Bouquet of Balloon Flowers for a Special Friend

We are celebrating a very big birthday with a very good friend. Hubs has been honing his balloon making skills lately (YouTube ... an invaluable resource!) and we hoped that a balloon bouquet would make our friend smile today.

Spud has been practicing too. His specialties so far are windmills and indescribable kitchen instruments. Hmmm. I feel another post coming ... in the meantime ... Happy Birthday Kiley.

Spud's Modest Life List at Age 6

Spud's list is rather small. And that is no accident. He's afraid if he makes it too long, he won't get it all in. He's already cautioned me about my life list; he thinks it's far too ambitious.

1. Become an architect
2. Have around 10 kids (This doesn't necessarily include marriage. He's not committing to that one yet.)
3. Learn to play a brass instrument
4. Learn Spanish
5. Go> Disney World, Florida
6. Go> The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Florida
7. See the Pyramids in Egypt
8. Either watch in person OR participate in a Summer Olympic Games
9. Fly in a plane without walls (e.g. ultralight)

Photo Friday #35

BOEING TOUR, NEAR SEATTLE  |  TRAVELS WITH KID

Our last trip to Seattle, Washington included the much anticipated tour of Boeing's The Future of Flight Aviation Centre, where we saw the detailed assembly line of commercial jets. Since we were not actually allowed to take cameras on the tour itself, these photos here are in the Materials Zone, which was a fun way to wait for the official tour to start.

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.

Making Slime

Why not make Magic Mud and Slime on the same day. Both use pretty basic around-the-home ingredients with pretty different results! It's amazing what white glue does when combined with borax. Dare to compare!

I found this helpful pdf online, by chemistry teacher Dr. Jim Hebden, which takes you through the process of making slime and carefully cautions you about the dangers of ingesting borax (therefore this project needs high supervision, especially for your little mouthy folks).

Here's the gist:

1. In one container dissolve 1/4 teaspoon of borax in 1 Tablespoon water

2. In a separate container, mix 1 Tablespoon water with  1 Tablespoon white glue

3. Pour the borax solution into the diluted white glue while stirring slowly (about 20 seconds)

Making Magic Mud II

It's been so long since we've played with the magic cornstarch /  water concoction, a favourite of mine when I was wee, that I thought I would bust it out again on yesterday's very rainy morning. It's been so long in fact, that Spud does not even remember playing with it before.

And this time, he actually touched it with his hands! For those of you who know him, you will be impressed.

For the original post including the recipe (we doubled the recipe this time) see Making Magic Mud.

While we were at it, we tried a new concoction, Slime, which I will post about soon!

Photo Friday #34

CONSERVATORY IN SEATTLE  |  TRAVELS WITH KID

In Seattle for a few days recently we went to Delicious Baby for some advice on things to do. Day 1: the Conservatory in Volunteer Park. We spent the better part of an hour spotting various plants for the mini scavenger hunt. The cactus section was particularly alluring.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday each week. Check it out!

weelife Robots on Nerdy Pop's Kindle Covers

I am SO honoured that the lovely and talented Lizz over at Nerdy Pop made one of her hoochie Kindle covers using our little wee robot friends! Isn't it adorable? Check out her Etsy shop for even more designs!

(Images: nerdypop)

Weelife Paper Dolls Getting Out and About

My Paper Dolls have been playing at The Daily B's house. Nothing makes me happier to see these guys getting in some quality play time with friends.

Take some time to pop over to The Daily B for fun projects and beautiful photography. And for my original Paper Dolls post click here. To download your own, click here.

(Image: The Daily B)

Evidence that Santa Was Here

I guess he liked the cookies!

And his reindeer went to town on the apples and carrots!

And every year, he leaves an ornament on the tree, always of himself, often on some form of transportation. This year he clearly knew Spud's passion for trailers.

A magic day to you all.

Holiday Shortbread Cookies #3

Inspired by A Cozy Kitchen, this year's Santa cookies are Salted Caramel Thumbprint Shortbread. Happy Christmas Eve everyone!

(Previously Santa enjoyed Black Forest Chocolate cookies and Peanut Butter Cup cookies.)

Pasta Snowflake Ornaments

KID-FRIENDLY CRAFT   |   TEACHER GIFT

METHOD
1. Hot glue wagon wheel pasta into "snowflake shape".

2. Spray paint white, front and back. We used a paint intended for plastic, and we managed to do it in one coat. Check out katy's post for tips on regular spray paint. If you aren't careful, the pasta will start to get wet and lose its shape.

3. Let dry. Hot glue pompoms. You can see that where you decide to put the pompoms changes the character quite a bit.

4. Dip the front in watered down white glue and sprinkle your heart out.

5. Attach ribbon. Done!

  This project was inspired by katy elliot's blog.

Holiday Shortbread Cookies #2

Today's rendition of shortbread is Shortbread Sandwich Cookies filled with lemon icing. These ones are going to special teacher on Spud's last day of school before winter break.

Holiday Shortbread Cookies #1

We have 8 shortbread dough logs* in the fridge just waiting to be baked and decorated. Yesterday we cut some thick slabs to bake and topped them with royal icing. Spud was the festive sprinkle guy. These found their way to some special aunties. Reports so far are big thumbs up.

*While it probably would have made them even more fabulous, we didn't happen to have the scrapings of a Tahitian vanilla bean in our pantry so we made a substitution, you guessed it, to vanilla extract.

Snowflake Curtain Behind the Tree

Spud and I were very busy last night and this morning. Snow making machines, I called us. A wonderful way to get into the spirit. The idea came from Free People, which I gushed about here.

Holiday City Gift Tags

FREE DOWNLOADS

I've been busy creating more gift tags. This time, partly directed by Spud who currently has a passion for architecture ("Put buildings on them!"). OK, Spud, here you go!

Please help yourself. And feel free to share and leave a comment.

Help yourself to my Holiday Tree Gift Tags too.

Photo Friday #33

GROUSE MOUNTAIN'S "THE PEAK OF CHRISTMAS"  |  WEE WANDERINGS WITH KID

Snowshoeing around the frozen lake, outdoor ice skating with unexpected mini lesson from THE Karen Magnussen (Canadian sport hero), sleigh ride pulled by snow cat, Santa in his workshop, 2 of Santa's real live reindeer!, warming by the outside fire pit ... a very memorable day. All of which made up for one long line up after another and the mediocre, expensive food. Really. We would do it again.

Delicious Baby hosts Photo Fridays each week. Check it out!

Pompoms for the Tree

Our tree has a lot of sparkly, shiny, glassy, porcelain ornaments and I wanted to add a bit of warm-fuzzy to it this year. Pompoms it is! And I found the perfect yarn, with specks of holiday gold in it.

They turned out a little ragamuffin but I kind of like them all the same.

I started with a simple template cut out of a box. This saves the fingers some pain and keeps them a pretty consistent size.

The cutout slot helps at the tying off stage. Once it's tied, it's time to cut the loops on either side.

Time for a little haircut.