Nutritious Baby Cookies

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I love, love, love making nutritious treats for my bubbas and thank goodness for that! While I really wouldn’t mind buying more and saving myself some time, I find that most of the treats and snacks currently marketed towards kids are filled with sugar and other unnecessary ingredients… Even the baby aisle is a scary place! With the exception of Love Child Organics products {which we absolutely love!}, I’ve noticed that most all baby puffs, teething biscuits, fruit / yogurt melts, and finger cereals contain added sugar. Even the stuff labelled as 6 or 7 months and up. Whhhhy?

Easy Heart Balloon Valentines

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My goodness we cut things close this year. I’m not sure what happened… We had our idea weeks ago, our supplies were picked up in plenty of time, and somehow we started making Miss G’s class valentines just this evening. The night before Valentine’s Day. Oops.

Our Valentine’s Tradition

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Today we hosted our 6th {or 7th?} annual Valentine’s Tea… The tradition started in Kuwait when Miss G was just 5 and a half months old and has happened every year since, except for last year. Last year our sweet Sam was fresh out of the NICU and as much as it pained me not to follow through with tradition, having people over just wasn’t worth it with our bubba’s health. We were well warned by our NICU nurses to make it through cold and flu season without him getting sick, so we weren’t taking any chances. A little family celebration over the weekend it was.

Soft Nutritious Breakfast Cookies

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Mmmm… cookies. And for breakfast no less!

These nutritious breakfast cookies have been on regular rotation in our house lately. I’ve been making a big batch on the weekend and pulling them out for easy breakfasts, snacks, and school lunches which has been such a treat. Both of the kids absolutely love them and gobble them up 3 at a time, which is absolutely fine by me! They’re jam-packed with good stuff – whole grains, fruit, veggies, and protein – and include absolutely no added sugar, which means I actually feel good about feeding my munchkins cookies – win!

Baby Play Dough

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If you know me well, you know that my love for play dough runs deep. I’ve loved it for ages… It was a total lifesaver while babysitting and nannying as a teenager and university student, it was a staple in my Kindergarten classrooms when teaching, and it’s always out and available in our house now that I’m a mama. Over the years, Miss G and I have created some pretty amazing recipes… Amazing sand dough, gorgeous starry galaxy dough, lemony dough made with real lemon zest, chai tea latte dough, super soft chocolate dough, celebration dough full of foil glitter, the most fragrant ever gingerbread dough, vanilla mint dough {one of my favourite ever scent combos}, pumpkin spice dough made with real pumpkin… The list could go on.

Shake and Search I Spy Bottle

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Let’s be honest here… Who really has the patience to sit for ages making perler bead creations?? I wish I did. Miss G and I made a few little things the other day and had fun, but truth be told, what we really wanted to do was run our fingers through them – hah! That, or use them for something completely different {and less fine motor skill intensive} than what they’re intended for – like making a simple shake and search I spy bottle.

Snowman Play Dough Kit

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Miss G and I had so much fun with our gingerbread people and christmas tree play dough kits over the holidays that I figured we’d better sneak one more winter themed kit in before spring arrives. This one, a snowman play dough kit, has become a yearly occurence in our house. We’ve even made mini build a snowman play dough kits to gift our friends with in the past.

Water Bead Play for Babies

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I love, love, love water beads and because Sam absolutely loves anything big or small that is ‘ball’ shaped, I knew he’d love them too. The trouble is that we’re still very firmly planted in the put everything in the mouth stage. Old food bits on the floor, dry crunchy leaves, shoes, tissues, sand…it all goes straight into his cute little mouth. So we’re definitely not ready for a water bead sensory bin just yet. That being said, a water bead sensory bag – YES! Putting different activities and materials into a large zip-close bag and taping the top shut is my go-to move when it comes to fun for this little one of mine. It allows him to explore so many things that would normally either be unsafe or at the very least, extremely messy {not that there’s anything wrong with mess – getting messy is important too} and this little water bead play for babies set-up has been a total hit so far!

