Last summer during quarantine, themed days became a thing and now I think they are here to stay!
In case you missed our 2020 “Quarantine with a Theme” days, you can find them here:
Christmas Themed Day
Disney World Day
Snow Day
School Themed Day
Christmas Themed Day is making a return this year as well as doing a Farm Themed Day at Morgan’s request and a Raya Themed Day at Laney’s request.
This summer, we put together a Summer Bucket List. I keep seeing that quote float around that we only get 18 summers with out kids so I’m determined to make them memorable!
We checked our first item off of our Summer Bucket List last week when we took a [mini] Lake Vacation. Our summer schedule is quickly filling up and we also made the recent decision to sell our boat. I have yet shared this, so if you’re reading this, you’re getting the inside scoop! Yes, we just boat it last year. No, we didn’t truly want to sell it. However, the current MasterCraft market is like the housing market — we would be able to sell our boat for more than we paid for it when we bought it! That’s unheard of in the boating world! So with our renovation nearing completion and knowing that we will want to spend a lot of our weekends upstairs in the new bonus room amongst some other reasons, we decided to let it go. Though we do know we are a lake family and will definitely be buying another boat in the next few years, but with a better knowledge of boats and some new features we know we want next time. We dropped our boat off at the dealership from which we originally purchased it and we had a phone call less than 24 hours later with an offer. Sold! A family from Kentucky wanted to come and pick it up from Charlotte, NC if that tells you anything about how crazy the market is and how few and far between MasterCrafts are right now.
So now it’s time for another Summer Bucket List item. The girls decided they wanted it to be the Raya Themed Day so I have been busy pulling together some ideas to make it a fun filled day and here is what I came up with!
Asian Rice Hat Pancakes
Super easy breakfast coming right up! Just make pancakes using your favorite mix, set a berry or chocolate chips under the middle to prop it up, drizzle with syrup of melted peanut butter in a grid pattern and voila! Asian rice hat pancakes!
We had to improvise halfway through and use a frying pan because my griddle decided to die, but still somewhat achieved what I was going for. The girls enjoyed them so that’s what matters.
Raya Dresses
The Raya costumes online are really cute and I especially loved Taylor Joelle Designs’ new dresses but wanted to keep the day budget friendly so I found these dresses online instead. The reviews were so-so but I decided to take a chance since they were just under $20 each. Regardless, I knew my girls would have fun dressing up! The dresses are a little thin, however they are silky soft like a nightgown. The girls loved them! I also just found the same dress from another vendor but with a hat that you can find here.
Raya Lego
My husband was big into legos as a kid so we started our girls young on the duplo blocks. Laney caught on to those pretty quickly and now Morgan is getting the hang of them. Beginning last fall, we started doing some of the lego kits with Laney. They make some now for ages 4+ and thought Laney is only 4, we have helped her enough for her to be able to tackle those intended for ages 6+. It’s such good practice for her motor skills and her ability to follow the directions on the paper booklet. She loves legos so much now that is doing a lego camp in just a couple of weeks! I picked up this Raya lego bag kit on a recent shopping trip to save for a rainy day and today it made for a fun activity during our Raya day!
Raya’s Lotus Necklace Craft
My mom recently gave me a bag of these wooden beads and I’ve just had them stored away with my craft stuff unsure of how I wanted to use them. At first I thought I’d make some little garlands for vases, bowls, or other set ups around my house but then decided to use them make Raya’s lotus necklace. Raya’s necklace has dark brown and gold beads so you can paint them if you’d like but since the ones I have are both in natural and dark tones, we are just going to use them like that to keep things simple. We also made due with the only blue lotus flowers I could find and the girls got some good hand-eye coordination practice and they turned out cute!
Twine | Wooden Beads | Lotus Flower
Activity Sheets
If you click here or on the graphic below, you can find the activity sheets I used for the girls. I love that they aren’t just your basic worksheets and actually have some really good thought behind them. They made for some fun conversation!
Tuk Tuk Rolls Snack
1 cup crushed ginger snaps or Biscoff cookies
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
chocolate sprinkles
fruit leather strips
Place cookies in a bag and carefully crush them with a rolling pin.
In a large bowl, combine crushed cookies, peanut butter, powdered sugar and maple syrup. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated and you have a smooth dough. If the dough is too sticky, you can add a little more powdered sugar until you have a play dough consistency.
Scoop out about 2 tablespoons of the dough and shape into a 1 1/2″ football shape. Gently press the bottom onto a plate or cutting board to create a flat side so that it sits steady. Repeat with all remaining peanut butter dough.
Slice the fruit leather into small strips about ½” wide.
Place 3 – 4 fruit leather strips on top of each roll in a shingled pattern. Press the sides of the fruit leather down and gently squeeze together, so that the fruit leather wraps over the top of the peanut butter roll and sticks to the sides.
Repeat with all remaining fruit leather and peanut butter rolls.
*Note: If your fruit leather is not very pliable and difficult to work with, lay the strips flat on a microwave-safe plate and heat for 2 – 3 seconds until softened.
Place 2 chocolate sprinkles on one end of each roll, just under the last piece of fruit leather, for Tuk Tuk’s antennae.
You’ll get about 18 rolls out of this recipe. (I halved it when we made this for our Raya day)
Want you own cute stuffed Tuk Tuk? Click here! He has little magnets so he can roll up in a ball just like in the movie!
Sensory Bin
I thought this would be something fun the girls could play with during the movie. Most of these items I already had in our craft bins and they really enjoyed opening up their Raya mystery packs. They ended up getting the same one but that also means less fighting so it worked out. Sensory bins can be filled with anything you can think of so have fun putting it together! Then I just grabbed some of the tools that belong to our play-doh sets and it was ready to go!
Bin | Kinetic Sand | Lotus Flowers (like on Raya’s necklace) | Purple Pom Poms (Druun) | Jewels (for the lands of Kumandra–ignore that I have 7 instead of 5) | Raya & The Last Dragon Mystery Packs | Fine Motor Tools
Starbucks
Who doesn’t love a Starbucks run?! So when I saw these secret drink menu items, I thought they would be fun to try. I decided the girls would probably like the Raya Frappaccino the best so rather than wasting the others, I opted to just get two of those. I had planned on just ordering via the app however I couldn’t add some of these ingredients to the vanilla bean creme Frappuccino. Luckily it was simple to order via drive thru. Read below for our review!
The Raya Frappaccino was a big hit! The girls loved its bright purple color from the dragon fruit and it tasted great! We all give it two thumbs up! The dragon fruit flavor is very subtle and mostly just tastes like a vanilla milkshake. This was the girls’ first actual drink from Starbucks since they usually just get cake pops so they enjoyed this treat!
Coloring Sheets
The color sheets we used were also part of the packet with the activity sheets. If you’ve printed the bundle from above, you’re all set, otherwise you can click on this graphic to find them.
Movie
What’s a Raya themed day without watching the movie? This made for some nice quiet time after a full day of fun! Also my opportunity to get started on dinner!
Shrimp & Noodles
Pinterest had some recipes for those with a more adventurous palate to try Kumandra Soup, but as a mom of two somewhat picky eaters, I kept this themed meal really simple — PF Chang’s Shrimp Lo Mein. We have had their meals before (they can be found at Publix) so I knew it would be a big hit for everyone. And it was!
We had such a fun day! If you plan your own Raya themed day or try any of these 
activities, be sure to tag me on Instagram @multiplyingmichie. I’d love to see!
Be Brave.
Be Strong.
Never Waver.
– Raya
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