Adorably Awkward Sentences

6 / 7 / 126 / 7 / 12

Watching Gracen (and kids in general) pick up language is nothing short of fascinating. In the past couple of months, she’s begun learning and using new words at an explosive rate. I try to keep track of them by quickly punching them into my iPhone Notes app once they become part of her regular everyday chatter, but I’m nearly at the point giving up that endeavour. With well over 200 words in play and my mommy brain factored in, it’s just becoming too difficult for my scattered brain to keep track of what’s old and what’s new.

What I’m finding more fascinating than new words, however, is the little phrases she’s recently begun putting together. She’s been using pairs of words for a while now (“more please”, “tea pot”, “Mama Papa Bubba” – her name for our family, hence the blog name), but she’s just really started to string multiple words together to convey meaning and describe the world around her. She doesn’t have all of the pronouns needed to properly link her words and she sometimes pauses for more than a usual amount of time between words, so the result is adorably awkward little sentences.

Here are two from tonight…

Upon noticing a man in a blue turban walking down the street:

“Mama – blue hat on hair!” (while pointing of course)

After I told her that we were skipping bath time tonight and getting ready for bed right away instead:

“Mama-Papa-Bubba-allllll-sleep!”

♥

And on a completely different note, guess what I spied while brushing Miss G’s teeth tonight… Yup, two big bottom molars forcing their way up through her gums. Hello again, teething.

Morning Painting

6 / 7 / 126 / 9 / 12

Yesterday Grae and I took a little walk and picked up a few craft supplies and sensory bin items along the way. Besides a few squishy ocean animals she picked, one of Grae’s favourite items was a little wooden birdhouse she chose out herself. It was just begging for some colour, so today we started our day off right – with some painting. I gave the birdhouse a quick base coat and then Little G got busy. She was very serious about it all and pleaded for more when she had used up all of her paint.

Perhaps she’ll be an artist like her Baba one day?

♥

Proud Girl

6 / 7 / 126 / 9 / 12

Off to the mailbox with letters for her grandparents.

♥

The Outpost Cafe

6 / 7 / 121 / 23 / 13

Today Gracen and I visited one of the places that has long been on my ‘rainy day to do list’… And while it wasn’t actually raining, it was one of those dreary, chilly days that makes you crave a good cup of coffee in the warmth of a quietly busy cafe. We headed down Fraser Street in search of The Outpost Cafe, and after circling the block twice and driving past three times, I finally noticed the shop nestled in a small string of semi-deserted-looking businesses. I’d heard all kinds of good things about the delicious coffee, homemade food, and open-to-the-public and child-friendly ‘staffroom’, and despite its very modest storefront, it did not disappoint. My latte was perfectly satisfying and the separate munchkin-centred room was exactly what all coffee shops need in order to allow caffeine-craving mamas a few minutes to enjoy their fix. I sipped my latte leisurely while Grae gobbled up her Larabar (she spilt her entire steamed milk not a moment after purchasing it) and moved on to investigating each and every toy the room had to offer. And on top of all the fun things left out to explore, the room hosts a giant blackboard wall {along with several buckets of colourful chalk} just waiting to be drawn upon.

Gracen had an absolute blast and I had what was one of my most peaceful cups of coffee I’ve had since Gracen arrived in this world 21 months ago. Here’s to another rainy day escape being added to our repertoire.

♥

Construction Sensory Bin

6 / 5 / 123 / 24 / 14

After our grasshead hairstyling session this afternoon, we headed out into the warmth of our solarium to explore something else I had set up during nap time… A new sensory bin! Truthfully, I wanted to create a construction sensory bin, but didn’t really have the materials I needed. I improvised and included some ‘building cups’, a shovel, a rake, a pumpkin scraper, and the one and only actual construction thing I could find – a little front loader. Of course, Gracen didn’t mind a bit that there wasn’t the variety of construction vehicles, workers, and signs that Mama had wanted. She got busy taking apart the towers, rebuilding them, scooping up pebbles, dumping them, and driving her little front loader up and down the rock hill. She did of course get into the bin and even tried laying down and rolling around in the pebbles this time around… Silly girl!

♥

Grassheads: Hairstyle Edition

6 / 5 / 126 / 6 / 12

A couple of months ago, on a very rainy Vancouver day, we had a little family crafternoon and put together Gracen’s first ever grassheads. Ever since, they’ve been sitting atop their mason jars on our kitchen window sill, soaking up the sunshine and drinking up loads of water. Of course, our little magic girl’s grasshead has grown far better than Mama’s or Papa’s.

