Hygge - cozy days & life with a newborn in the house

We welcomed our third baby in early January and it was a wonderfully cozy, and yet still somehow busy winter home with the three children. Focusing on bonding and quality time together, we kept our four year old home and did a lot of projects like painting, drawing, making play dough, loads of baking, and a lot of reading.

DC saw some of the coldest temps in decades over the end of January and into February - and it was too chilly to take the newborn out for a couple of weeks! To combat stir craziness, these are some of our favorite recipes and activities, some Waldorf leaning some not, to foster a sense of hygge indoors.

Play dough - I use something like this recipe here, adding a natural food coloring and some almond extract for a nice scent.

Props to make that play dough last for several activities:

Dino cookie cutters like these

Molds, piles of dried flowers, leaves, even sticks or any other kind of natural items you’ve gathered outside

These animal sets - I’ve had zip lock bags or boxes of various kinds of ‘themed items’ like farm, sea creatures, whales, dinosaurs for months now… this kind of open ended play - with a large mound of homemade play dough? Definitely my top way to get my kids engaged - especially if they haven’t seen a specific toy set for awhile and some novelty remains.

Painting:

We like this watercolor paper as it’s not super pricey but still heavy enough (300 gsm) to feel substantial

This is a nice extra large one too!

We use watercolor sets often, on rare occasions some fun (messy) pastel or bright acrylic sets - and I’m aiming to add these cute non-toxic finger paints to our cupboard soon.

These tempera paint sticks are also a huge hit and asked for often. Love how they dry quickly and go on so smoothly.

More soon! ✨

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