Pirate Beach Water Playground at LEGOLAND Discovery Center!

My kids are so excited to say that Pirate Beach at LEGOLAND Discovery Center Grapevine is finally open!  It's 10,000 square feet of water playground fun all in a great pirate LEGO theme.  

They love the 50 gallon pirate bucket that teeters 20 feet above them and dumps water on them every few minutes!

There are four slippery slides for little ones to enjoy.

There are about 30 cool ways to get wet from the giant water bucket to fountains and water guns.

Of course there are tons of giant LEGO bricks scattered all around to build until your heart's content!

 

Pirate Beach is a wonderful addition to LEGOLAND Discovery Center.  It is geared towards kids ages 3 to 10 but I personally saw a darling 2 year old having a ton of fun just toddling around with some giant LEGOs in hand and my 10 year old let his imagination run as he played on the pirate ship.

Of course everything was delightful for my 5 year old, especially the giant LEGO pirate princess!

  

The Pirate Beach is located outside so bring your sunscreen.  You do need to be dry and in regular clothes to re-enter LEGOLAND.  There are changing rooms available outside so be sure to bring a towel and a change of clothes.

Back inside, the kids gravitated to the LEGO building stations at the race track area.  I felt my heart tug a little as I watched a little toddler boy trying to build a car then I looked over and saw my towering 10 year old and wondered where the time has gone.

Nicholas helped his little sister build her car then built an amazing race car for himself.

Rachel doesn't usually play for very long in the race track area but she's been building more and more with her LEGOs at home and she really seemed to have fun there today.  Here is her race car creation.

My son is a self-proclaimed Master Builder.  He just loves clicking those colorful bricks together, especially the giant ones at LEGOLAND.  I watched him work on this creation for a while without knowing what he was making.  Once it was done, he sat in his work of art that he called his throne.  I love how LEGOs help kids expand their imagination while they build cool things!

LEGOLAND Discovery Center is located inside Grapevine Mills Mall at 3000 Grapevine Mills Parkway in Grapevine, Texas.  They are open for fun Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. - last admission two hours prior to closing.  Admission is $18 for guests 3 years of age and older, and free for kids 2 and under.  To purchase special discounted tickets visit www.LEGOLANDDiscoveryCenter.com/dallasfw.

Storing Essential Oils

I have been using essential oils for probably 15 years now.  I originally started using them back when I had my own soap making/bath and body product business.  I loved that my products were unique because they were made with only natural therapeutic fragrances.

Over the years my essential oil collection has slowly grown.  I like to make my own blends either based on a fragrance that I want or for specific purposes like using Lavender and Ylang Ylang to soothe my soul at the end of the day.

I used to store my oils in an old shoe box but the cardboard got flimsy over time and I didn't want a bottle of oil to fall out and break on the floor when I picked up the box.  I moved my essential oils to a plastic storage box with a snap-on lid.  This was nice and sturdy but the plastic was translucent so they were still getting light exposure even when they were put away.  Essential oils do not turn rancid like nut and vegetable oils but their quality and strength can degrade over time if they are not stored properly.  It's best to keep them in the dark and in a cool place. 

Fortunately, I was able to re-purpose this big makeup bag that I've had for several years.   It is just perfect for my needs!  It is hard-sided so my oils will not get easily bumped around.  It is not translucent so my oils stay completely in the dark.  It has a handle for easy carrying.  I like this because sometimes I want to just carry the whole bag downstairs instead of just a bottle or two and this keeps them ready to go at all times.  (If I didn't want to be able to transport my oils, I would probably look into making a dedicated drawer for my essential oils and use these cool wooden storage boxes intended for kitchen gadgets.  I just love the way it is all organized!) Plus it just looks sharp!

Inside, it is big enough to hold most of my oils.  I do have some large 16 oz bottles of oil that will not fit in this box but I just transfer some of those oils to fresh 1/2 oz bottles so I will always have at least some of each of my oils in this special bag.  I keep my smallest bottles and some accessories like a little funnel in a little plastic box in the middle to keep them all together.  Notice that I've tried to balance the weight even throughout so that one side isn't heavier than the other.  This helps keep the bag from trying to slosh over to one side and sliding my oils around.

I use mostly amber boston round bottles but some of the bottles are a dark blue.  Both are good for storing essential oils in but the amber bottles are darker so they might keep them protected from light a little bit better.  