This is what it looked like this morning…
About time for a hairdo of some sort, I’d say. So while Gracen napped, I set up a little play invitation for her. I gathered up some hair goodies, a couple of elastics, and an old hairbrush and set them all out on her table along with her grasshead.

This was her reaction when she saw what I’d set out for her… Kisses for the grasshead! Apparently she liked what she saw.
She wasted no time getting started. She climbed up on the chair, and got busy trying to put the clips in. It wasn’t easy, but with a little bit of help, she put every single clip in the grasshead’s hair.

Next up was the headband.
That is, until she decided she’d wear it instead!

Done with the first hairstyle! Future hairstylist? I’d say so.
Afterwards, I helped her make little grass pigtails. She thought it was completely hilarious and kept stroking her own pigtails and then pointing to those belonging to the grasshead.

Overall, Gracen loved this activity. My only wish is that I had taught her how to properly use scissors by now so that the grasshead could have gotten a little trim! I guess we have something new to work on. ☺

Toddler Food: What Miss G Eats {14}

6 / 5 / 126 / 5 / 12

Another week, another Toddler Food post… Enjoy!

Breakfast // Plain organic whole yogurt with hemp hearts, ground flax, and white nectarines.

Breakfast // Wholewheat flax crepe with bananas and all-natural almond butter.
Breakfast // Veggie parmesan scramble. Hami melon. Wholewheat oat pancake with all-natural almond butter.

Breakfast // Fruit salad. Toasted Ezekiel hearts with all-natural peanut butter and Crofter’s Organic Just Fruit Spread.
Breakfast // Organic o’s. Grapefruit sections. Plain organic whole yogurt with Chia Goodness, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds.

Snack // Rye crisp bread with all-natural cream cheese and avocado.
Snack // Endurance cracker.

Snack // Banana bites with all-natural almond butter and organic dried cranberries (from bottom left: raw sunflower seeds, unsweetened coconut, sesame seeds, raw peanuts).
Snack // No-salt-added chickpeas. Endurance crackers with all-natural cream cheese and almond butter.

Snack // Cottage cheese.
Snack // Wholewheat flax crepe roll-ups (peanut butter and banana).

Snacks & Lunch // Larabar. Wholewheat flatbread sandwich with all-natural peanut butter, seeds, and raisins. No-salt-added chickpeas. Orange pepper slices. Purple grapes. Pecan, cranberry, and pumpkin seed trail mix. Freeze-dried raspberries.
Snacks & Lunch // Multigrain breadsticks. Endurance crackers. Cheddar cubes. Mixed dried / freeze-dried fruit. Carrot. Wholewheat flax crepe roll-up with all-natural peanut butter. No-salt-added chickpeas.

Lunch // Creamy wholewheat spaghetti with fresh spinach and roasted chicken.

Lunch // Almond, apple, cranberry chicken salad on peasant farmer flax bread. Blueberries. Cheese.
Lunch // Spicy black bean pasta salad (brown rice flax rotini, no-salt-added black beans, red and yellow peppers, red onion, cheddar cheese, cilantro lime dressing, and chili flakes).
Dinner // Veggie peanut stir-fry on wholewheat pasta.
Dinner // Roasted chicken, avocado, spinach, and cranberry wrap.

Dinner // Chicken and bean burrito baked in tomatillo sauce with mozzarella cheese. Mexican green salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette.
Dinner // Shrimp and veggie buckwheat soba noodle soup.

Dinner // Chicken, veggie, and wild rice soup.
Dinner // Turkey and spinach lasagna. Green salad with feta and seeds.

Special drink // Vegan no-sugar-added chocolate mint smoothie. (This was her first taste of anything remotely chocolate, and she was NOT a fan!)

Potty Breaks on the Go

6 / 4 / 126 / 4 / 12

The downside to having an early potty trained toddler? Hearing a little voice from the backseat of the car announce, “Mama, Mama! Peepee, peepee!” while driving over a busy bridge during Vancouver rush hour. Ugh. Not fun. Slightly panicked, you turn on the calm mommy voice, coach your little one not to pee just yet, and reassure her that you’re going to find a safe spot to pull over ASAP. Luckily, during the 7 months Gracen’s been diaper-free, we have had a pretty good success rate in situations like these. Our saviour has definitely been this potty from Ikea. We always have it in the back of our vehicle and we’ve used it countless times, especially when traveling to and from the Okanagan. The beauty of it is its simplicity. It’s super lightweight, relatively small, and so inexpensive, you could have one in your car and every room in your house if you wanted! Lucky for us, the fluorescent green car potty saved us once again today. ☺

