Indoors

I’m gonna file this under preschooler, because Julian and I had a good time making this adorable paper flag banner for his room, but I’ll also tag it with prenatal, because I made a similar flag banner for Scarlett’s room before she was born. I made the one for Scarlett out of fabric, though.

The picture here is of the results you get if you use the kit sold by the Paper Source. The ingredients for the kit are so basic, you can really just do it on your own. Then end result is a colorful string of flags that can be tacked up on a wall for a quick, festive decoration.

What you need:

1) enough scrapbooking paper, wrapping paper, or magazine pages from which to cut 15 flags.

2) enough string to accommodate 15 hanging flags.

3) a glue stick

Cut this shape out of your selected paper.

Bend over the top portion so that the sides line up with the sides of the bottom triangle. And please excuse my Photoshopping.

Apply glue to the touching parts of the paper.

Place the flap over your string and press together so that your flag is glued in place.

Repeat.

Last month, we were very lucky to get Courtney from Babyccino to write up a week in London. Now, I’m excited to tell you that we have another fun European city to explore: Amsterdam! Esther has two little ones almost the exact ages as my two… now if we could just schedule a playdate. She’s a busy Dutch stay-at-home mom with a ton of good ideas for rainy days and sunny days in her home city.

Monday
Go out for breakfast in the Bakkerswinkel. A basket of different sorts of bread, muffins, scones and croissants makes way to your table accompanied by a much needed coffee and orange juice. Fancy jams can be found on the table. Open from 7AM - what a wonderful way to start the week!

After, take your children to the Amstelpark, where there is a lovely playground and a little city farm. A ‘real train’ can take you around the park – a sure hit with your little ones.

Had enough of the park? Go to the Scheldestraat where you can find the great kids’ shoe store Meys & Co (open from 1PM onwards), with across the street Koter & Co where they sell a big selection of the cool Dutch kiddie brand Imps&Elfs (and more).

Before going back home, don’t forget to visit Italian delicatessen Feduzzi for a cappuccino and one of their mouth watering Panini. And don’t forget the babyccino for your little angel! You can pick up something for dinner here too – I promise you, the food is great, and prices are reasonable.

Tuesday
TunFun is an indoor playground that your children will LOVE. There are different soft play areas for different age groups, and there are also benches and a lounge area for the grown ups. A good place to start the day with a cup of coffee! (And a great place to go if it’s raining)!

Artis, the Zoo of Amsterdam, is not far from here. Because of the mix of historic, listed buildings, huge amounts of green and great variety of animals, this is truly a magnificent place to spend half a day.

In the unfortunate but not unthinkable case of bad weather, Artis provides many indoor activities for your children and yourself to enjoy: the aquarium, the greenhouses, reptile house, Planetarium and the new butterfly-garden.
The playgrounds and restaurants are very good, but if you feel like having lunch in a different environment, you can go to restaurant Plancius, across the street from Artis. It’s a good place to go with children (high chairs are available).
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I just read this idea on Flexible Parenting and my stepmom (aka Gramma Leslie) did this awesome toddler activity with Julian at her house, way before it would have occurred to me.

Bring a stool to your empty kitchen sink and let your toddler climb up. Fill the sink with warm soapy water, plastic cups, utensils, etc. Let your toddler pretend to make something or wash dishes. For some reason my little man likes to say he’s washing dishes. Far be it from me to inform him that washing dishes ain’t fun.

Try it. You’ll be surprised at how long this can occupy a person who is between two and three feet tall.

Alex, who introduced me via her blog to the term “potching” says, “I can pretty much guarantee that it will make a gigantic mess. The good news is that mess is just soapy water and wet utensils so it will eventually dry on it’s own.”

My unprofessional opinion is that if your child is walking, she is old enough to try this one.