Oobleck, goop, goo, cornstarch paste… Whatever you call it, we’re huge fans! The cornstarch and water mixture has been a staple in our play repertoire for a long time now and it never fails to captivate those who dare to dig their hands in. With Halloween having just come and gone, we’ve played with it a ton lately. Sometimes paired with creepy crawlies, sometimes with giant googly eyes, and other times all on its own. It’s been loads of fun for Miss G and her little friends in the courtyard, so today we decided to try something different… Colourful SCENTED oobleck!
Last year, Gracen knew exactly what she wanted to be for Halloween – a brown fox. She decided weeks in advance and never once wavered. This year she wasn’t quite as sure. In the beginning, she was fairly certain that she wanted to be a giraffe or a kangaroo, but eventually the ideas of a lion, hippo, and tiger got thrown into the mix too. I was a little bit worried about how I’d pull off one of those ideas sans sewing machine, so I was pretty relieved when she mentioned being a superhero. That I could do. I showed her a photo of PBK’s gorgeous amazing girl costume, and she was immediately sold (the tutu may have done it ☺). With that, I collected a few craft supplies (some felt, sparkly craft foam, ribbon, self-adhesive velcro, and elastic) and a few awesome and inexpensive pieces from our local H&M {a headband, a teeny purse, shoe wings, and a half price leotard with a tutu attached) and we were good to go. Thinking back to last year’s night before costume, I must enjoy working under pressure, because armed with my glue gun and a pair of scissors, I began working on Miss G’s Supergirl costume last night at 11 p.m. The good news is that because the project involved absolutely no sewing, I was done in 2 hours flat. Yay for that!
Today was seriously the most wonderful day… A perfect blend of fun activities and downtime, time at home and time out and about. Gracen had an absolute blast, and as we tucked her in tonight, her last words were, ‘Mama, will tomorrow be Halloween too?’ I wish, sweet darling.
I get such a kick out of making holidays special for Miss G… Perhaps a little too much so, but that doesn’t stop me. ☺ Late last night (okay, early this morning), long after I should have been in bed, I randomly decided to transform Miss G’s usual mason jar into a frankenstein cup.
This fun breakfast is quickly becoming a Halloween tradition in our house. G loves spiderweb pancakes because they’re ‘really cool and spooky’ and I like them because they make for a fun, but healthy way to start the day. Plus despite how it may look, they’re really easy to make.
Turning jars, juice boxes, and chocolate bars into mummies for Halloween is certainly nothing new, but I think it’s an adorable idea. So in my quest to pull together fun and sugar-free Halloween treats for Miss G, I decided to make some mummy string cheese to add into the mix. String cheese itself is a huge treat in our house because we never buy it, but I think these little mummies will be even more fun for Grae.
After yesterday, I decided that Miss G and I needed a very low-key day around the house today. We spent our morning making these cute little Franken-SLIME Halloween favours, and we both just love the way they turned out.
With Gracen being a sugar-free kid, I try my very best to make sure that she doesn’t miss out or feel resentful about the fact that we don’t let her eat junk. So in addition to making sure she has yummy {healthier} treats for the Halloween parties we’re attending, I wanted to make sure we had something fun and sugar-free that she could hand out to her friends and fellow trick-or-treaters. Now while we’ve done sparkly slime treats for Halloween and Valen-SLIME treats for Valentine’s Day, slime is so much fun that we couldn’t resist doing it again. Only this time we switched things up a little and turned the favours into little Frankestein heads!
I must say, our usual day-to-day life here in Kuwait is pretty peachy… We’ve got a giant apartment that houses all sorts of fun things for Miss G to explore, we’re part of a pretty awesome expat community, we have a housekeeper that comes five days a week, and we can very comfortably afford for me to be at home with Gracen full-time.
But days like today…. Ugh. Days like today remind me of what a challenge it can be to live here sometimes. And today that feels like an understatement.
The day started off great. Grae and I got ready and were out the door by 8:25 a.m. We met up with a lovely group of expat moms and dads and enjoyed good coffee and a delicious breakfast at Dean & Deluca. We picked up a few things for the Halloween goodies we’re making this year and stopped by Pottery Barn Kids to ooh and ahh at all of the pretty things. Then we headed home with one teeny errand to do on the way – pick up cupcake liners from the hardware store. (Weird, yes. But that’s the only place I’ve found in Kuwait that carries Wilton supplies and we were in search of very specific colours.)
A bin of green oobleck and a handful of creepy crawlers = messy Halloween-inspired fun for the kids in the courtyard. The bugs slowly sunk into the oobleck and disappeared in the sticky swamp, so retrieving them was great fun.
A couple of mornings ago during breakfast, Miss G turned to me with the sparkle in her eyes that means she’s got a brilliant new idea bubbling, and said, ‘Mama, I have an idea… We should decorate our whole apartment with Halloween stuff! Like ghosts and bats and jack-o-lanterns and all that spooky stuff.’ I agreed and got to thinking about all of the fun holiday items and decorations we had to leave in Canada when moving to the Middle East.
Very early this morning, Brad headed off for a week in Nepal, where he’ll be attending a tech conference. Tonight, as we were messaging back and forth with him, Grae requested that he send her a picture of himself in his hotel room. She promptly received this silly bug-eyed photo, and wanted to send him one right back. Like father, like daughter, I guess. ☺
With an expat moms breakfast 30 to 45 minutes away on tap for early this morning, I wanted to be as organized as possible last night. I prepped the usual – stainless bottles full of water and a couple of healthy snacks – then went in search of something that Gracen could quietly play with while I chatted with some of the other moms. Lately, her new unifix cubes have been keeping her incredibly engaged and happy during meals out and over at friends’ houses, but I also don’t want them to lose their magic. ☺ While digging through our craft shelf, I came across some slime I brought from back home. (Yes, I brought homemade slime from Canada… I don’t know what that says about me, and I’m not sure I want to know either…) I packed it in one of my favourite interlocking containers from Daiso and then went in search of a couple of things to pair it with. The result was this little sensory play to go kit, which Gracen just loved.
Sometimes I do weird things just to see Miss G’s reaction. I don’t know…. I can’t help myself I guess. Seeing her little face light up with excitement {or crinkle up in total confusion} makes my heart happy. So today when she asked for a glass of water during her quiet play time, I surprised her with a Halloweenified glass of what she’s deemed ‘buggy water’. {Doesn’t it look sort of like a glass full of baby spiders? Yum!}
