Photo Friday #36

TEXTURES, MOROCCO | TRAVELS WITH KID

Literally at every turn, we were in awe of stunning patterns and textures, many of which are painstakingly done by hand! And REALLY old (although the above is a detail of Marrakech's gorgeous, modern train station). We stopped photographing them after awhile; they are so plentiful that we almost stopped 'seeing' them. I regret that I didn't take at least 100 more shots of just textures!

Throughout our trip we handed the camera over to Spud and even he found textures he thought were interesting ... below isn't an example of handmade but it's pretty snazzy for a sidewalk.

Check out other posts about our travels in Morocco.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday each week. Share your travel pics there or check out what other people have been up to.

New Skewer Pack: Umbrella

Today's lunch is brought to you by the UMBRELLA. Red pepper skewered umbrella that is.

Other fun skewers: Flowers, Rings, and Balloons.

New Skewer Pack: Balloons

These new balloon string skewers are turning yellow cherry tomatoes into a couple of seriously cute balloons that I'm sure are Spud's kryptonite. He's been off the little tomatoes lately but he won't be able to resist eating these at today's lunch. Sorry buddy. Sometimes a mama's got get tricky about getting vitamins into her little guy.

New Skewer Pack: Rings

Just like that ... a grape turns into a precious jeweled ring. Who wouldn't be charmed to find that in their snack pack? Which is cuter ... flowers? Or rings?

New Skewer Pack: Flowers

Found an adorable assortment of skewers at Daiso yesterday. Here are the flower stem ones in action. I'll post the others as I use them. Can't wait!

From Left to Right:
· Chicken sandwich
· Sunflower seeds
· Cucumber star flowers!
· Yellow pepper strips

Photo Friday #35

CASABLANCA, MOROCCO   |   TRAVELS WITH KID

After spending an entire month travelling in Morocco, when asked, Spud's first highlight of the entire trip is visiting the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. An incredible structure, somewhere between the second and the fifth largest mosque in the world (depending on who you ask), it boasts an incredible amount of detailed craftsmanship at a mind-boggling scale.

Look how tiny we look in front of this doorway ...

And in front of this fountain ...

Just one part of the outside courtyard ... nice tile work!

A great place to take a midday break ...

Spud took this shot of the minaret, the tallest structure in Morocco.

A part of the ablutions room ...

Check out other posts about our travels in Morocco.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday each week. Share your travel pics there or check out what other people have been up to.

Todays Bento Brought to You By the Colour: Red

Completely by accident. It wasn't until I went to photograph it that I realized how red it really was.

Clockwise from the top:
· Strawberries
· Turkey Pastrami sandwich
· Red grapes
· Apple
· Baby Gouda

Kiddie Yogurt Drink

One of Spud's favourite treats are those sugary yogurt drinks. We usually find an excuse to buy him one about once a month. I've always known that their sugary nature is the real appeal but I've avoided actually looking at the ingredients until very recently. Sugar IS the second ingredient (and probably in other forms down the list too). But I stopped scanning when I saw corn starch. Eww. Maybe it was our recent experiment with Magic Mud but the thought of drinking that stuff made me want to gag. So I bought yogurt, canned pears packed in their own juice with no sugar added, and fresh strawberries instead.

He gave it a taste test this morning before school and it passed with flying colours. It took less than 5 minutes and now I have two containers to add to his lunches this week. Here's what I did ...

Puree the following in blender until smooth:
· Large handful fresh strawberries, chopped (frozen could work too)
· Half canned pear to sweeten the strawberries
· Pear juice from the can, enough to get a smooth drinkable consistency
· Sweeten to taste with sugar, the amount will depend largely on how sweet your strawberries are. Today I used 1 Tablespoon.

Finally add one cup of good quality yogurt (no starches or gums needed) and liquify.

Chocolate Pudding Powder and Muscle Memory

This little trick came from Spud's teacher. In order to give Spud some extra practice with his letters and numbers, she suggested we bring some jello powder with us on our trip. And that's what we did!

We used this tray from our hotel room but any plate would do. The idea is to simply lick your finger and draw your letters and numbers. Not normally one for rote-like activities nor for copious quantities of sugar and chemicals, Spud was pretty surprised by this suggestion but as you can imagine, he embraced it whole-heartedly.

Eventually numbers led to trailers. But that was to be expected.

This is definitely a once-in-awhile activity we'll try again.

Making our Own Travel Journals PART 2

In my quest to create our own family travel journal, I've decided to make up the signatures ahead of time, lots of them (10 in total) to fill out along the way and to be bound together when we get home. Hopefully the cover will be made of something cool we find on our travels. Fingers crossed.

First I printed and trimmed all the paper, on acid free stock, for each signature. I made the lines farther apart on Spud's to accommodate his charming and larger than life printing. Each book has alternating blank pages as well — for glueing in keepsakes or for drawings. Not sure what we are going to do with the grid signature but hopefully games and mazes and other creative fun. We'll see.

I punched 4 small holes in each spine and sewed them with embroidery floss. I used a template for the holes so they should line up with other each when all is done. Should!

