I’m not going to lie… We’ve been here in Kuwait for less than two weeks and I’m already going a little crazy. The trouble is, as of now, we don’t have a vehicle. Not because we don’t want one – we’ll be purchasing something as soon as possible – but because we need things like bank accounts and civil identifications before buying, and those things take time to acquire {lots and lots of time}. In a place like Vancouver, you can easily do without. Public transit is easy, as is walking or biking. Sidewalks are plentiful and things like parks and community centres and playgrounds and coffee shops are most often a short distance away. Here, not so much. It’s amazing how much you miss having sidewalks when they’re no longer around… In all fairness, we do have a Starbucks and a small playground within walking distance, but with the current state of our budding neighbourhood, they’re a {very hot} 30 minute walk through deep sand, trash, and construction sites away. Taxiing would be our other option. They’re inexpensive and plentiful, but in a country that doesn’t really do car seats, me lugging our 26 pound seat downstairs, installing it while attempting to supervise Miss G nearby, then lugging it around at our destination isn’t really feasible. And so, we stay at the apartments, making the most of our days inside or down in the courtyard and common play areas for now. It’s a great practice in patience for an always-on-the-go gal like me and it’s definitely pushing me to be creative in coming up with fun and engaging activities using minimal supplies.
Today as we rooted through a box of craft supplies we brought from Canada, Gracen enthusiastically retrieved a 6-pack of glitter pouches and asked if we could use them to make something. Though I’m normally up for a mess in the name of good fun, I didn’t particularly feel like having an apartment full of glitter today (the fact that we don’t yet own a dustpan may have something to do with it), so I quickly thought of something we could do with it outdoors – add it to our go-to homemade sidewalk chalk paint! The recipe is one of our very favourites because of its simplicity and the fact that you really only need two kitchen ingredients and some water to make it, and adding glitter could only make it better, right?
When we went to pick up a pool noodle for Gracen’s 
It was my first time seeing this sort of pool noodle, and all I knew was that I wanted to slice it up to create tons of little individual flower shapes. 
So that’s just what I did. Just like when 
As I chopped, Miss G ran the ready flowers over to her blow up pool and tossed them in! 
It’s such a simple thing, but they looked so pretty and inviting dancing around on the water’s surface. (I’m already picturing them in bath tubs and sensory bins too!)
I think Miss G agreed, because she immediately jumped in {despite the freezing cold water} and started splashing around like mad!
When the splashing had subsided a little bit, Grandma Charlotte showed Grae how the flowers could be used as building blocks. 
It’s definitely easier in still-ish water, but it’s equally fun when in or out of the pool. Towers can be built…
Pyramids can be built…
And ‘trains’ can be built too! Of course, the possibilities are really endless when it comes to building structures – even when they’re floating ones. 
Now the only question is how I’m going to convince Brad that heaps of pool noodle flowers are a Kuwait necessity… I mean with the heat and the amount of time we spend in and around water there, they are, aren’t they? ☺ 
When I saw 
Well luckily for me, not only did I remember to pick up cornstarch during our next grocery shop, but I also ran into these 
Next up, I used the popsicle sticks to scoop a small amount of gel food colouring into each popsicle mould, and Miss G selected a 
With our food colouring and powdered scent ready, we filled each popsicle mould about 2/3rds full of our cornstarch/water combo and Gracen stirred them well.
Then we topped them up with a little bit more cornstarch/water and Grae gently stirred them a little more.
At that point, all that was left to do was put our plastic handles in and freeze the chalk pops overnight.
The next day, they looked like this. The colours were vibrant, the texture was smooth and creamy, and they smelled absolutely delicious.
The blue one smelled like cotton candy, the green one was mint chocolate, the red was strawberry shortcake, and the orange was orange creme… YUM. The only potentially bad news is that because they do look so real and smell so wonderfully, some munchkins may be tempted to try eating them (yuck!) That being said, because they’re made strictly of kitchen ingredients, they are technically safe to consume. So though they may taste chalky and gross, they certainly wouldn’t harm a curious little monkey who snuck a lick.