iPhoneography // Another Day, More Instagram

6 / 4 / 126 / 4 / 12

Admittedly, I am the very last person in the world to jump on the Instagram wagon. In my defense, I’ve actually had the app for a really long time, but just kind of randomly started using it the other day. I’ve been having so much fun with it that I’ve kind of put my real camera aside for the last couple of days, but I promise that’ll come to an end very soon. In the meantime, here is some of our day via Instagram…

steamed milk stop // making music

tunnel crawling // canadian girl

gracen to the rescue // frogs like to smell flowers too

clover // newly organized

apple store visit // soup for dinner

♥

P.S. Find me on Instagram at jkossowan.

Book Lover

6 / 3 / 126 / 3 / 12

Gracen adores books. In fact, although I’m sure they’re out there, in all the years I’ve spent with little ones, I don’t think I’ve ever met another one year old who genuinely loves books and reading as much as she does. We start our days reading, end our days reading, and sprinkle stories throughout our mornings and afternoons. It’s not something we only do together either… When the house grows a little too quiet, 9 times out of 10, she can be found in a quiet corner snuggled up with a book. And if I’m being completely truthful, I’d mention the fact that we have a basket specifically for itty bitty ‘bedtime books’ that Gracen very seriously sorts through each night before picking one to sleep with (I know, I know… Not a good comfort object, but you’d totally let go of all judgement if you heard her little voice reading to her bear each night before drifting off to sleep… It melts my mama heart into a pile of mush.) Here are a few little moments from our bookworm’s day… If there’s anything she likes more than actually reading books, it’s being asked questions about what she sees in books.

Saturday Snapshots

6 / 2 / 126 / 3 / 12

After a quick torrential downpour and a whole family nap (amazing!) the sun decided to grace us with its presence. After a string of rainy days, we wasted no time heading out into the backyard to soak up a little dose of vitamin D. We gathered up some sidewalk chalk, bubbles, our cloud dough sensory bin, a water sensory bin, a tricycle and a bicycle, multiple blankets, and homemade popsicles and enjoyed a laid-back afternoon outdoors, just the three of us. Here are a few snapshots…

♥

Saturday Morning Fort

6 / 2 / 126 / 2 / 12

An early morning fort filled with tea and stories to start our Saturday…

♥

Letting Loose, Play Palace Style

6 / 1 / 125 / 13 / 13

After waking up to yet another {very} rainy day, I decided it was time for some dry, indoor fun this time around… So off to the Kerrisdale Play Palace we went! I don’t know what it was about today (perhaps it was her nearly 13 hour sleep last night or it being her second visit – she’s a veteran now), but Gracen was absolute WILD woman! Walking into the rink was like letting a bucking bronco loose after keeping him in the gates for an abnormally long time. The moment she stepped foot onto the concrete, she was running and jumping and squealing and flinging her little body around like it was the last day she’d ever get to play in her life. Just a guess, but apparently she thinks the Play Palace is pretty awesome.

She didn’t waste any time getting down to business. First she hit up some old favourites…

And then it was off to try some new things… See that little monkey climbing up that inflatable ladder? Last time she got half way up, panicked, and we had to retrieve her. Not this time though. Apparently she’s a big girl now because she climbed up and zoomed down on repeat.

And then there was this. Never in her life has she ever gone down a slide on anything but her bottom, but today she was all about belly-down, face-first.

Oh, and going down with her little ‘yeehaw arm’ in full effect.

Later on, she saw a big girl climb up for a ride on the shark’s back, and she was desperate to do the same. After letting her try and try again to get on, I finally broke all the rules, climbed up onto the inflatable while the supervisor wasn’t looking, and helped her up. (Shhhhh… Don’t tell.)
Strangely enough though, today’s absolute favourite was the foosball tables. She kept going back to them again and again and when I told her we only had time to do one more thing, she picked going back for some more table football.

It was the perfect way to spend our rainy morning. I left with a dishevelled, tired little monkey who was more than ready for her nap when we got home.

♥

Mama Happy?

6 / 1 / 126 / 1 / 12

Gracen: (standing 5 feet away while pretending to rub hands together) Dry, dry, dry, Mama? Hands dry, dry, dry?

Mama: Are you hands wet, Grae?

Gracen: (slowly nodding while shaking her head) Dirty.

Mama: Your hands are dirty? Do you mean ‘wash, wash, wash’?