Bringing Our Preemie Home From the NICU

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Exactly one year ago today, we brought our sweet preemie babe home from the NICU. We had made it.

Mess-Free Marble Painting for Babies

1 / 11 / 171 / 18 / 17

Welp, it’s been exactly one week since my surgery and I’m officially ready to be done with resting and being low key… Sadly though, my body’s not feeling the same way. :/ While I think I honestly thought I’d just hop up off the surgery table with my three little incisions and be on my merry way, this whole having my appendix removed thing has slowed me down more than expected. What I really wanted to do today was to pop Sam into the stroller and go for a long walk in the sun, but with our neighbourhood still being incredibly icy and snowy, I decided not to chance it just yet. For today, my little man and I settled on some indoor fun that was sure not to cause a fall or popped switches – mess-free marble painting.

Season Sensory Bottles

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With Grae and Sam being 5 years apart in age, you’d think that they’d be into completely different things, but I’m actually realizing that there are many projects and activities that we can do and tweak just slightly so that both munchkins enjoy them. These season sensory bottles are so much fun and definitely one of those projects that both kiddos got something out of. {Not to mention that they look super pretty sitting on a playroom shelf or window sill.}

Chunky Monkey Frozen Yogurt Bites

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My Miss G… My goodness, she’s growing up. At the moment, she wants nothing more than to be a teenager. 16 is the magical age she talks about most and she just can’t wait to get there {ugh},. Of course this also means she wants to do everything very teenagerish too… She wants to read grown up books, wear grown up clothes, talk in a grown up way, and basically do everything on her own – including cooking. Her absolute favourite is ‘invent cooking’, which means pulling random ingredients out of the fridge and pantry to mix up mystery concoctions {and admittedly takes some letting go on my part}, but she’s also beginning to have quite a repertoire of actual recipes she can make on her own too. These chunky monkey frozen yogurt bites are easy peasey for her to make solo and they’re also a very favourite breakfast and snack. And the best part? We almost always have a jar of them in the freezer, which means that we always have something yummy and ready to eat when needed.

Discovery Baskets for Babies and Toddlers

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Miss G and I have been having such fun putting together fun little discovery baskets for our sweet Sam to discover and explore. He loves them because it means that he gets to put his curious little hands all over all kinds of things he may not often have the opportunity to explore, and I love them because they’re fun and super easy to pull together. Plus I get to watch him very carefully inspect each object independently, which in my mama opinion, is the cutest thing ever.

New Year’s Eve {2016}

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I’ve been a terrible blogger this year… Between adjusting to life as a mama of two and having a baby who cried for the first several months he was home and hasn’t slept for longer than a couple of hours at a time {at most} for the last several months, some days I feel like I’m just keeping afloat. These days I’m lucky if I get my post into CBC Parents each week and post something here every week or two, but I’m hoping that’ll change this year. We’ve got a new plan in place to help our sweet boy master the art of sleep and if we’re successful, I should finally have a little bit of extra time during naps and after bedtime. We’ll see, but I’m hopeful!

So with that, I’m kicking off 2017 with a peek at our New Year’s Eve… Doing so means I can’t soon forget all the fun we had today – the insane snowfall we got here in Vancouver, how much our girl adores reading at 6 years old {and how much her baby brother looks up to her}, our first ever outdoor silly string fight, and the deliciousness that is our annual NYE fondue night {yum}.

Here’s our NYE in iPhone photos…

plans in place

Christmas Eve {2016}

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This whole sneaking away for a quiet, low key Christmas thing… Can we do it every year? Pretty please?? We only just arrived here on Salt Spring yesterday, but I’m already in love with Christmas 2016. We have both of our babies at home with us this year {best feeling ever!}, we really have nothing to do, and there’s little to no holiday stress involved. Love it.