this and that! IG favorites from Our Grand Lives! spring 2026 edition
- 4 hours ago
- 9 min read
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
We hope everyone enjoyed a lovely Mother’s Day weekend,
whether it was spent celebrating, reminiscing, gathering with family,
or simply soaking in a few sweet moments together.
We’re both catching our breath,
as we each spent last week traveling a bit!
Our time away was GRAND
and we’ll each look forward to sharing more details soon!
With that said, we’re so glad you’re here
and we hope today’s post brings a little smile to your day!
We’re kicking off a new series, one we’ll add to seasonally!
You may recall from past posts,
that, as blogging partners,
the two of us share a common vision for Our Grand Lives…
Whether those moments are spent with our spouses,
our grown children, our friends or extended family
OR
our beloved Littles (our grandkids),
we love sharing hands-on experiences and real life activities
that you can easily adapt to your own circumstances!
Along the way, we sometimes throw in occasional words of wisdom,
and even offer a lesson or two we’ve learned during this GRAND phase of life!
One of the joys of Our Grand Lives
is how we each bring our own experiences and strengths to this shared space!
We’re a Little Bit of THIS & a Little Bit of THAT!
Laura has been reading blogs for many years and has always felt drawn to beginning one of her own. Retirement gave her the nudge she needed to do just that! Laura’s love of organization and writing shapes many of the blog posts you read here as does her love of planning a good party or a fun craft project or trying out a new recipe or decorating the house for the season at hand . She can’t resist playing with words and has discovered a growing interest in graphic design, too! Laura is grateful for the photography lessons Laurie has taught her as well as her repeated (and appreciated) efforts to edit Laura-long posts, when needed! What can we say? We've always got so much to share! We're (Laura) is still trying our (her) best to remember... Less is more!
Meanwhile, Laurie’s love for family, photography, scrapbooking and fun shine through in all we post! She has an eye for capturing life’s moments and she shares them regularly on our social media sites where she also shines! Even as a kindergarten teacher, she regularly posted classroom happenings for parents and now she brings these talents to OGL!
and while she always highlights the content of our blog posts,
she also posts ideas that aren’t always featured on the blog.
As we mentioned near the beginning of this post,
today we’re kicking off a new series by featuring ideas here
that we’ve only shared on IG and Facebook during the past few months.
As a BONUS, we’ll look back to past years
and share 1-2 additional FAVES, too!
While Laurie often highlights current blog post content
she also finds many other simple tidbits to feature,
including, in no particular order, the ideas found below.
Just like us,
a little of this and a little of that!
While each activity is described below,
you can also tap on the link provided for all the details for each!
Play-Doh Fun!
Need a new idea for Play-Doh fun?
This one will build muscle strength in little hands,
getting them ready for future writing and drawing experiences!
Wrap plastic animals or toy figures in a ball of Play-Doh
and have your toddler or preschooler work to uncover them!
Marshmallow Rainbows!
Do you happen to have a pipe cleaner, two large marshmallows
and some Fruit Loop type cereal (or colorful pony beads) at home?
If you answered "yes", then you've got all you need
to make a simple springtime rainbow your Little will love!!
Selective Eaters Beware!
Do you have a Little who is a “selective eater” 😊 like my granddaughters?
If so, give this a try!
My Littles eat their peas straight from the freezer. If I put them right on their plates they pick through and eat some. If I serve them in small liquid medicine cups, they gobble them down. It’s easy to eat one small cup!
Recently, they ate 5 little cups of peas at lunch - that equals a 1/2 measuring cup!
We call that’s a win!
Spring for Spring!
Spring for spring! 🌸. That’s so fun to say!
This is a fun project any time of the year but especially so during this season
and it gives preschoolers a chance
to practice their cutting skills at the same time!
Cut out a circle, draw a spiral and cut, following the lines that have been drawn. Make more “springs” using different colors and sizes of paper. You can carry them around like a windsock or tape them to the ceiling to make your house look extra SPRINGY!!
Make a few for your youngest Littles, too!
Babies and toddlers will love trying to grab them
or will simply be mesmerized while watching them twirl!
Puzzles Galore!
We had so much fun with this!
Try this twist for a new way to use your puzzles!
I took ALL of my Littles’ wooden puzzles
and wrapped every puzzle piece individually in foil.
I put the wrapped pieces in a basket and laid the empty puzzles out on a bench.
Then I placed the basket in a nearby room.
This gave my Littles additional opportunities to move, as well!
The Littles would run to the basket in the other room, choose a wrapped puzzle piece and unwrap it. Then, they would run to the puzzles and search for the place it belonged..
A FEW FUN VARIATIONS!
If you save the foil, you can wrap the pieces and play the game again and again. If you have older Littles you can give them an equal number of pieces and have them race to be the first to finish. If you have fewer puzzles, hide the wrapped puzzle pieces around the house and let your Littles hunt for them.
Pipe Cleaner Rainbows!
We’re using some of our favorite materials over and over again!