Spud chose yellow for his cover, his favourite colour.

Mine are magenta and Hubs' are purple.

A creatin' we will go!

Check out the book we are using for inspiration!

UPDATE: See the finished product here.

First Crack at Book Binding

It's really just so super easy. And fun. I made these for one of Spenser's little friends who was celebrating a birthday on the weekend. 

One is made of sketch paper for drawing. The other of alternating lined and blank paper for story writing/illustrating. I wrapped the card stock covers with Tyvek (repurposed from envelopes) and added an "L" to each of the fronts to personalize them a bit. She's said to be a blossoming 'creative type' so I hope she gets some use out of these.

Travelling with Doggie Tags

TRIP PLANNING  |  TRAVELS WITH KID

While planning for a trip, I like to come up with possible nightmares. Well, 'like' isn't exactly what I would call it but ... you know ... it's what I do. Nightmare 1: We are wandering through the souq in Fes and Spud suddenly gets lost in the crowd. 

Now I know this isn't going to happen; he has never been lost, in all his almost 7 years, for more than about 45 seconds. It's not in his nature. But when I run through all the 'what if' scenarios about travelling with kids, this one comes up for me time and time again. So this is what we've done as a back up plan to just never having him leave our sight ...

Dog tags. Weird? Kinda creepy? But I feel better knowing that he has all the information he could need to help someone find us if the worst should happen. It includes our names and an email address we created just for emergencies; if anyone emails to it, it will automatically get forwarded to family at home.

OK, wait, it gets better. In the back of the bottom one you can see that it's white. That's paper covered with some acetate for protection. I made a whole bunch of little paper tags where we will put our hotel information as we go along.

There. I feel better now. Back to happy-fun-travel thoughts.

Making a List and Checking it Twice

TRIP PLANNING  |  TRAVELS WITH KID
So things may be heating up in Morocco. But we are not letting that stop us from preparing for this trip. Yesterday the family was chatting about what would happen if we couldn't go there ... and Spud piped up "We need a plan B! I think plan B should be Pennsylvania!". We could not stop laughing at the apparent randomness of this choice. "Why!?" I asked. "Well, I think Pennsylvania has a really cool name and it's in America and America has some cool stuff so I think if we went there and we looked for cool stuff we would find it!". Very well said, I thought. I know he's right. But with Morocco being plan A, Pennsylvania has some pretty big shoes to fill.

Anyway, the other day I spent some quality time on our packing list. On google docs of course. I stumbled across this fun site where you answer a bunch of questions about your trip and then it generates a list for you. Of course it won't have everything you specifically want to take but it turned out to be an excellent starting point for us. It even knew I wanted to bring a sketchbook!

Guyot Squishy Bowl and Cup Set

TRAVELS WITH KID  |  STUFF TO BRING

Found these at our local MEC yesterday: silicone cup and bowl set that will pretty much fit anywhere. Even your pocket. We think these are going to come in mighty handy on our upcoming pack-extremely-light trip. I can see these working well for many on-the-move, impromptu, kid-snacking scenarios in grungy train stations and the like.

Apple Millet Cereal in the Slow Cooker

I was tidying our cupboards last night and thought I should use up some of our grains by making an overnight cereal in the slow cooker.

1 C. millet
1 C. brown rice, short grain
7 C. water (you can add more in the morning if it gets too thick)
1 C. apple sauce (helps to sweeten it)
2 apples, large, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 t. salt

Eight hours on low and it's done! If you had time to snazz it up a bit this would also be yummy with warm toasted nuts on top.

Also love how well it freezes: about one evening a week I pull one out of the freezer, in the morning I put it in a glass bowl, add a bit of water, cover it and toss it in the microwave. Once warm, I add berries if we have them, some milk, and brown sugar. Of course.

Happy Valentine Hand Out Day

Sharing a little love from a lolly-wielding robot.

Armed with Audiobooks

TRAVELS WITH KID   |   STUFF TO BRING

With some long travel days ahead of us, we want to make sure we are equipped well with high impact, low bulk activities. The latter consideration is due to our attempt of having carry-on luggage only! Crazy? Maybe. Or genius? We'll see.

Airport waiting room, Cuba 2008.

Of course we will have other activities up our sleeves but in the meantime here is our collected audiobook reading list for our 6 year old Spud.

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Ian Flemming
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory + James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
• Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, Lenore Look
• Nim's Island, Danielle Denega
• Stuart Little, E. B. White
• Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
• Various Magic Tree House stories, Mary Pope Osbourne (These are an old favourite. I've bought a few new ones to freshen things up a bit)

Our inspiration for this list came from the following:
1. Our local library (I heart libraries)
2. iTunes
3. Travel Savvy Mom
4. Common Sense Media (It's a great place for reviews, including appropriate age ranges etc.)

So, I'd love to know ... what do you think we are missing in the audiobook world?

String of Hearts

SIMPLE VALENTINE'S DAY CRAFT AT OHDEEDOH

We were up to a little crafting on the weekend. Pop over to ohdeedoh to see the process.