After this morning’s mud soup fun down at the beach, I decided it would be fun to set up a little mud kitchen for Miss G to play with in the backyard. Now I don’t know if you too have seen the beautiful and elaborate mud kitchens that often pass through my Pinterest feed, but ours was nothing like those. A few items from the kitchen, some dirt from the garden, and a water source all squished onto a second hand plastic table and Miss G was pleased as punch. After all, playing with mud is supposed to be simple, right?
Gracen poured water, added greens, and gently stirred hot soup. She scooped soil, packed it down, and added pebble sprinkles to dirt cupcakes. She tended to gooey mud pancakes, flipping them every now and again.
And lucky for me, I was the chosen taste tester.
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It’s no secret that Gracen loves to help in the kitchen. So for a long time, we’d intended to buy her a play kitchen for Christmas. But when going back to Kuwait became a serious consideration, we decided to put the kitchen plans on hold, buy one after the move, and opt for handmade felt food instead as it can easily be packed overseas. 
Unfortunately, we had a few snafus with our order and it only arrived a couple of weeks ago… Of course, for Miss G, who was spoiled at Christmas nonetheless and had no idea it was coming, opening the parcel today was the best surprise ever.
We laid out a blanket in the living room, grabbed a couple of stacks of plates, and she’s been whipping up meals ever since.
The funniest part is that every time we’re out and about and she spots a restaurant, she points to it and shouts, “Mama, a resdaraunt! Grae Grae has one of dose at home in da living room. Grae Grae has a resdaraunt station!!!”
It’s certainly no play kitchen, but our little sous chef doesn’t mind one bit.
Since returning home from a long vacation 2 weeks ago, playing independently has been a lot more difficult for Grae. Instead of playing on her own, she wants to be right beside Mama {if not right on top of me} all. of. the. time. When I explain that I need a little bit of personal space to get something done or encourage her to play, she responds with, “But Mama is the best…” or “But I just want to watch what you’re doing” or “But I LOOOOVE you!” Oy. It’s not easy. 
After drying off the coins, we spread them out on a plastic serving tray…
A couple of days ago as Gracen was emptying and restocking Grandma Charlotte’s pantry shelves just for fun (obviously), she came across a can of condensed milk. GC had no idea why she had it or what she’d ever do with it, but I had an idea… Shiny homemade paint!
Here’s what you need to start with… A can of condensed milk, some food colouring, some small bowls or cups (muffin tins work well too), and some teaspoons.
To get started, we poured a little bit of condensed milk into each cup.
We went with 5 separate cups this time around, but you can choose to do more or less.
Next, Grae squirted in about 5 drops of liquid food colouring (more for an extra vibrant finish and less for a more pastel look).
We stuck to the basics and added purple, but obviously you can create any colours you choose.
Then my little helper gave each a good stir.
Here’s what we ended up with.
With our new paints made, it was time to get creating.
I’d say she was pleased with the results, wouldn’t you?
The other fun part about these paints is that they drizzle really nicely due to their thickness… And who doesn’t love some messy fun, right?
Here’s the end result. A beautiful masterpiece created by our beauty. ☺
Miss G was so spoiled at Christmas that we’re still slowly pulling out new treasures, removing the packaging, and playing with them for the first time. Early this morning, she went down to her room {here at Grandma Charlotte and Poppop’s house}, retrieved her little wooden 
In addition to the mailbox, we collected a few different envelopes, some paper (both lined and coloured), a notepad, some pens and pencils, and some stick on labels.
Miss G got busy writing letters, stuffing envelopes, and adhering labels right away.
Once a letter was done, she’d either pop it in the mailbox, deliver it straight to the recipient, or place it in the ‘to mail’ pile…
So far, she’s absolutely been loving writing letters and drawing pictures for all of those she loves…
Even Bella’s received mail. ☺
What I wash’t prepared for however, was the fact that as soon as her toy box top was cleared off and wiped down, she said “Mama tells Grae Grae ’bout da NEW toy box prajet (project)!” Uhhhh… I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Oops. I explained to Gracen that I wasn’t sure what would replace her beloved building station, but I would think of something FUN, get it ready during her nap time, and surprise her with it when she woke up. No pressure.
