over the last few months. We adore play dough and had so much fun with our larger scale play dough snowman building activity that we decided to make miniature versions in easy to pack cases – everything needed to build play dough snowmen in small locking lid containers for some holiday fun on the go {or at home, really}.
First, we gathered up our materials… A double batch of our yummy-smelling vanilla mint play dough, awesome divided locking lid containers, beads, buttons, googly eyes, orange matchsticks, small twigs, and miniature scarves cut from inexpensive felt.
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We found our locking divided containers at City Star here in Kuwait, but these Sistema Klip It Split Food Containers on Amazon look similar. I love them because they’re small, easy for little ones to seal and unseal, and perfect for packing in a purse, diaper bag, or carry-on. Plus, they keep the play dough and the ‘building accessories’ {as Miss G calls them} separate, which I like too.
To get started, I added a big ball of vanilla mint play dough to one compartment of each container.
Then Gracen added the accessories to the other. To keep things uniform, we came up with a ‘recipe’ of what should be added to each container (2 googly eyes, 2 matchstick carrot noses, 2 twig arms, 5 beads, 5 buttons, and 1 felt scarf), which turned out to be great counting practice for Miss G.
This is how our kits looked when we were done with them.
Afterwards, Gracen matched up the lids, locked them on, and I used a regular glue stick to adhere some very basic labels I made and printed to fit our containers. And that was it – simple but cute gifts for our friends to enjoy over the holidays, be it at home, on an airplane, and while waiting in restaurants and doctors’ offices. I am so keeping one of these to bring along on our upcoming trip to Germany. In fact, I’m thinking I may create a couple of other little ‘play on-the-go’ kits too! ☺
Of course the one I tucked away for our trip didn’t remain a secret for long…
In fact, Grae’s already had several play dough snowman building sessions with her little kit.
Now let’s just hope the excitement continues until Christmas break rolls around and we board that plane!
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