Today was the highly anticipated day of our {backyard} messy play date…finally! Gracen and I got everything ready yesterday afternoon and had it all sitting by the backyard to make our early start time a little easier this morning. During our prep, Grae was so excited she could barely contain herself. She gathered sensory bin items and assembled them like it was her job and this morning she was up bright and early eager for her friends to arrive.
When we do these sorts of play dates, I try to have a variety of different kinds of open-ended activities spread out throughout the backyard. This means that there is something for everyone and not all of the kids are always crowded in the same area like little sardines. Today’s sensory activities included our bird bin, an ocean bin filled with water beads, a construction bin filled with pea gravel, a cloud dough bin filled with different moulds and scoops, a gardening station directly in our garden {as we didn’t plant this year due to our upcoming move}, and a sparkly slime tray. For kiddos looking for a bit more action, we had our inexpensive and easy backyard balance beam, a sandbox filled with dinosaur bones and shovels for digging, a pool filled with cups, scoops, and nets {because it was too cool to actually swim}, and bubble chasing courtesy of a couple of bubble machines. For our little art lovers, we had out a big moon painting station and a bucket of sidewalk chalk with some water for dipping, and for those looking for a little bit of downtime, we had our 5 minute teepee with some puzzles inside, a beading station, and a tunnel hideout.
Sounds fun, right? Strangely enough, after all of the build-up, Miss G was quite clingy and whiny throughout. I think it was a combination of feeling slightly smothered by a very affectionate friend and just being a little overwhelmed. Though I think she still had fun, I was a little surprised that it didn’t go over a bit better than it did… But what can you do? I’m pretty sure the other kids enjoyed themselves, and after a lot of messy play, we all sat down to a laid-back picnic lunch of sandwiches, fruits and veggies, nuts, crackers, cookie dough boys, and homemade iced tea and lemonade. After saying goodbye to our friends {and passing out play dough and play putty favours – all Miss G’s idea}, we found ourselves in a backyard that looked like a tornado had run through it… A true sign of messy play date success, I’d say!
Here are some photos from our morning…
After hosting a couple of these play dates, here are a few things I’ve learned along the way…
1. Include activities of varying messiness. Not all kiddos love getting filthy.
2. Spread play stations out as much as possible. Not only does it allow the munchkins lots of space to play and explore, but it also helps keep the play materials separate (though we did end up with slime, sand, and cloud dough in our pool this time around!)
3. Expect your play materials to get trashed. While water beads, slime, and doughs may last several months when enjoyed by just your child(ren), many children may be experiencing these play materials for the first time. Water beads will be smushed, dirt will be added to the slime, and buckets of water will be dumped into cloud dough, so be prepared to throw everything out and start fresh.
4. Slime and concrete don’t mix. Being used to my very careful, rule-bound little lady, I thought nothing of putting a big tray of slime out on a table on our concrete pad. Needless to say, by the end of the play date, it was everywhere and Brad and I spent a couple of hours picking, peeling, spraying, scrubbing, and sweeping it all up – pretty rockin’ Friday night, no? All in the name of fun! ☺
5. Include a hand washing station. Kids are going to want to wash their hands between activities and having a spot to do it outside not only makes it easier for them, but it also minimizes traffic in and out of the house. We use a drink dispenser filled with warm water with a basin below and some soap and a hand towel nearby and not only does it get the job done, but it’s also a lot of fun.
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The other night, I had the absolute pleasure of joining several other Vancouver mom bloggers at 
Here’s our lineup of ingredients…. Pecans, dates {soaked in water}, coconut, raisins, sea salt, cinnamon, coconut oil, and vanilla. Now, I have to say that the original recipe includes coconut manna (also known as coconut butter) and not coconut oil… In fact, our healthy eating specialist explained that coconut oil is just the fat squeezed out of the coconut meat, while coconut manna is the coconut meat and fat combined, making it much more nutrient-rich. The trouble is, our local grocery store doesn’t carry coconut manna, so we had to improvise. While maybe not as healthy, the recipe still turned out great!
Anyways, onto actually making the cookie dough boys! First up, we drained {almost all of} the water our dates had been soaking in and blended them in our food processor. (Word to the wise, be sure your dates don’t still have the pits in them before blending. Oy.)
We processed them until nearly smooth, but not perfectly pureed. Because it was such a small batch, it did take several rounds of stopping the machine, scraping down the sides, and then doing it again, but that just meant more jobs for my little helper, which she of course loved.
With the date paste saved in a separate bowl for later, Miss G added our coconut and pecans to the food processor. Call us lazy, but we didn’t even wash out the processor bowl in between as it seemed like sort of an unnecessary step.
Then we pureed the coconut and pecans until they were meal-like.
Next up, Grae dumped all of the other ingredients (save the raisins) into the food processor with the coconut/pecan mixture.
Then we processed it all until it started to come together in a mass.