Since I had about a gazillion other things I had planned to get done during my baby girl’s nap time, I knew the new station had to be something quick and easy to put together. I dug through our little living room toy box in search of inspiration, came across her bar magnet, and that was that…. A magnet station it was. I gathered up all kinds of small things from around the house – some magnetic and some not – and placed them on a tray along with the magnet. At first, I thought I’d just leave it at that, but then I decided it would be fun to add a sorting element since Miss G loves sorting/matching games so much. I remembered coming across 
When Gracen woke up, she asked about her new project immediately (this girl doesn’t forget a thing). I brought it in, explained that it was a magnet station, and let her jump in.
After a couple of minutes of exploration, I explained the jar drawings to her. Without hesitation, she started placing things in the appropriate jars.
She was so into it that it didn’t feel like too much at all.
Before long, she’d sorted every last item into the jars and announced, “All done! Dump ’em and do it again!” (A sure sign of success, I’d say. ☺)
During nap time, I used different objects from around the house as tracers to cut the large sheets into an assortment of shapes. I placed the shapes, along with a spray bottle filled with water, on a tray next to our large front window, and left it there for my curious little monkey to discover upon her awakening.
Of course she beelined to the tray the moment she was up. I explained that we could use water to help the shapes stick to the window, and she was off. A little mist….
And stick a shape on top. 
Voila! Instant window art. Super fun and super easy.
It didn’t take her long to realize that looking through the shapes was pretty cool too… “Mama! Everything is all pink!”
Of course the previous method works well for seeing the outside world in pink, but this is much more effective for making your house turn pink.
The really cool thing about the fact that our shapes are primary colours is that they lend themselves to colour mixing very well. Grae was amazed at all of the colours she could make by simply overlapping two shapes.
And after experimenting with colour mixing, she tried sorting the pieces into groups based on shapes and colours.
And soon after that, the pieces started becoming pictures of things. The triangles stacked on top of one another became her tree and the tower of large circles became her snowman (if you look closely, you’ll see she is in the process of adding buttons to her snowman’s belly).
After 
This project is perfect for when you have some packaging styrofoam sitting around in your garage, but you can also find styrofoam {and floral foam} pieces at places like Urban Source, as well as at craft stores and dollar stores. (Perhaps knowing that the pieces can be used again and again will help you feel less guilty about purchasing styrofoam in the first place? I know…. It’s a stretch, but I’m trying.)
Of course, when you’re constructing, safety’s got to come first – so goggles were also included. ☺
Instead of giving instructions, I simply asked Gracen, “Do you want to build something?” After an enthusiastic “YES!”, she got to work. 
I was pretty amazed with how quickly she figured out that the sticks could be used to attach two styrofoam pieces to each other. She worked away on her masterpiece, concentrating first on the top portion, and later on the sides.
The only tricky part was the whole cutting thing… While I do let her cut things when we cook together, she hasn’t quite mastered the sawing method yet. Instead, she opts for pushing her knife straight through the objects, which may work well with bananas, but doesn’t work so well with styrofoam.
With cutting being a little too challenging, she moved onto enhancing her styrofoam disc instead of deconstructing it. I found it very interesting that she began using the rivets as enclosures for other materials.
After a good long hour of constructing, Grae decided it was time to tip her structure over on its side to do some more ‘work’ there.
Here’s what her structures looked like after nearly and hour and 20 minutes of play. Pretty cool, right? 
I’ve seen 
This afternoon we took out our crate, opened it up, and found all of the materials needed to put together a window garden. Needless to say, my little gardening enthusiast was thrilled.
Included was a clearly laid out instruction card complete with diagrams, and a sweet little observation booklet for Miss G to draw in. 
We carefully set up the garden, referring back to the instruction card after each step. Gracen, Miss ‘Let’s Do a Project!’, loved it and took her work very seriously.
With the exception of really making sure the suction cups were stuck to the window and printing the words “mint” and “basil”, Grae was able to do everything on her own, which was lovely.
We now have a sweet little garden set up right in our living room and I can’t wait to help Grae water it each day and watch as our fresh herbs grow. ☺
Sure, her tea pouring skills haven’t yet been perfected and most of our blanket and snacks were covered in little “tea” puddles as a result, but at the end of the day, blankets can be washed and puddles can be wiped up. What matters is that our little lady spent a special afternoon tea-ing with Mama and Sophie and got to practice all kinds of everyday skills by playing with ‘the real thing’.