Today we woke up to the first dry morning we’ve had in days… So though we already had plans for a lovely indoor day, we put them on hold, layered up, and headed down to the beach for a morning of fresh ocean air. It’s been quite a while since our last beach day, but our routine little lady didn’t skip a beat. Our visit went as all of them do – playground time, a walk to Starbucks for a hot drink, actual beach time to collect treasures in the sand and dip our toes in the ocean, and then back to the playground for a second round of play before heading home for lunch and a nap.
Here is our morning in photos…
Uncovering treasures in the sand pit.
Cashews and a steamed milk while making friends through the window.
Driftwood collector.
“Mama takes a picture of Grae!”
“A little bit farther?”
Running from waves.
“Here birdie. Have dis green leaf.”
Sand drawings.
Water watching.
Admiring our autumn-coloured city.
Hand wash.
“No almost time for home. Grae Grae naps on the log!”
“It’s cooooooomforble, Mama.”
Suddenly she can do this.
“Spin it, Mama! Spin it!”
Little adventurer. (She climbed to the very top of this play structure and went down the giant tube slide all by herself. THREE times.)
♥
This morning Grae and I woke up and decided on pancakes for breakfast. We were just about to gather our ingredients as the phone rang. As I snuck in a very quick conversation with my sister-in-law, Miss G got started without me apparently… Anyone up for cornmeal-cocoa-double-salt-tomato pancakes?
After stopping by Uncle Brett’s house for a quick visit, we made our way down his street. Grae was so excited, and within a couple of houses, she had the knock, “trick-or-treat”, and “thank you!” down pat.
After carefully making her way down the steps, she’d squeal, “Different house! Different house! Yook for yights… Yook for punkins!!!”
Then she’d quickly find another and shout, “Go to dis house!” The girl was into it.
After looping around, visiting the houses on the other side of the street, and making our way back to our car, we headed back to our neighbourhood. By then, the rain had lightened up quite a lot, so we headed into the backyard to light some sparklers.
I’m not sure where I originally saw it, but I remember seeing someone using a plastic cup as a sparkler shield during 4th of July festivities with their kiddos. Brilliant, really. Before heading out I had cut a tiny ‘x’ on the bottom of an extra party cup we had from Gracen’s birthday party, so all we had to do was poke our extra long sparklers through just a bit, and light them. 
It worked like a charm. 
And since I only poked them through a little bit, the part Gracen was hanging onto didn’t get hot at all.
Gracen happily held on until the sparklers were about half way down, then she’d pass them to one of us, and ask for a new one.
Before heading in, we quickly snapped a couple of shots of Gracen and I, because although we always have a ton of photos of Grae and Bradley together, pictures of Mama and Grae are few and far between. (Sadly, by this point I was soaking wet falling apart mess, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.)
Inside, Gracen dumped out all of the treats she’d collected. Can you tell we had infused them with an equal amount of healthier “treats”? Haha! Who says people don’t hand out stamps, stickers, pretzels, seeds, crackers, organic fruit leather, and organic yogurt-covered raisins (a HUGE treat in our house)? ☺
Grae then sorted the piles into a “Gracen pile” and a “Mama/Papa pile”, giving us all of the delicious, but terrible for you chocolate and candy, and happily giving herself all of the ‘Mama approved’ treats (that’s our girl!) 
What I like so much about this sort of slime (besides how cool it is to play with), is that despite the fact that it looks like it can get pretty messy, it’s very easy to tidy. Because it acts more like a solid when removed from little people, dishes, and blankets, it just kind of clumps up and comes away clean. Plus, it doesn’t stain skin and it washes off of clothes and blankets without any effort. Messy play being easy to tidy? A definite win in my books.
It’s been a busy day for us so far… After an early morning visit to 
Gracen was so excited to visit her Papa and show him the treat bag she’d made at school and even more excited to go from one classroom to the next, popping in to say hello to all of the lovely teachers.
