Dinner prep: entertaining your toddler when preparing meals

Margaux  is at the age she wants to imitate everything I do. Very cute, but sometimes I need her to be entertained while I prepare her meal. In this case, she becomes a mini cook!

Tools:

• Egg container
• Toddler cooking utensils
• Coffee straws
• Silicone muffin pans

How To:

• Let your mini chef play with silicone muffin pans which are soft enough to use
• Give him/her coffee straws to put in a colander
• Using an egg container, break the egg shapes to make cardboard eggs
• If your toddler is used to seeing you cook, he/she will imitate you with toddler utensils: store them at your child's level for easy access. Quickly he/she will gather them instinctively while you cook

Ice cube painting

What to do when you have a toddler who is obsessed with going outside and it is currently raining? Let her/his inner artist shine!

Tools:

• Ice cube tray
• Food coloring
• Craft sticks
• Craft paper

How To:

• Pour one drop of food coloring in the cubes of an ice cube tray. I used only 4 squares of the tray, one for each color I used. Add water and place in your freezer for about 45 mins
• Cut craft sticks in half
• Check your ice cube tray. It should be half frozen. Insert the craft sticks in the center
• Put it back in the freezer until solid frozen
• Loosen the ice cubes and show your toddler how to paint

Butterflies collage

Inspiration:
For this craft, I was inspired by two of Margaux's favorites: Eric Carle's book "The very hungry caterpillar" and her love of magazines and catalogs.
Tools: 
Craft paper, cutouts from a catalog, Elmer's© purple glitter glue (washable, non toxic, this was a great find)
How To: 
- Simply cutout shapes in the pages of a catalog while your toddler naps
- Stick the page to a desk preferably
- Let your toddler put glitter glue on all the cutouts (Margaux got excited with this and overloaded on it!)
- Help him/her place them on the paper if needed but random placement from your toddler is best even if they overlap :)

Margaux makes a bird feeder

The weather was beautiful out and we could hear birds sing...perfect day to make Margaux's first bird feeder!

This is very simple to make and your toddler will most certainly enjoy tasting the cheerios in the process. There is some fun in there throughout the whole process. We don't eat Cheerios© so actually just walking to the store to get some is an activity in itself when you have a toddler!

Tools:
Floral wire
Cheerios©
A ribbon

How To:
- Cut a string of floral wire and shape it in a heart. Repeat as many times as you want hearts
- Let your toddler thread some cheerios© all around the wire
- Loop the hearts together and twist the wire to tie
- Tie a ribbon through the bird feeder to hang on a branch

Birthday sparkles

Margaux is 16 months old now and has reached the age of the busy toddler who is very curious and loves to try new things. We've had an incredibly white Winter to say the least, with snow days multiple times a week. How do you occupy a toddler in that case? Lots of CRAFTS.
It was my husband's birthday in January and a great occasion to try our first craft project. I got the idea from a friend of mine who has two children and is a lot more experienced than me on this. The concept is simple, gives pretty results and is definitely "toddler-approved".

Inspiration:
The view of the Eiffel Tower from our home when we lived in Paris
Tools: 
Heavy cardboard paper, sequins or glitters, Playskool© glue, pencil, cookie cutter
How To: 
- Draw your desired shape using a cookie cutter on the cardboard (a simple shape is best)
- Help your toddler squeeze some glue onto the drawing
- Let your toddler place sequins/glitters all over
- Let the artwork dry for about 30 mns
- Gently shake to remove the excess sequins

Keeping warm

This winter is a rough one. Gorgeous with the many heavy snow storms covering everything in white, but bitterly cold and unpractical.
I had just finished a project using some silver grey yarn and had some leftover yarn. Legwarmers definitely seemed appropriate. Here's Margaux modelling them.

Stay warm everyone!

Wishing my readers and all the babies out there many magical moments, joy and good eats throughout 2014!

A la Maud

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