With our fun new chalk pops in hand, we headed into the backyard to test them out. The verdict? They’re really awesome!
When they’re melting and drippy, they go on much like their liquid counterpart does, only via a wand of sorts instead of a paintbrush. When they’re not melting, they go on much like regular sidewalk chalk does – dry and colourful with a little bit of pressure. When dry, the colours are super vibrant and to me, they look very much like they’ve been made with regular sidewalk chalk. 
By the time our chalk pops had melted, our cement pad was fully covered in bright swirls, drawings, drips, and letters. And the great news is that it all washed away really easily without any fuss – much easier than our sidewalk chalk paint normally does for some reason.
When I found this huge jar of marbles sitting in the closet of Brad’s childhood bedroom, I knew they had to be used for something fun. I immediately thought of these 
While Grandma Charlotte’s pool noodles didn’t have holes down the centres and every shop in the village she lives in appeared to be anxiously waiting the same pool noodle shipment, my hometown not far away had pool noodles aplenty! In fact, one of the local dollar stores had huge bins full for $1.25 a piece! With a pool noodle in hand, I began building our marble run during G’s nap. The first step was saw the noodle in half vertically with a serrated knife. Slow and steady was the key to this one.
It was a bit tricky to cut perfectly down the centre of the noodle the entire time, but it really doesn’t have to be perfect.
Next up, I inserted several toothpicks along the side of one of the noodle halves, then carefully connected the other half.
With the main structure built and plenty of nap time to spare, I decided to focus on the details. While I’m sure the usual race track theme would have gone over wonderfully, I decided to switch things up a little and gear the activity to one of Gracen’s recent interests… water slides! Using some bamboo skewers I shortened a little, I threw together a ‘WATER SLIDE’ sign and a few buntings and stuck them onto the slide structure. Then I propped the top of the slide up on a couple of vintage apple crates and put a small bin filled with sparkly blue water at the bottom. Gracen was delighted to wake up from her nap and see it!
The activity really needed no explanation. She recruited Grandma Charlotte, they each selected a marble, and on ‘ready, set, go!’ they released them.
It was a close one!
I kind of wondered if she’d always want someone playing with her during this activity, but that wasn’t the case. She just as happily played on her own.
And after doing several races, things got a little creative… She tried putting multiple marbles in a track before releasing them, raced small marbles against large marbles, and tried sending 
Our little pool noodle water slide has already brought a ton of fun and I can’t wait for us experiment with it some more in the coming weeks… I’m thinking ping pong balls would be neat because they’d float in the pool at the bottom and maybe we’ll try racing water itself?
While living in a city that gets as much rain as Vancouver does can be a little deflating some days, I know that we’ll miss it dearly once we’re back in the sandy desert. So instead of letting the past week of rain keep us indoors today, we decided to get out and enjoy it. After a morning walk and a long play at the park before lunch, we decided to head back outside this afternoon. We brought along with us a baking sheet, some liquid food colouring (the neon kind), and some white construction paper to do an easy and fun art activity… Rain splatter painting!
To get started, Gracen laid a piece of construction paper down on the baking sheet and fully enjoyed dropping splots of food colouring all over it.
Once she had the food colouring exactly how she wanted it, we simply let the rain do its job. At this point, it was raining quite hard, so the splatter effect happened quickly. Grae loved watching the colours pop up off the page and land back down on the page in little dots. At some point during the process, she’d say “This one is done!” and we’d pop it inside the house to dry and grab another sheet of paper to splatter.
The end result is beautiful, splotchy, watercolour-esque paintings, just like this one. Fun, right?
While we’ve done plenty of 
This afternoon the sun was out and I decided to set up something really fun for Grae to explore and experiment with in the backyard.
