Visit to Evergreen Brick Works

You know how I realllly don't like the cold so this past weekend had the perfect, warm fall weather when we went took a visit to Evergreen Brick Works. I just love the feeling of being in touch with nature again when we visit there. 

One of the play areas for children had these outdoor bongo drums that was so fun to hear as the kids tapped them to their mood. I had never seen anything like it before and would LOVE to have some of those in my future dream garden :) There was also a sand play area surrounded by tree stumps (I have always wanted tree stumps used as seats) as well as a little walkway tunnel created from plants (kind of reminds me of a secret garden).

 

In their children's garden, there was so much going on-a camp fire, teepees, a yurt, walking on rocks, climbing up hills, and an exploration of colour.

It was wonderful being outdoors 

as we sipped away at a warm smoked turkey, bacon, split pea soup against the sounds of the farmer's market and young families enjoying their day off.

Handmade Gifts from the Heart

My 3 yr old daughter has been looking forward to one of her best friend's birthday party for the past week. So much so that she's been working on making gifts for her at any craft time we get. It's really touching and cute to see her come up with an idea and make it from start to finish with little adult influence.

The first gift she made was while I was washing dishes. When I was all done tidying the kitchen and went to the playroom, I was surprised to see a sticker decorated container with a drawn on coffee filter in the middle. It's a bowl for her friend to play with she said. The part I assisted with was adding glitter glue into the centre of the coffee filter.

The next gift is a necklace we stringed together from clear pony beads. She decided on the colour combination as well as how to package the necklace when it was complete. She decided on tissue paper with sticker decorations, and a ribbon around it. Also, it was funny to see how she remembered we had a little girly loot bag hanging around and decided to put the entire tissue package into that bag.

The last gift was inspired from a craft she made over a year ago at the Early Years Centre. At the time, she decorated already made toilet paper roll binoculars with stickers. It is surprisingly the most played with handmade craft toy. She decided on making one of these for her friend. This time around, we glued squares of tissue paper around the toilet paper rolls, let it dry, and adhered the two rolls together with hot glue.

There really is nothing quite like handmade gifts especially when it's instilled in the little ones. 

The party's tomorrow so it's going to be a fun weekend.

Hope your weekend's looking good too!

Chocolate Play Dough

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful long weekend and for me, it's especially longgg with a 6 day weekend! lol. I don't think I've had that long of a break in ages. So far my weekend can be summed up as follows:

Day 1- One of a Kind Show

Day 2- Hot Yoga with music using Passport To Prana plus walked for 1 hour

Day 3- Music class with the little one and a little bit of spring cleaning to match the spring weather

Day 4- Easter hunt plus playdate for the little one

Day 5- Family Day

Day 6-TBD

:)

Anyway, my initial purpose for this post is to share the chocolate play dough we made earlier this month and I'm thinking of making again today for Easter. It is worth all the aromatherapy you can get from the chocolatey goodness! :)

Just use a no cook play dough recipe and then add cocoa powder. 

Voila!

Happy Weekend Folks!