What she wasn’t excited about, however, was leaving without Papa in tow. Poor little lady cried her most pitiful cry and ran back to Papa twice after already saying goodbye and escaping Mama’s grasp. ☹
With a handful of brushes and little containers of purple, green, orange, black, and glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint, Grae got busy beautifying her pumpkin.
It was the best of both worlds, because not only did she get to decorate her pumpkin, but she also got to help us do all of the fun messy parts of carving ours.
After having her fill of icky gunk scooping, it was back to pumpkin painting. She covered the entire thing in a thick layer of paint and then we let it dry overnight.
The next day, we used a little trick I learned years and years ago and cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin (no need to mess with trying to get a lit candle in through the top – you simply set your candle down on a surface and place the pumpkin on top). Together, we scooped the insides out and used our apple corer to polka dot the pumpkin’s surface (which worked brilliantly, btw). 
Gracen loves it. It glows just like Mama and Papa’s jack-o-lanterns do, and we were able to preserve almost all of her painting masterpiece.
Bright and early this morning {while still in pajamas}, Gracen and I put together some little Halloween treats for her “yittle dance class fends”. While a little non-traditional, I wanted to make something Gracen-friendly (she hasn’t had refined sugar / junk yet) and call me a downer, but between sweets from family members, school, and trick-or-treating, I think most kids get more than enough junk on Halloween as it is. Our alternative? Mini mason jars filled with sparkly slime. ☺
First off, Miss G helped me collect a few ingredients from around the house… Warm water, Borax, food colouring, glitter, and white glue.
To get us started, she emptied a generous amount of white glue into a large mixing bowl…
Then added some warm water…
A single drop of gel food colouring (she chose pink which isn’t particularly Halloween-ish, but I figure it’s perfect for a group of teeny tiny ballerinas)…
And a liberal amount of glitter.
Then we stirred everything up really well until the mixture was smooth and all of the glue globs had disappeared.
After setting our glue / water mixture aside, we added some Borax to the remaining warm water…
And stirred it well.
Then it was time for the magic! While Gracen gently stirred the glue / water mixture, I slowly began pouring the water / Borax mixture in.
In just seconds, we could see the liquid starting to thicken up and come together in a large mass.
Once everything had been well mixed, I poured out what little excess water was left and Grae began kneading the slime. Before long, the slime was firmer, less sticky, and ready to be packaged.
But not before sneaking in a little play time first though. ☺
Afterwards, we separated our pink sparkly concoction into 12 mini mason jars, which we already had on hand from the individual mason jar cheesecakes we had at 
With our slime divided into containers, it was off to the computer next. Gracen chose some fluorescent pink paper and the pumpkin clipart, I chose the fonts, and together we came up with these super simple labels.
A little orange marker and a dash of sparkle, and here’s the finished product.
While searching for a basic hat pattern for our Waldo and Wenda costumes, I came across 
The coffee was strong, the pretzels were exactly as they should be, and Brad’s hot chocolate was ridiculously large and served in a beautiful bowl (we also ordered a cinnamon bun, but it disappeared so quickly that I didn’t manage to get a bite… I take it it was delicious).
On the way out, the super sweet owner, who is also a local mom, sent us on our way with a loaf of pumpkin seed bread and this adorable little dragon-shaped chocolate chip pastry (we visited just before closing on a Saturday) and both were absolutely delicious. So delicious, in fact, that we may have to make a weekly trip just for the bread alone. 
Tonight Gracen and I whipped up some insanely easy “paint” to amp up this evening’s bath time fun. The best news? It only contains two ingredients.
Before getting started, we rounded up a few things… 
With our materials gathered, we got started by pouring some of our liquid soap into our containers.
Next, Gracen squeezed a few drops of food colouring into each.
And gently stirred the colour into the soap.
That’s it! Less than two minutes later and we were ready for bath time.
Once in the tub, Gracen happily painted the tiles with “numbers” and “zigzags” using her homemade paint. It was a messy, drippy, bubbly good time.
Another perk? We ended up with a blue and purple bubbly tub full of water.
And a squeaky clean toddler who smelled deliciously of almond.
This absolutely EPIC bed head.