The set up was pretty simple… Several differently shaped jars and medicine bottles filled with coloured vinegar (we used gel food colouring), a couple of small jars of baking soda, a couple of spoons, and a few empty mixing containers all on a tray. Oh, and some safety goggles. Because in Gracen’s world, science equals goggles. ☺
After helping her with her goggles, Grae set off to work.
As I usually do with this kind of activity, I didn’t give her any instructions. I simply said, “Do you want to play?”
The answer was an excited ‘yes’, and after a few questions about whether or not she could dump/mix/pour things (of course the answer to all was yes), she got started.
While she’s seen the reaction baking soda and vinegar have while 
And she loved it. Mixing a little bit of this with a little bit of that in order to cause colour changes and fizzy foam eruptions was right up her alley.
My little scientist made reaction after reaction, delighting each time she caused foam to spew out of the top of her jar.
One thing that was interesting is how the colour of the vinegar seemed to change with the addition of baking soda. In the case of the orange and the pink, the colours seemed to explode with brightness as the reactions occurred.
With almost all of her baking soda resources used up and her largest jar of vinegar left, we fetched just a little more baking soda from in the house.
It started off slowly, but the reaction did not disappoint. After scrounging leftover baking soda from wherever she could, she managed to create enough fizzing foam to have it flow generously out of the top of the jar. Success!
Growing up, my brother and I used to stay at my Baba’s (grandmother’s) house for a week or two or three each summer. Being the phenomenal lady she is, she’d bring us into the forest, chop down what seemed like huge trees, and have us help her haul them out to create outdoor teepees worthy of side tables and mattresses. Our summer teepees are one of my very favourite childhood memories now as an adult, and definitely something that I’d like Gracen to experience. While not nearly as grand, today we threw together a very quick little teepee after stumbling across some bamboo sticks. Gracen was in awe of our new structure and immediately went in the house to retrieve her pillow and a couple of blankets. It’s amazing how special a sheet and some sticks can be when put together isn’t it? There’s no doubt that there will be many more of these in the weeks ahead (tutorial to come, for those who asked) and I can’t wait.
In honour of Earth Day, Miss G and I took to the streets of our neighbourhood for a little spring-themed natured hunt today. It was the perfect way to spend our afternoon…soaking in some sunshine, taking in the fresh air, and observing the nature around us a little more closely than we usually do. 
Beforehand, while Grae was napping, I gathered up a few things… A muffin tin to serve as a collection receptacle, a print out of nature item tags sized to fit in the bottoms of muffin cups, some scissors, and some tape.
In order to create my tags (which were printed on paper from our recycling bin…hence the holes), I simply created 12 circles sized to fit in our muffin tin (4.5 centimetres in diameter for ours), found some clipart via Google Images, and added some text. 
Then I printed them off, cut them out, and stuck them into the bottoms of the muffin tin cups with small pieces of rolled tape.
When Gracen woke up, she was eager to get outside and get searching. We quickly went over the items we’d be on the lookout for and headed out. First stop? The backyard to see if there were seeds underneath our plum tree. Sure enough, there were!
Dandelions and grass were easily collected in our yard, and then it was off down the street to one of the few trees that still has blossoms on it.
After each new find, Grae would take inventory, decide on a couple of new things to focus on, and head in a particular direction.
This time she decided we’d better head back to the backyard to collect some flower buds, moss, and soil from the garden – success!
One of our last stops was to collect a few clovers from a little patch growing through some brickwork in the front of the house.
At this point, we had done pretty well, but as hard as we’d looked, we hadn’t yet found a mushroom or a feather.
We decided we’d take a little break in order to some sidewalk chalk art, and Gracen would ask Papa to take her out again once he returned from work for the evening. Low and behold, they returned with the entire tray full!
Gracen really enjoyed this activity and we’ll definitely be using the muffin tin method in games and hunts in the future. It gave a clear visual of what was needed and what had been found, our items stayed in place and were organized, and Grae really liked everything having its own spot and filling up the entire tray. 
Gracen didn’t hesitate to get started. The second I gave her the okay, she got busy dunking her paintbrush and creating her sidewalk masterpiece.