Here’s what it looked like when done.
The last step was to mix the raisins in by hand.
With our dough complete, we rolled it into balls using about a tablespoon of the mixture at a time.
And because Miss G is no longer a huge fan of raisins, before mixing them in, we set aside a part of the mixture. To set Grae’s balls apart from the other, she rolled them in coconut, which was a lovely addition.
The verdict? Delicious! They’re sweet and satisfying just like a good dessert, but come sans all of the sugar and fat regular desserts have. A definite success!
This morning Grae and I had the absolute pleasure of hanging out with the lovely 
Oh my goodness. Miss G and I had so much fun with this little project this afternoon. The best part is that it was completely impromptu. She wanted ‘to craft’ as she always says, and when digging through our craft supply drawer, came across a little bag of corks we scored at our last trip to 
With an idea in mind, it was time to gather up some materials. The corks were a given, the elastics would hold the actual boat together, the toothpicks or dowels would hold up our sails (we went with the mini dowels in the end), and the nail would help us poke our holes. The last thing we needed was something to make our sails out of… We thought of patterned scrapbook paper, but knew that would eventually just get wet. We also thought of the 
To get started, Gracen lined up 3 corks and held them together while I secured them with 2 thick elastic bands – one on each side.
Then, using our nail and “our big, big muscles” in the words of Grae, we created a little hole in the very centre of the cork wharf.
Together we pushed our mini wooden dowel down into the hole (a food pick or bamboo skewer could work too).
Using another mini dowel for reference, sketched a quick sail outline on the back of our sparkly foam.
Because our foam was of the adhesive variety, we made our sail double-sided, but this would be unnecessary if we had just regular foam sheets.
After making a couple of teeny little slits in our sail, one at the top and one at the bottom, we slid it onto our dowel post.
The finishing touch was adding a little flag above our sail. To do this, Gracen selected a roll of washi tape and folded a piece in half around the top of our dowel. Then I cut it to form a flag shape.
With our first boat complete, it was time for the big moment – to see whether or not it would float. It did!
And this little lady was very pleased about that.
We made one more boat, and the play begun immediately. Bobbing, blowing, and swooshing ensued throughout the afternoon and I’m sure it’ll continue for the next several days. 
The upside to a very rainy June is that we’re crossing things off of our rainy day idea list that I thought we wouldn’t get to do before leaving Vancouver in July. Today, we headed out to UBC to do something we’ve been meaning to do for a long while – attend a drop-in gymnastics session! The class was held in Osborne Centre (where there is plenty of metred parking out front) and was a ton of fun. We walked into a gym filled covered in mats and soft, padded flooring with everything from balance beams to parallel bars, to trampolines, rings, and ropes and Miss G began exploring. Despite her very cautious nature, Grae had a wonderful time and actually asked if we could ‘flip the car around’ and go back to gymnastics while driving home. Sadly, today was the last day of the spring session, and starting July 4th when the summer session begins, drop-ins will be on Thursday nights from 7:15 to 8:15 p.m. only, which really doesn’t work with young kids. 
Whenever Miss G and I have her very 
First up, we followed 
Then we placed the dough between two layers of parchment, rolled it out nice and thin, and used a pizza cutter to slice them into quick and easy squares.
I contemplated just placing the entire sheet onto a baking pan and cooking them in one big mass, but in the end, decided to scoop them up and flip them onto a pan while quickly separating them. 
And because they reminded both Brad and I of Cheez-Its (one of the only ‘Americanized’ types of crackers available during our four years in Kuwait), I added the centre holes with one of 
We baked them as usual, and even though little squares may be a little more on the boring side, they’re every bit as delicious!
Back in early spring while hanging out down by 
It started the other day when Gracen wanted to make something and I really wanted the two of us to get outside and get some fresh air. We pulled out our rocks, some acrylic paints, a couple of foam brushes, and set up a little workspace in the backyard. Grae painted her rock collection all sorts of bright colours, while I painted mine with a couple of coats of plain white.
Once dry, I typed Grae’s name into a word-processing doc, selected a font that is similar to the way I’d like her to print her name (in this case Illuminate – see some of my favourite fonts 
Next, I carefully cut the letters out.
Because my rocks were not collected with a specific project in mind, they were all a little bit differently shaped and sized, so I just took my letter cutouts and matched each one up with a stone as best as I could. 
Then, using a regular children’s glue stick, I stuck the paper letters directly onto the painted rocks.
Using acrylic paints again (we went for rainbow colours, because well, we love rainbow!), I painted the rocks. I made sure to use a dabbing motion near / on top of the letters, just to be sure that I wouldn’t get paint underneath them and they wouldn’t move around. Two coats of coloured paint gave really nice coverage and the white paint underneath really allowed the colours to pop.
