Wandering Toddler

In this digital era, its sometimes nice to receive a handmade card. I am a sucker for handmade stuff and as a kid I loved making cards. Toddler S is currently into messy painting ;) so this thanksgiving, to express our gratitude we made some cards for the Montessori teachers. Things you would need: Cardstock paper (Preferably some light color) Washable brown color Orange, Red, black and green maker Wiggle eyes Plate or dish for color This is the simplest and the most enjoyable type of cards for kids. They can get their hands messy, play around with the colors and still be able to make some great cards!! Yay!! Take a card stock paper fold into into half and cut it. Fold the half again and cut them. (You can make 4 cards / cardstock paper) Pour some color on a dish/plate and let your toddler press their palm into the color. (After we were done with the cards, we let toddler S play with the color so she can get messy, and she had so much fun with that) Have th...

It's Monarch season! Monarch - A beautiful milkweed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. These are simple yet so beautiful butterflies that migrate to California and can be seen in Oct through Nov... They travel at a speed of 25 miles/hour and can go upto a height of 10,000feet(Woah!). These butterflies make Natural Bridges State beach natural preserve area their home from Oct through Nov. The park ranger have weekend free-1 hour tours at 11am and 2pm. These are great tours, they give you lot of information and are very kid friendly. The rangers were so friendly and make the whole tour so kid oriented with butterfly costumes and Q&A. You can then follow the trail and visit the preserve and watch butterflies.  Trail leading up to the area for butterfly watching They have some binoculars setup that can help you see the pods. (The picture isn't all that great but observe the butterflies hanging on the milkweed leaves. They look like dried leave...

Gifts : Gifts is one of those things that everyone loves. And especially with all the festivities, its seems like the gifting/gift giving season. Where I grew up, it wasn't so much about gifting around the festivals or holidays. Something I dislike is the expectation you build about receiving gifts every year. With Toddler S growing up and getting to an age where she understands gifts etc, I thought of starting the concept of gifting as NOT buying new things but gifts/gifting - Is about GIVING Is about making something on your own, make it personal Is about SHARING Well, so with all these festivals - Diwali, Christmas, I wanted to make it all about GIVING! Toddler S has this awesome gift drive at school for the kids in Santa Rosa and I thought that's the best opportunity for us to start this. We bought some random wood trucks, cars, airplanes, colors and some gift boxes from Michaels. Toddler S loves coloring, so we painted them, packed them in ...

💥💥 H A P P Y    D I W A L I  !!!! 💥💥 Happy Diwali and prosperous new year!!! Diwali being one of the biggesssttt and brighteesstt festivals we celebrate, it is FULL of traditions and festivities and so much MORE!! I wanted to introduce a lot of traditions but wanted her to understand what it means by celebrating Diwali. Have her experience how I celebrated Diwali when I grew up in India. Growing up, it always meant helping mom, doing things around the house, decorating, firecrackers etc. I love the helping your mommy + daddy part! I feel this a great way to involve your toddler and they feel like they did something SO SPECIAL and IMPT. We started off by getting some earthen diya's and then coloring them with paint. You don't have to be the best painter / artist , we literally colored them in ONE color. But it was great way of introducing her to earthen diya's and talk about what we do.. When we light them at night, she was so happy to see...

We love fruits as a family! And what better way to spend your weekend than this?! Blessed living in California, that offers so many varieties of fruits and farms. Apples come at the perfect time, end of summer, early fall... It's a great way to enjoy some warmth in the farms and pumpkin decorations! Alright, apple picking, what's important!                                      Timing, choice of the farms and picking them right! Timing: I will classify this in two parts, a. When in the season 2. What time of the day. a. When?! We learnt it the hard way but it's important to go early in the season. The earlier in the season the fruits are easier to access, and there's lots of them! Farms usually put up their calendars every year, try and track the times they open for U-Pick. I noticed this time that the farm we went to offered postcards service to inform you whe...

Have been meaning to write about our visit to this gorgeous place for a while. It's definitely on of those places which you must visit if you are visiting San Francisco. The red wood trees here have so much history, it's so close to the city yet so secluded. It's about 45 mins drive from the San Francisco city and one of the ways to get there let's you drive over the Golden Gate Bridge( One of the many things you can do). The drive up there is beautiful. You will cross so many scenic points along the way. Parking can get full quickly over long weekends or so.. They have overflow parking as well as bus system that runs from Mill valley to Muir Woods. You can opt for that or drive yourself. Once you get to Muir woods, buy your tickets and ask for Junior Ranger program. It's for kids of the age 4 and above. But it's great to keep them entertained, learn about the park and it's free! There also are range lead program which provide a lot of information on...

We love Yosemite National Park. A bit of a drive from the Bay Area but it so serene, beautiful, and perfect for a Summer family camping trip. Time:  Summers is a great time to visit Yosemite. And if you can end of May and early June or late August and early Sept, that would be the best. Camps: Yosemite is famous for the camp grounds and the tents style accommodations that they offer. They have a few options you can choose from, ranging from the most luxurious to the most basic ones! There are two camping sites "Housekeeping" or "Half Dome Village(Formerly known as "Curry Village"). Housekeeping : Housekeeping has basic tents, with queen/bunk beds. They do not have any heating systems. And no bed sheets or blankets. But they have a nice picnic table for each tent, and a fire pit. Some of the tents are right by the Merced river!! Half Dome Village : These are more sophisticated camping accommodations which have heating systems, provide bed s...