I either don't have anything in the opening of my essential oil bottles or else I may have an orifice reducer like you see in the picture below.  These make it easy to release just a few drops of the essential oil at a time.  This is a much better way to control the drops than to use a dropper in the cap.  Essential oils can degrade plastic and rubber over time so a dropper that stays sitting down in the oil for extended periods of time is not a good idea.

For times that I may need to get more than just a few drops of essential oil out of the bottle, I use a pipette to suction up larger amounts of the oil like I might use in lotion or soap recipes.  Although the pipettes are considered disposable, I'm too cheap to buy a new pipette every time I use an oil.  So I use snack size zip top bags to store them in.  I don't want to cross-contaminate the different oils with each other so each oil has its own dedicated pipette that goes in its own labeled baggie.  They fit right in my essential oil storage box.

This may not be the perfect system for everyone but it has worked well for me over the years.  If you use essential oils, I'd love to hear how you store yours!

DIY Crayons {Recycling Project for Kids}

If you are like us, the beautiful new box of crayons don't stay that way for long.  Those long crayons end up breaking and over time you are left with a box of lots of little crayon pieces that are just too small to really use.  Instead of throwing them away, try this fun recycling project and help your kids learn to be creative and reuse these little crayon pieces to make DIY crayons!

We started with Rachel using a muffin tin to separate the crayon pieces by color.  She loves these kinds of sorting activities!  Then we pulled out a little silicone baking mold of butterflies, ladybugs, and bees.  She filled each of the mold cups with the little crayon pieces.

Here full mold looked like this:

We put the mold on a cookie sheet and placed it in the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes until the crayons were completely melted.  We let them cool then very carefully popped them out of the mold.  They turned out to be big beautiful crayons that she can use again...or just keep because they look so cool!

Nicholas thought this was such a cool project that he asked to make some crayons of his own.  

We found this cute silicone Lego minifigure mold on Amazon (affiliate link)


And also this cool Lego brick mold there as well (affiliate link)


As soon as the molds came in, Nicholas grabbed the leftover crayon pieces and went to work. 

This has been such a fun and easy project for the kids plus it is a great way to teach them about reusing and recycling things that they might have just thrown away.

Sublime Chocolate

A couple of years ago, Stuart and I went on a Dallas by Chocolate bus tour which took us to three specialty chocolate shops.  One of the shops was Sublime Chocolate in Allen.  It was a very memorable experience.

Sublime Chocolate is Dallas' first "bean to bar" chocolate maker.  They hand craft their truffles and bon bons with all natural ingredients and the flavors are just amazing.  Just try picking your favorites from Honey Caramel, Sublime Dark, Caliente, Thai Ginger, Lavender, and even Bacon (yes, Bacon!)

They also offer some delightful sipping chocolate.  This isn't like hot chocolate or chocolate milk.  

Their sipping chocolate is more like drinking a rich chocolate cream.  It is  heavenly and so delicious.  The kids loved it!

Sublime Chocolate is located at 908 Market Street in Allen, Texas.  They are open weekdays from 10:00 am - 9:00 pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00 - 10:00.  They are closed on Sundays.  For more information, please call 214-383-6776 or visit the Sublime Chocolate website.

Before Five in a Row Planning Resources

Last year I started using Before Five in a Row with Rachel.  It is a wonderful curriculum that brings real books to life through activities involving math, science, crafts, music, and more.  Plus it is just a fun way to spend some special time with your little one while reading some wonderful books!

Essentially, you read the selected book once a day for 5 days in a row.  After each reading, you do a couple of activities that somehow relate to the story.  The Before Five in a Row book lists many great activities for each book but I've also collected many more on my Before Five in a Row Pinterest board.

To plan, I start with locating the books that we will read. Many of them can be found at our local libraries. Others I buy used at library book sales or from friends whose kiddos have outgrown them.  All of the suggested books are really great pieces of children's literature so I do try to buy them when I can so that we can read them over and over at anytime.  

I then look through the books and decide on the best time of the year to read them based on things like if the story takes place during a particular season or if there is a theme to the story that ties in with something else we will be doing later in the year.

Here is a Before Five in a Row Book List (PDF) that I made to help me keep track of all of this:


To help me plan the activities we do each day, I created this weekly planning page that I fill out for each book. It lets me keep track of which activities we will do on which day, the subjects covered, and which supplies I need to have on hand. 

Here is a PDF version if you'd like to download it:


I hope these forms will help you with planning Before Five in a Row activities for your child.
Although we started this curriculum last year, we still have some books that we didn't get around to reading.  We will continue to work through the books at the beginning of this year and then we will move on the next level which is Five in a Row, Volume 1.