My original plan was to actually soak the paper letters off in warm water once the paint was dry, but to my surprise, they peeled off very easily. As you can see, the letters certainly weren’t perfect at this point. I also had not yet painted the bottoms of the rocks yet {mostly because I wasn’t sure if this method would be a success}, so I made sure to do that carefully, but next time I’d do it before removing the paper letters.
Next up, I used a flat-tipped brush and some white acrylic to just touch up the letters here and there. This certainly isn’t necessary (Grae thought the rocks were perfect as is), but it was really easy and did make the edges look a lot cleaner.
Lastly, once the white touch up paint was dry, I gave the rocks a once over with Mod Podge to protect the paint from chips and scuffs. I like Mod Podge a lot because it’s water-based and non-toxic, but you could use a spray-on finisher if that’s what you prefer.
Here’s the end result… Bright and colourful and great for both playing with and learning with.
Gracen was so anxious to get her hands on them once they were done, she could barely contain her excitement.
Just for fun, I set them in a tray of sand (mixed up of course) and the little lady immediately began spelling her name. 
This is a little project Miss G and I have been working on ever since we went shopping for an event I was attending and Grae fell in love with some brightly-coloured bangles. Though it was a bit of a process, these wooden popsicle stick bracelets are really easy, fun, and inexpensive to make and my little accessory lover is very pleased with the results.
To start off, we soaked some wooden popsicle sticks in a covered mason jar of water for a full 24 hours. 
Then, I gently bent them into ‘C’ shapes in order to fit them in tea light holders. One thing I noticed during this step is that there seemed to be a way that the sticks naturally wanted to be bent… Working with that made the job a lot easier. The one I tried to bend against the natural direction actually ended up snapping.
We could have left our popsicle sticks in the tea light holders to dry as is, but since they weren’t perfectly fitted to the edges of the containers, we filled them up with water and let them sit another 24 hours before draining them and letting them dry out.
After drying a full day, the bracelets held their shapes nicely.
When we popped them out of the tea light holders, they looked like this. Certainly not perfect, but a cuff shape nonetheless.
At this point, the bracelets looked really tiny, but they fit G (who will be 3 in just a couple of months) perfectly. The good thing is that you can always make the opening a little larger with a gentle bend.
These could be decorated a multitude of ways, but we opted for a tissue paper colour transfer for watercolour sort of look. In order to do that, we got out a few things… Water in a small spray bottle, some tissue squares, a toilet paper roll (which was quickly replaced with a chunk of a branch similar in size), and the bracelets themselves of course.
We started off by putting the bracelets around the paper roll just to make them easier to work on.
Then Miss G gave them a light misting of water to make them ‘sticky’…
And covered the entire stick in tissue paper squares, adding a spritz or two of water along the way if needed.
Then, when she was happy with her coverage, she sprayed the whole thing down once again, allowing the tissue paper to cling tightly to the wooden bangle.
My part of the job was carefully removing the bracelets covered in tissue from the paper roll / branch. Once removed, I carefully wrapped the excess tissue around the backside of the bracelet. One thing I did not anticipate is that the small amount of water sprayed onto the bracelets actually starting causing them to lose their shape.
So back into the tea light holders to dry it was.
After another day’s drying time, Gracen peeled away the dried tissue paper to reveal beautiful watercolour-eque designs.
I did contemplate using black Sharpies to add stripes, dots, and other designs, but I think these are perfect just as they are. ☺
{Part of} My AMAZING Blogging Posse // Image courtesy of 
With our 
And when I say simple, I mean simple! Because our designated market builder seemed to miss a couple of steps in the process (*ahem* not me!) we have a couple of open slots near the top of the stand that were perfect for slipping a lightweight cotton scarf through to give the feel of a curtain. If we would have had a long, thin dowel, I would have attempted to fashion a working curtain, but no such luck. Of course, Miss G doesn’t seem to mind in the least.
The other small step we took to transform our market stand into a puppet theatre is to create a super simple welcome sign. We simply slid it into the poster holder in front of the fruit and veggie shop one and we were good to go.
All that was left was retrieving a few puppets, and luckily, Miss G had that covered.
These guys were up for some exercise and ended up jumping and ‘practicing falling’.
After playing with her traditional puppets a while, she pulled out her homemade 
Next up was the finger puppet crew. These guys did their usual performance – 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.
Oh, goodness. Quite obviously the rain and being cooped up indoors got the best of us today as this is what we spent a good chunk of time doing this morning… Laying in bed taking crazy photos of ourselves with 
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Several weeks ago, while slowly making our way through the children’s section of Ikea, I spotted 
For the last little while, it’s been Grae’s Fruit & Veggie Market, where she sells all sort of 
One of Gracen’s very favourite pretend play games is ‘store’, so it goes without saying that this has been a total hit, plus I love the fact that it encourages all kinds of communication, manners, and role play.
After a nap for Miss G, we enjoyed a family game of hide-and-seek, some playground time, and dinner out along the river. It was a good day.