Gracen: (nodding, cautiously shows hand with thumb and pointer all covered in orange-ish guck, worried look on her face) Mama happy? Mama happy?

Mama: (puzzled and running through the laundry list of things that could be the source of the guck)

Gracen: (now nodding purposefully and looking as though she’s trying to convince me of the fact that I am indeed feeling happy) Happy Mama?

Mama: (stern mommy voice in play) What did you get into, Lulu?

Gracen: Nooooo. Mama happy!

Mama: Show Mama what you were touching.

Gracen: (puts head down and reluctantly walks to the kitchen)

Mama: (quickly surveying the scene) What were you touching, Grae?

Gracen: (slowly raises arm and points to counter with the fruit bowl on it)

Mama: (sees the step stool pulled up to the counter and a very ripe mango with a giant finger poke hole in it)

Gracen: (cocks head to the side and stretches on a forced little smile) Mama happy?

♥

Endurance Crackers

5 / 31 / 126 / 1 / 12

When I stumbled upon this recipe last week on Oh She Glows, I knew we had to give it a try very soon. Gracen loves all things crunchy (crackers especially) and lives for nuts and seeds, so the recipe really couldn’t be suited to her any better. Plus, the list of ingredients includes things we always have in the house… Score.

To get started, we collected our ingredients (this has become one of Gracen’s favourite parts of cooking… I retrieve the items from the cupboards and fridge, and she walks back and forth, carefully depositing them on the butcher block one at a time)… Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, Chia Goodness (plain chia seeds would work just as well), sesame seeds, finely chopped sweet onion and garlic, water, and kosher salt is what you’ll need.
Start off by dumping your pumpkin seeds into a large mixing bowl.

Add the sunflower seeds…

Sesame seeds…

And Chia Goodness (or plain chia).

Give the seeds a little mix and set the bowl aside.

Get out a separate smaller bowl, and dump in your onion and garlic.

Then add the water.

Stir the mixture for a minute.

Next, pour the water mixture into the seed mixture.
Stir really well, allowing enough time for the chia seeds to absorb the water and thicken the mixture.

If you’re a seed fiend like this little one is, now would be a great time to sneak a few pinchfuls into your mouth.
Next, take a few pinches of kosher salt, add them to your mixture, and stir again.

Dump the mixture onto a large parchment-lined baking sheet.

Using the back of a spoon, spread the mixture out into a very thin layer. Don’t be too worried about holes – they’re easy to patch up at the end. (If you’re working with a little one, this part will definitely require a little grown-up help. I let Gracen flatten the mound at the beginning and pat down my spreading job at the very end and she was pleased with that.)
If your monkey is anything like mine, they may try to lick the seeds straight off the pan. (No joke – this really happened. Multiple times in fact. Crazy girl.)

In the end, we settled on her licking the spoon in exchange for keeping her tongue off of our oven-ready crackers.
Next, it’s time to pop the pan into the oven.

Halfway through the baking time, remove the pan from the oven and slice up your crackers (I used a pizza cutter and it worked great). Crackers can be as big or as small as you want them to be and can be cut in squares, triangles, diamonds, or any other shape your little heart desires.

Once cut, use a spatula to help you flip the crackers over (this step was surprisingly easier than I expected it to be) and pop them back in the oven for the remainder of the time.
When you take them out, they should be crispy and golden.

Allow to cool, then gently remove them from the pan.
Serve to your very anxious and excited toddler. Be prepared to hear “Mmmmmmmm!” and “More! More! More!” endlessly.

These crackers are truly delicious. They’re light and crispy and have a perfectly nutty / savoury flavour. Not to mention that they’re vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, and oil-free, so they’re the perfect snack for just about anyone!

Endurance Crackers

1/2 cup of raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup of raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup of raw sesame seeds
1/2 cup of Chia Goodness (or plain chia seeds)

1 cup water
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon of finely chopped sweet onion
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, or to taste

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix the seeds together. In a small bowl, mix the water, garlic, and onion. Whisk well.

Pour the water mixture onto the seeds and stir until thick and combined. Season with salt to taste. Add spices or fresh herbs if you wish.

Spread the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet with the back of a spoon until it’s less than 1/4 inch thick. Not to worry if a couple parts become too thin, you can just patch them up at the end.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, slice into crackers, and carefully flip onto other side with a spatula. Bake for another 30 minutes, watching closely after about 25 minutes. The bottoms will be lightly golden in colour. Allow to cool completely on the pan. Store in a container or plastic baggy.

Enjoy!

You can see our other favourite homemade crackers here.