Cooking with Anya : Tandoori Naan Pizza

I had this recipe pinned for the longest time and finally tried it last week with Anya. Now that she is older it is fun to involve her in the kitchen. And because she is a super picky eater, I thought if she is more involved in the preparation she might eat better.

This quick idea turned out to be so much fun. I had some shredded cooked chicken left over so used that instead and improvised with the ingredients I had on hand. Anya really enjoyed making her own pizza and then eating it. If you’d like to try this out follow the link to the recipe here. And if your kid is impatient like mine, I would suggest having the chicken and vegetables ready before hand and then letting them layer the pizza on their own.

In case you’re wondering this is the naan brand that I usually like to use.

If you have kids and like me usually have naan in your freezer, this is a perfect little snack/activity with your toddlers.

Thanks for stopping by. Lots of love.

Handmade Stuffies Craft for Anya’s Birthday Playdate

Last week, we had a little Birthday Playdate to celebrate Anya turning 4 with her closest friends and their mommies (More on that later). For a kids activity for the party I decided to have them do a little painting project they could take home with them. I had been wanting to try this via A Beautiful Mess, for the longest time ever and finally did it for this little celebration.







SUPPLIES Some Cotton Fabric (You could even use old T Shirts I’m guessing but I bought mine at Joann), Fabric Marker or Pen (I got this one), Polyester Filling (I already had this one sold at Joann and Michaels). Fabric or Acrylic Paints.

PROCESS I drew the illustrations freehand, some inspired by Elsie and some inspired by images I found online. I ended up hand-stitching them, I KNOW, even though I own a sewing machine because well :p It worked okay though because I didn’t have to make too many (Incase you’d like to know I used the Overcast Stitch to make it a little more secure).

(Once the kids are done, it also helps to draw over the black lines once the stuffies have dried to redefine them as they might have painted all over them!) 








Pictures above from the party by my talented photographer friend Sumera. 

I spread a plastic table cloth on the floor in the living room and the kids looked so adorable working on their little painting projects. We did the project at the start as kids arrived so by the time they had to leave, the stuffies were mostly dry and they were able to take them home in their goody bags :)

Here is a glimpse into what Anya’s butterfly looked like!



More from her party to follow:)

Thanks for reading. Lots of love.

Toddler Project: A Family Album

Good morning you guys. Here’s an easy project for your toddler. I had wanted to make this as a board book for Anya when she was much younger and loved looking at pictures, and pointing out names. Living so far from our family and not being able to see their faces throughout the year, I wanted Anya to know them from a young age and I loved the idea of this project, specially at the baby age where they are fascinated by faces.





All you need is a little premade or a DIY little album and some family photos. I selected photos of Anya with her loved ones from our various trips back home to see them, because I thought she would enjoy those more now. I stuck double sided tape to the photos and let her stick them to the album. And we found a little ‘family’ sticker from my craft box to add to the top. Here’s Anya trying to show her little album to you.

My parents had organized their photos in many many photo albums which to this day sit in my parents bookshelves. We have spent many an afternoons going through those albums, smiling at all those memories and I want Anya to experience the same. I am trying to make it a point to organize all these photos that keep filling up our hard drives and either print them and make albums or make annual photo books. There is absolutely nothing like an afternoon spent reminiscing over old photos.

Sigh.



Thanks for reading, lots of love.

Around Seattle: Music Together Classes

So I think I mentioned these music classes that I take Anya to. She is a little over 2.5 right now and isn't going to any preschool yet, just because I hope to keep her home with me for another year or so. But I realized that she needed some regular interaction with kids in a group so I looked around and ended up taking her to these music classes that I absolutely love now. Ever since she was a baby, she has been very into music and even started humming to her favorite poems before she could say many words. With my husband being a talented closet guitarist and our common love for music, I would love for Anya to grow up to appreciate and enjoy good music. And the Music Together classes at the Seashell Music Academy are perfect for us.

These classes have been around since 1987 and the program is world renowned. The program has nine song collections that they divide into different semesters, so even if you take a couple of semesters, it doesn't get boring, even for the parent. In fact, of all the song/poem collections Anya has gone through, these ones are our favorite as even I don’t mind listening to these over and over again at all.

Here’s a little about this program via their website.

Music Together classes are based on the recognition that all children are musical. All children can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate with confidence in the music of our culture, provided that their early environment supports such learning. Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music and movement program for children from birth through age 7. By emphasizing actual music experiences rather than concepts about music, Music Together introduces children to the pleasures of making music instead of passively receiving it from CDs or TV.

