After meeting Brad in the Calgary airport and arriving in BC last night, Miss G woke up this morning, threw on some gumboots, and headed out into the backyard.
Category Archives: iphoneography
Frog Catching & Donkey Riding
Whew! What a day. Knowing that we had a babysitter hired for tonight, our goal for this afternoon was to tire the munchkins out as much as possible in hopes of having them all in bed before leaving. Our plan? An afternoon outdoors and a heavy dose of fresh air, sunshine, and physical activity.
Rock Painting {a summer favourite}
Headed Home {Kuwait to Calgary}
Well, after 30 hours in transit, only 6 of which Miss G spent sleeping, we arrived home in Canada this afternoon. {WOOHOO!} So how was travelling alone with a 3 year old for over a day? It was alright, actually. We skipped bringing a stroller along and didn’t use our hotel voucher during our 9 hour layover, but we did come prepared with lots of activities and yummy healthy snacks. The first part of the journey, the part that happened during the middle of the night from Kuwait to Germany, was a little rough. Grae was tired, I was tired, and the full service that took place after we were up in the air wasn’t all that helpful. After landing in Frankfurt, however, things began looking up. We roamed the airport in pajamas, found some great play areas, pulled out a bunch of activities, and got a nice lunch. We started our next {9.5 hour} flight to Calgary with a 3 our snooze for Miss G, which meant that I got a much needed break and some time to recharge. We arrived in Calgary to a 2 hour wait in passport control, but by then, we were too excited to be home to let that get us down.
Here’s our trip in iPhone photos…
Earache
Party Girl
iPhoneography // Wheeee!
Someone convinced her papa to tackle the giant bouncy slide with her at today’s courtyard birthday party. ☺
iPhoneography // Snuggles Turned Sleep
iPhoneography // India Activities
This month’s Bright Minds theme is ‘Around the World’, which I was super excited about after designing and running our school’s ‘Passport to Adventure’ themed camp a few years ago.
iPhoneography // Lady Bug Day
This week’s Bright Minds theme is lady bugs and Grae was so looking forward to our Crafty Kids class that she made sure to wear an outfit that included red. Little did she know, however, that she’d find a full-on lady bug costume upon arrival.
iPhoneography // Friday Family Day
This week’s been sort of rough. Miss G’s been extra needy and I’ve been staying up extra late in order to finish up a big project I’ve been working on. Needless to say, the tired mama / whiny 3 year old is not the best of combinations. We made it through the week and my hope was that the weekend would serve as a reset.
Luckily, so far so good {thank goodness}.
Our morning started with Gracen experimenting with drinking water like a lion – something she’s been asking to do for days. {Have I mentioned that she is totally Lion King obsessed?! Oy. It’s out.of.control.} When I asked if she was ready to go to the Hilton, her response was, ‘Yup, Queen Sarabi. I just have to finish drinking my pond water.’ The girl didn’t skip a beat. The bulk of our morning was spent split between swimming in a waterfront pool and playing on the beach of the Arabian Gulf, which was lovely. Then, after coming home for lunch and a nap, we met some friends down in the courtyard and gave the concrete a little makeover using squeeze bottles filled with our favourite sidewalk chalk paint recipe. Later in the evening, our very good friends dropped off a very unnecessary thank you gift – Ladurée macarons and special homemade, wholewheat, sugar-free cookies for Miss G {sweetest thing ever}.
As far as days go, I’d say this is pretty much as good as it gets. And the best part? Gracen is back to her happy little self. Ahhhh…
iPhoneography // Spider Activities
Today at Bright Minds we focused on spiders. Our key concepts included the fact that spiders are not insects {they eat often eat insects}, spiders have 8 legs, spiders spin webs of silk, and those webs help them to catch food. We started the class with a really fun activity where we passed a huge ball of white wool back and forth across a circle, unraveling it and having the kids hold onto the yarn tightly as we went. The result was a giant collaborative spider web that I then flew giant insect figurines through in order to illustrate how spiders collect their food.
Afterwards, we created our own spider webs using hole-punched paper plates and yarn, and then made handprint spiders like we do each year at Halloween to attach them. {This is Grae’s spider and she is a girl, fyi.}
iPhoneography // Butterfly Activities
Though we won’t be able to raise butterflies this spring, we did get to learn all about them today in our butterfly-themed crafting class at Bright Minds. We kept things pretty simple since the class is for 2 and 3 year olds and focused on the four main stages of the butterfly’s life cycle, the parts of the butterfly’s body, and the fact that butterflies are insects. Here are the projects Grae worked on…
The 4 stages of the butterfly’s life cycle in pasta…
iPhoneography // February Sky
A gorgeous evening in the courtyard… Now if only we could convince the weather to stay just like this year round.
iPhoneography // Heart Pancakes
With nowhere to be this morning, Miss G and I declared it a pancake day. Her request? Making them heart-shaped. {Why not, right?} We whipped up a batch of our usual wholewheat flax and oat pancake batter and attempted to make it pink with the addition of beet juice. It didn’t work the way I was hoping it would {or at all really}, but oh well! We put our batter into the same squeeze bottle we use when we make spiderweb pancakes, and then simply created heart-shaped outlines and filled them in.