Back when we were living in Kuwait, I remember desperately longing for rain. The kind that lasts days and days and lends itself to cozy hoodies, movie afternoons, and pots of soup simmering on the stove. Well, I’m happy to say, I think I’ve officially had my fix. It’s been raining for several days in a row now, and though lazy afternoons on the couch watching documentaries and romantic comedies don’t exactly fit well with our current life, we’ve enjoyed the rain nonetheless.
That being said, sometimes enough is enough. After spending the morning pretending we were in the tropics {while actually at the conservatory}, we decided to spend our afternoon creating spring butterflies.
The project started off as a creative table… Some coffee filters, Mr. Sketch scented makers (my absolute favourite as a child), Crayola markers, and a few bingo dabbers.
Grae decorated her coffee filters independently for a while, and then asked me to join her to finish them off.
Afterwards, Miss G used an easy-to-squeeze spray bottle to soak the filters pretty thoroughly.
While waiting for them to dry, we began to work on our butterfly bodies. Using Sharpies, we drew little faces on the tops of the bamboo pins.
Here they are when done.
Next, Grae chose some pipe cleaners from our stash, we cut them in half, and bent them into little antennae shapes.
When we got back to our filters, they weren’t quite dry yet, so we took a blowdryer to them. 10 seconds each was all they needed.
To assemble the butterflies, we simply pinched them across the middle (Miss G did this job) and fanned the wings out nicely (my job).
Then Grae carefully selected a clothespin body and a set of sparkly antennae and we clipped everything together.
Here are are the two butterflies Miss G declared her favourites.
At the last minute, we decided to add magnets to the backs of the clothespins with hot glue (I also popped a little squeeze of glue into the tops of the clothespins too, just to hold everything together more permanently).
And here’s my proud little girl with her finished project.
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
Miss G and I have been loving this simple twist on the 
For extra flavour and an extra burst of nutrients, my little smoothie lover and I top our drinks with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Of course she just slurps it all up. 
When I learned about 
The story, which was originally a lullaby written by singer songwriter 
Accompanying the soft, lyrical words are gorgeous, dream-like watercolour illustrations done by artist Shari-Anne Vis. Gracen and I were lucky enough to meet Shari-Anne {and her little boy} a while back and not only is she absolutely lovely {and obviously remarkably talented}, but she’s a real mom, which I just adore.
Grae and I have enjoyed this book time and again over the course of the last few weeks. She loves the whimsical little animals throughout and the book is the perfect size to take along with us in the car.
And as an added bonus, included is a link so you can enjoy Sheree’s song and the book {and a little drum session if you’re Grae} at once.
{this post contains affiliate links}
This creative table set up had a good long run in our house… It’s been worked on day in and out for over a week now, and I’m sure Gracen would still be adding to it if there was any sticky space left on the contact paper. 
When it began, it looked like this… A piece of clear contact paper, sticky side up, tacked down to one of our vintage apple crates (it could just as easily be taped down to a table top), and a few little jars of decorating goodies, as Miss G calls them.
Included were sequins, confetti, tissue squares, and a container of glitter.
Although I often set up Gracen’s creative tables while she’s sleeping, this time around she helped me set up, selecting the glitter (of course) and the sequins to be part of it.
When we’d finished gather our materials, she began creating without direction or instruction… Carefully adding each item, one at a time, and pressing them down onto the sticky paper.
The lovely thing about contact paper is that because everything sticks to it, projects (even when they include a full bottle of glitter) never get wildly messy.
Grae revisited it daily, adding a little bit each time, until today when we decided it was time to switch things up a little.
Now we could have easily called it quits at this point, because art like this is definitely about the process and not the finished product, but Grae had announced early on that she would be hanging her finished piece on her bedroom door. In order to preserve it a little better, we took out our contact paper once again and cut a piece the same size as the original one.
I then peeled the backing off of just the top edge of the new sheet, carefully lined it up with the art piece, and pressed the two sheets, sticky sides together, down. Afterwards, I pulled the remaining backing off in order to cover the entire piece.
Here’s what it looked like with everything sealed in. We could have left it as is, but Gracen chose to cut it into two hearts rather than keep it as one large rectangle.
Here’s the finished product. She very proudly hung it on her 
This is ridiculously easy way to amp up the bath time fun, but it may just be Gracen’s favourite of all time. I wish I had a video of the shrieking, jumping, splashing, and balloon batting just to illustrate what a hit it was. Lucky for us, our tub has sliding glass doors, so the crazy was at least contained. ☺
I decided to try this tonight for Gracen’s half birthday, but it make a great regular birthday bath, and would be just as well received any day of the year I’m sure.
Just fill up the tub nice and full, add some bubbles and a bunch of balloons (I think 10 is a good number if you want it nice and full) and let the fun unfold.
It seems like one of our weekend traditions has become going out for afternoon tea as a family of three. We have lots of little local cafes we love to support around the city, but one thing I’ve noticed is that many of them close between 4 and 5, which often doesn’t work out well with Gracen’s afternoon nap. 
While they don’t have a kids’ area like many of our favourites do, I did spy a big empty corner near the washrooms that would make a perfect kid-friendly space, so maybe it’ll happen one day? I don’t know… I do realize not every establishment wants to cater to children and I completely understand, but I can still hope right? ☺
Our drinks were good, the baked goods were yummy, and the overall space was lovely – bright, open, and modern. Gracen loved watching food being made from above and I enjoyed {politely} checking out the 
Super excited.
‘I thought we were just having a leisurely swing, Papa?’
‘Everyone hold on!’
Mama and G.
Slide race!
The perfect hiding spot.
Moccasin feet.
‘Uh, Papa? What are you doing?’
Wheeeee!
A long while ago, while we were home in the Okanagan for Thanksgiving, I mentioned a wooden 
Gracen’s Poppop built it for her (adding a very useful top shelf), and though it still needs a little sanding and a few coats of paint, we put it to use as soon as it arrived and it’s been in Gracen’s room ever since (we’ll get to the painting…eventually…) 
To add to the few Halloween things we had and the 
She now has everything from one piece numbers, to tutus, boas, wings, hats, glasses, bandanas, and crowns.
Needless to say, dressing up has been a popular activity in our house for a long while now… Not to mention that I love all of the pretend play and role play it encourages. 
Although it’s not currently the right time of year, if you’re planning on starting a tickle trunk for your little one, I’d highly recommend shopping in the few days just after Halloween. I got this cute little fleece robot costume at the beginning of Novemeber for $1.82 when costumes were 90% off (seriously, in the words of Brad, it was costing me more NOT to buy it ☺).
Watching: To be honest, not a whole lot. Though we turn on the television for a little bit each day while she slurps up her post-nap milk, lately she just hasn’t been interested. We usually end up turning it off 3 minutes later and move on to reading books instead (which suits me just fine ☺). Besides that, she does still enjoy watching her usual music videos.