This time we’re matching colors as we build rainbow arches!
We used dot markers (or regular markers works, too) to add two circles of each rainbow color on a piece of white paper - make sure that the matching dots are not near each other.
Color by color, Littles make two balls of Play-Doh and then place the balls on the two matching circles on the paper. Then push one end of each pipe cleaner into one ball of Play-Doh and the other end into the other ball. Your Little will be so proud of themselves!
Encourage younger Littles to work on one rainbow at a time! Older Littles will be challenged if you demonstrate making one rainbow and then give them all the materials to complete the activity independently!
Tax Day Coin Sorts!
We even celebrated Tax Day recently at Our Grand Lives!
While our society doesn’t use cash much any more, Littles will forever love to sort coins and it certainly doesn’t have to be Tax Day to spend time doing so! In fact, it’s a great way to introduce and/or practice coin recognition and money skills with your Littles any time!
Coins can be sorted by type, as shown above - we used quarters, dimes and pennies since visually they are the most different looking of the coins (you can certainly introduce other coins to older Littles).
Littles can simply sort the coins into different piles or here’s another opportunity to use that Play-Doh… wrap different coins in it and let your Littles uncover the coins and sort them accordingly!
While toddlers & preschoolers can sort coins by type, early elementary Littles can sort the coins by their value (add a Post It with the value of each coin to each sorting plate. For older elementary Littles add another degree of difficulty to the activity by writing an amount on each Post It (ex. 30¢ or 58¢) and have these Littles create those amounts as they sort (or unwrap) the coins.
Working out energy AND counting coins at the same time!
My sister has a change jar in their house. When her elementary age Littles get restless, she hides coins all over the house and they go on a hunt. They get to keep the money they find!
Let’s Calm Down!
Do you ever find yourself needing a calming activity for your Little?
This is a great one, especially when spring weather arrives!
Invite your Little(s) to sit quietly outside or by a window if needed. See how many robins they can count in a set time (depending on their age – 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes). When the timer goes off, they get one treat for every bird they counted! Maybe an M&M (the mini’s are great for this!), a fruit snack, a cheese cube, or, instead of food, perhaps offer that many bedtime story books!
Robins often winter in the northern area year round now,
but they still represent the start (or hope!) of spring for many!
Enchilada Soup!
This was the perfect dish to serve to celebrate Cinco de Mayo last week!
It's bright colors remind us of the vibrant culture and rich history of Mexico.
We LOVE this soup!
Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup
INGREDIENTS (Serves 8)
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes with juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ tbsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
4 cups chicken broth, divided
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 (15 oz) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 (15 oz) cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
NOTE: Our family only uses 1 can each of the beans!
In a 6-quart slow cooker, mix together tomatoes, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and paper and 1 ½ cups of chicken broth. Add chicken breast to the cooker, turning to coat with tomato-herb mixture. Cook on HIGH for 3 hours.
Remove chicken and shred it, then add back to the cooker. Add black and kidney beans and remaining 2 ½ cups chicken broth. Cook on MEDIUM for another 2 hours.
We serve our soup with avocado slices, shredded cheese, cilantro and sour cream.
Yum!
End of Year Game!
Here’s a great end-of-the-year game for all ages!
We played it as our year of Sunday School was winding down.
Adults love it, too!
Look at how easy this was!
To begin…
The rules couldn’t be simpler!
Then after 1 minute of bedlam,
a winner is determined!
We love fun at OurGrandLives.com!
See all the action at
And now 2 FAVES from past spring seasons!
…
The Kentucky Derby!
Okay! We know this year’s Kentucky Derby has come and gone,
but this idea was too cute not to share!
While the grown-ups are getting ready for the BIG race,
here’s how your Littles can celebrate with their own horse race!.
Draw a race track on paper or outside with chalk. Line up your horse (or teddy bear, superhero, or anything you’d like)! Roll a dice and move your horse that many spaces up the track. When you get to the end of the track, turn around and come back. To make things more fun, you can race against a friend with each of you rolling your own dice!
National Dance Like a Chicken Day!
May 14 is National Dance Like a Chicken Day!
GRANDS – do you remember The Chicken Dance?
Look it up on YouTube and dance with your Littles!
Giggles are guaranteed!
Week in and week out,
Laurie shares a little of this and a little of that with us all!
special thanks to her for keeping the inspiration flowing
on our social media sites!
As always, if you have any thoughts, ideas or insights to share,
we’d love to hear more!
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Together, we like to think we make a pretty GRAND team!
Looking back, we see God’s hand in how our paths crossed
so unexpectedly after retirement,
and we are continuously grateful for the way He has woven
our different talents together,
helping us learn and grow along the way!
When we join forces, you get stories with pictures and pictures with stories...
A little of THIS and a little of THAT!
Isn't that simply GRAND?
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Oh my goodness! So many fun and wonderful ideas on here but the one I loved the most was the frozen peas... why did I never think to just feed them the veggies in their frozen state?!