After travelling all over the world with Miss G {hello 36 hour treks to and from Kuwait!}, a six hour road trip really isn’t a big deal to us. That being said, our little lady is a huuuuuuuuuuge talker, and sometimes you just need to have a moment of quiet {or a moment to talk to your spouse} while in the car. That, and sometimes our little Sam Jam just needs a moment of silence in order to fall asleep… Big sisters’ animated stories and ramblings are much too interesting to doze off to {obviously}!
Okay, so I admit it – we’re a bit play dough kit obsessed over here. We can’t help it. Play dough is something that we play with on a daily basis and having pre-made kits filled with dough and interesting loose parts makes it really easy to delve into the fun – everything that’s needed is right there in a container waiting to be taken out! It also means that Grae can easily help herself to a kit and have a fun activity pre-prepared for independent play times, which I love.
When Gracen gets invited to a birthday party, she’s usually excited about two things – actually going to the party of course, and coming up with a fun gift to bring along! This gift was for a friend who was celebrating her 7th birthday this time around, so Miss G knew she wanted something ‘big girlish’. We brainstormed ideas throughout the week {a hair dressing kit and a card making kit were other options in the running – two of G’s favourite things}, but in the end we decided on a little chef’s baking kit since our friend enjoys baking with her mama just as Grae and I enjoy baking together.
I’m pretty sure Gracen’s obsession with Frozen has reached an all-time high recently. She’s always really enjoyed the movie, but since removing the YouTube app from her iPad a while back, I’m fairly certain she’s spent at least a portion of her allotted screen time watching it every single day. Of course, when your start your day with a dose of Frozen, it translates into into a whole lot of Elsa dress-up, many Anna hairdo requests, non-stop ‘Let It Go’, and daily reenactments of the ‘do you want to build a snowman?’ scene {accompanied by plenty of door knocking}. Welcome to our world.
Grae and I absolutely love putting together fun play kits as gifts, especially when they involve sensory play materials. While we’ve made a very simple homemade play dough kit previously, time around we decided to make the birthday boy a colourful kit filled with a rainbow of play dough and a bunch of fun tools and loose parts to up its play possibilities.
Truth be told, I’ve never loved the name ‘busy box’. Or ‘busy bag’ for that matter. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I think I associate both with the term ‘busy work’ from my teaching days, which to me, is basically work {often of very little value} that keeps kids busy and out of the teacher’s hair. Not my cup of tea. I figure that if a teacher is going to expect her students to engage in some sort of activity or work, it shouldn’t simply keep them busy {that’s a waste of time} – it should engage them, challenge them, and teach them something worthwhile along the way – right?? Well, after looking at many, many activities labeled as busy boxes or bags, I learned that most of them do all of those things. Most of them are fun, playful, and help little ones build on some sort of skill {or multiple skills at once}. And yes, they are easy to pull out during times when you’d like your little one to play quietly and/or independently {while you shower, during restaurant and doctor’s office waits, during quiet time, etc.}, but that’s only because you’ve taken the time to prep the fun in advance – not because they’re anything like boring busy work. And so, because I’ve finally made peace with the term, here’s our first busy box – a LEGO patterns busy box. ☺
Have I mentioned that Grae and I love putting together homemade gifts? Because we do. We love it so much in fact, that despite the fact that we had actually already purchased a gift for today’s party, we decided we would make something instead – just yesterday afternoon! Today’s birthday boy is a car lover through and through, so we used that for our inspiration. He also {like many of our international friends} is often on the go, so we decided to make him a portable car play kit so that he has a fun and easy way to take his beloved toys with him – whether it be to a restaurant, on an airplane, or over to a friend’s house.
I feel like Miss G and I have been making homemade gifts like they’re going out of style lately {and I love it}. This most recent one is exactly like the portable activity kit we gave her little friend Evelyn on her second birthday, only this one contains slightly different activities – things we thought a busy 3 year old would enjoy. Now obviously the activities included in this kit are not just for boys {in fact, Miss G has already announced that she’d like the activity kit I’m making her to be exactly like this one} – it’s just that we gifted this particular kit to her little friend who happens to be a boy.
