Princess Cinderella

Camia's new infatuation right now is Cinderella. We've been searching for a halloween costume for her (I know...early but better to be prepared, right? :)). Camia saw the Cinderella dress and had to have it. Another thing she is getting into is dress up, and to encourage this part of her imagination, I thought it would be a good idea to have a costume she could play with. So, it came home with us. And she loves it. One downside is that is has glitter on it so there is glitter everywhere. It's ok, though...adds a little sparkle to my home, giving the impression that it's clean...hahaha. You know that sparkle that happens on commercials with cleaning product, right? Ya, that one :). She now has 2 play clothes items- a tutu and a Cinderella dress.

Anyways....here are some photo's of Camia and her new dress. I am excited to make a matching bag for her for halloween and a headband that matches Cinderella's. Too fun!

Play Dough

With fall approaching and me pretty much done working for now, I decided that it would be a good thing to implement some life-improving goals for our little family. One of those goals is to spend more one-on-one time with Camia, since this is what she as a person needs. She does not play well on her own, and since I am generally a very independent person it is hard for me to sit down and spend that quality time with her. My goal is to do more interactive things like crafts and story time with her, more things that encourage learning. But, I have no idea where to start. It's a little overwhelming sometimes thinking about how to do things, like that preschool book I bought for us to do together.

Anyways...I am getting a little ahead of myself. In lieu of this new goal, today I was online looking for ideas on what would be a good thing to do with a 3 year old. I found this really cool blog - Play At Home Moms (when you google, type in playathomemom3. I don't want to put the link here because I am thinking it might link to the author's blog, meaning she will have access to my blog and blah blah blah) - and while surfing, I was having a hard time focusing on finding a project because Camia wanted attention. So, for our project today, we went downstairs and made some play dough. I have officially bought myself some time so I can get more ideas. :) I see a craft that involves coloured corn and glue and paper. I see a craft that involves blasting coloured water outside and painting the concrete. I see tissue paper crafts. Soap crafts. I'm a little excited :)

Here are some photos of our little 'adventure today.

Measuring the salt

Measuring the flour

Who needs a spoon when you can use your hands?

'It's ok, Mom, it's a axquent (accident). We'll clean it up later'

Adding food colouring

Turns out having a toddler add food colouring and turning away is not a good idea. I have no food colouring left...

And the lovely mess...but SOOO worth it:)

concentrating

White Rock

A few weeks ago, we headed out to White Rock to take advantage of the sand and sun. White Rock has always been one of my favourite places and I always love to return and walk on the beach, the pier, and occasionally get ice cream. What a great way to spend the day, and being with the people I love the most made it even more special.

These days Camia is not as much of a water bug as she used to be, so she barely got her ankles wet - which wound up being ok since I had no clean dry clothes for her anyways. One of my favourite things to do is watch her. Especially when she doesn't know I am. It's always neat to watch her play, discover and learn.

On this day in particular she learned what a star fish was. It's there, you just have to look for it :)

Paint!

Camia found a new love: painting. She would do it every day if I let her.

She is a neat painter, and hardly makes a mess - except for one time when she got into the paint without asking. She tried to pour it herself and the mess was fabulous. Thankfully it is washable paint and it came off of everything and out of everything, including her hair, ears and clothes.

She is proud of her creations. We have a ribbon in our kitchen where we hang the work to dry, and she gets excited almost every time she sees them hanging. So I leave them there for her to look at :)

Camping Cultus

This year as our one and only vacation we decided that we were going to head to Cultus for a few days and camp with some friends. We decided this year that we would camp in July since last year while camping in June it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Well, I think the rain clouds followed us because this year, in the middle of July, the clouds found us again and it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained some more.

We figure that going in August next year might be an option, but with our luck, we'd still need rain gear and rubber boots!

And I think this is what our campsite might still look like

Despite the rain, we still managed to have a little bit of fun. We roasted hot dogs over an open fire

We found a few moments of not-rainy weather so we could go to the beach for some quiet family time

We learned what caterpillars are

We found the will to get wet while it wasn't raining when we were excited to finally have dry hair

We found a dry moment to enjoy a campfire

We made a dry area so the kiddos could still play together somewhat nicely

And, of course, we found time for a happy hour or two

We did learn a valuable lesson, though.....next year we are having our own campsite. Having 8 adults and 6 kiddos on a double site did not leave much room for the r&r we were looking forward to.