Go here to visit the Music Together website.











If you live in the Seattle area and are interested, there are classes all over the area including Redmond, Bellevue, Sammamish, Issaquah, Seattle, Bothell, Snoqualmie, Duvall. Go here to find a class near you. Classes start this week and if you are interested you can check if they will let you try out a class.



This is not a sponsored post and I am not being paid by Music Together for this post :)

Thanks for stopping by. Much love.

Just give baby some socks.

 

So did you know that sometimes socks can occupy toddlers like nothing can? Neither did I! But this weekend, completely out of ideas to entertain baby at home, I suddenly thought…

So Anya color sorts things these days, and loves putting her socks on and off endlessly, OMG, I know what would make a great activity for her!

I emptied out all her socks on the floor and mixed up the pairs so she could find them before she could put on/take off socks endlessly. And baby had a blast. It was like a mini shoe store, except these weren’t shoes, these were socks. Baby girl is too cute, mA and I think I am quite enjoying this age of hers!

Now this is truly what you call a lazy mom’s way to keep her baby busy;)

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Toddler Activity: Homemade push/pull toy

Since Pakistan is hardly giving me any time to work on the posts in my head, I thought I’d share some pictures from before we came here. Remember when we tried this activity? We tried a bigger version of that, actually big enough for Anya to take a ride in it too.

This version ended up being a huge hit with her, and even though these are pictures from the same day, she played with it up till the day of our flight. Check her out giving all her favorite teddy bears a ride around the house.

And this is how most of these rides end. ‘Dh-aa’ (which in Anya language is used for whenever you throw something on the floor) go all the poor furry things at the end. Most times to make space for herself, and then we drag her around the house, no pictures of that sorry:)

Next time you have an empty box, I suggest you give this one a try. No mess, no fuss. You can even pretty up the box with neon duct tape as was our plan but travel preps made that hard to do.

Thanks for stopping by.

Toddler Activity: Artwork

Hey lovelies, been a few days since I shared anything here. Have a couple ideas floating in my head but not enough time to properly work on them yet so for today making do with another toddler activity share.

Anya and I tried our first little artwork together. I saw something similar on BabyTV a couple days ago and thought we can try it.

So I gave her a paper, and a little homemade paint like here, except didn’t add any food color this time. I only wanted it to act like glue so everything sticks to the paper. Gave her four bowls of different edible items like leftover sunchip crumbs, leftover cheerios and two types of sprinkles.

Since she doesn’t like dirtying up her hands (starts making faces and saying ‘dirty hands’), I gave her a little spoon add it all to her paper.

Busy little baby loved this little activity and enjoyed playing around with all the different textures. I had to help her to remember to add them to the paper. Soon she realized though that she wanted to eat all these yummy things so ended up eating all the leftovers:p

I put the art outside to dry up and later on brought inside to show it to her baba. At this point though, Anya wanted to take off all the cheerios and eat them:p so poor artwork had to be thrown away and sadly there is no picture of the final outcome. It looked pretty much like the picture below! haha.

Overall a fun activity that we tried  again when Anya’s friend visited a few days later. Will share pictures from that later!

Thanks for stopping by!

Toddler Activity: Homemade Paints

Hey lovelies,

Sharing another little activity we did a couple weeks ago. Anya still loves to taste everything so I have been keeping away from real paints. Don’t know where I saw this but tried an easy recipe for homemade paint that is completely safe.

Nice and colorful, right?

Its basically half cup flour dissolved in a little less than half cup water (or more depending on the consistency you want). I divided the mixture into three and added a drop each of Wilton’s gel food colors. Super easy and super fun. 

Give it a try and share a picture if you’d like:)

Thanks for stopping by!

PS:Sometimes I try to go camera-less and only use my cellphone for pictures. These were taken on my Windows Phone and edited in the Instacam app. Sadly Instagram hasn’t come to Windows Phone yet

Toddler Activity: Stacking

So earlier today, I shared this activity with almost the same items, a couple of tin containers. Here’s the second one.
I gave her a couple more tin containers from my pantry, making sure all were different sizes. I showed her how to stack them once. And then the fun began while we watched some evening TV



Another half hour of a busy baby and much needed relaxing for the mommy daddy before bedtime.



Thanks for stopping by!