It’s no secret that Miss G and I like to create and give little homemade gifts. I’ve always loved giving gifts and it’s important to me that Gracen sees that there’s just as much joy {if not more} in giving as there is in receiving, even if the gifts are tiny and made by hand. I think ‘happy summer’ gifts like these also help her prepare for significant transitions – in this case, saying goodbye to her friends and home here in Kuwait and heading back to Canada for the summer.
Gracen’s little weekly play date buddy turned 4 today, which called for another homemade gift. Like almost all of our expat friends here in Kuwait, he and his family will be headed home for the summer shortly, so we wanted to make him something he could easily take along and hopefully use during the journey back to Canada. Since he and Miss G play with LEGO pretty much every time they’re together, we figured a portable LEGO kit would make a great gift.
Another birthday party means another opportunity for Grae and I to come up with a fun, homemade gift {which we love doing}. This time around, we decided we’d put together a tinkle trunk filled with fun dress-up costumes and accessories similar to what Grae has in her dress-up station. We were really excited about the idea until we realized that the birthday girl is headed home to the States just a few days after her party. A tickle trunk simply wouldn’t do. After some brainstorming, we opted for something she could bring along on her travels – a portable activity kit! Our goal was to keep it as compact and lightweight as possible, while cramming in tons of fun {and quiet} things she could explore and play with during her travels. Here’s what we included…
There’s no doubt that we’ve been all about the ‘kit gifts’ this year… Since moving to Kuwait, we’ve brought craft kits, play dough kits, and sensory play kits to Grae’s little friends’ birthday parties, and today we added type of kit to our gift list… A drawing kit! As soon as the birthday girl’s mom told me that she loved to draw, I knew we could put together a fun and easy kit filled with items that any little artist would love.
With our last crafting class of the year coming up in just a few short days, Miss G and I wanted to prepare some simple gifts to share with the little friends she’s made at Bright Minds over the last few months. We adore play dough and had so much fun with our larger scale play dough snowman building activity that we decided to make miniature versions in easy to pack cases – everything needed to build play dough snowmen in small locking lid containers for some holiday fun on the go {or at home, really}.
First, we gathered up our materials… A double batch of our yummy-smelling vanilla mint play dough, awesome divided locking lid containers, beads, buttons, googly eyes, orange matchsticks, small twigs, and miniature scarves cut from inexpensive felt.
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We found our locking divided containers at City Star here in Kuwait, but these Sistema Klip It Split Food Containers on Amazon look similar. I love them because they’re small, easy for little ones to seal and unseal, and perfect for packing in a purse, diaper bag, or carry-on. Plus, they keep the play dough and the ‘building accessories’ {as Miss G calls them} separate, which I like too.
To get started, I added a big ball of vanilla mint play dough to one compartment of each container.
Then Gracen added the accessories to the other. To keep things uniform, we came up with a ‘recipe’ of what should be added to each container (2 googly eyes, 2 matchstick carrot noses, 2 twig arms, 5 beads, 5 buttons, and 1 felt scarf), which turned out to be great counting practice for Miss G.
This is how our kits looked when we were done with them.
Afterwards, Gracen matched up the lids, locked them on, and I used a regular glue stick to adhere some very basic labels I made and printed to fit our containers. And that was it – simple but cute gifts for our friends to enjoy over the holidays, be it at home, on an airplane, and while waiting in restaurants and doctors’ offices. I am so keeping one of these to bring along on our upcoming trip to Germany. In fact, I’m thinking I may create a couple of other little ‘play on-the-go’ kits too! ☺
Of course the one I tucked away for our trip didn’t remain a secret for long…
In fact, Grae’s already had several play dough snowman building sessions with her little kit.
Now let’s just hope the excitement continues until Christmas break rolls around and we board that plane!
One of the things we love most about our living situation in Kuwait is the fact that Miss G has had a built in community of friends since we first arrived… A posse of munchkins that she sees and plays with everyday. Of course, lots of kids means lots of birthday parties, which means more opportunities to put together thoughtful, creative gifts, which both she and I adore.
Now I know it’s good for kids to learn that they don’t always get something when someone else does, but I still really enjoy bringing a small and simple ‘sibling gift’ when Miss G and I attend one of her friends’ birthday parties. Most of the time it’s something handmade and useful or consumable – meaning not just another little plastic toy to add to the heap – so I don’t feel bad about gifting it.
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