My blog name & address has changed

Happy New Year!

Adventures of a Montessori Mama is now... Adventures of a Rainbow Mama!

The address is also new  http://adventuresofarainbowmamamama.blogspot.com so you might choose to bookmark it or subscribe to the rss feed here.

Please continue to join me for our unique *bespoke* Montessori / Waldorf Steiner / alternative & holistic education adventures!

I have changed the name to mirror the new direction our lives will take this year when Hug starts at a Steiner school while we continue to pursue our own Montessori ideas and ideals at home. And more. That's the adventure bit! You never quite know where you might end up but the journey will be good.  So, from now on I'm a Rainbow Mama... tasting & embracing lots of different flavours and colours. Life is sweet.

On a creative note - I have pledged to give only handmade gifts this year so there will probably also be a lot of creative adventures. And spiritual ones if I ever find the time for that too ;)

So, please, get comfy... say hello & stay a while!

Merry Christmas! 

Well, we're about to head off on our family holiday for Christmas. It's our turn to do all the visiting this year! 

I had so hoped to post more about our Christmas and Advent activities and all of the fun wrapping I've been doing... I've been making wrappings as drawstring re-usable / re-giftable bags and must say I got through about half of the gifts before realising that (due to serious time restrictions ;) I had to finish the rest with paper (brown paper with string or gorgeous red ribbons). Ah well :) Half is better than nothing. Sorry there are no pix.

I just want to wish everyone out there in the great big blogland of Montessori Mama's and Waldorf Steiner Mama's and fabulous crafty Mama's everywhere a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you soon... I'll be back in 2009 with a few changes :)

The organic licorice factory

When we went to visit some friends after Hug's birthday (yup, I'm still stuck in a backlog of photos :) we had the fabulous opportunity to visit the Southern Hemisphere's only organic licorice factory! 

Housed in this old Flour Mill. I'm so loving the building.

Glorious & what amazing weather!

We ate yummy food in the cafe, listened to awesome live music, bonded with old-friends much missed and got to see inside the factory too! They also make organic chocolate nuts and things like that and that's what is happening here in these beautiful brass bowls.

We also got to try our hand at *vertical licorice bowling* but I didn't get any good photo's and it's hard to describe what it was... but it did involve throwing a huge wad of licorice up into a shute and hoping to knock down bowling pins on its way down. T and Hug were crowned the 'Vertical Licorice Bowling Champions' of the day & won a bag of licorice - I can't say that's an award they're likely to win too many times in their lives :)

I loved that my boys decided they liked licorice & we got to taste some organic Spelt licorice which we all loved & have been delighted to find we can buy it closer to home too. It's a real treat around here now after this fun day!

Hug's birthday gifts

I never got around to posting about Hug's actual birthday gifts - just his Space party. Because the party was a rather big event I kept the gifts sweet but simple. Even the wrapping...

Newspaper & re-used ribbon and some special blue and gold paper. Frugal and I think it looked beautiful. When he woke up I told him that he had to look for his presents so he searched every room high and low before making it to the kitchen where they were simply sitting on the table!

Hug excitedly bringing the gifts back to our bed for the official opening.

Lovely got a present to. A favourite book. 

These Lyra water-colour paints are so beautiful. Really well priced & the colours are so vivid. I couldn't recommend them more.

This brilliant fold-out fire-engines book. 

And le piece de resistance... A wooden builders kit. I can't find a google link to it or anything quite like it at the moment but is a timber case with lots of real wooden tools in it. I think it's meant to be for ages 8+ but it will only for supervised use at the moment.

Hug showing Lovely what everything is... sweet.

My little biggest is 5! wow.

Followed by a yummy pancake breakfast. Love it :)

Playdough Candy Canes!

I knew that the boys would be having some little friends over this afternoon so I left a message from Santa in our beautiful new advent calender this morning letting them know that we would be making Playdough Candy Canes! I got the idea here at Just for Fun but used the *perfect* playdough recipe from My Montessori Journey (I've never made such great playdough, you've got to check it out - plus, she adds glitter and scents and it works!). 

Anyway, I made 2 batches - 1 white with a lot of Spearmint essential oil (I had planned to buy some peppermint essence from the baking department but my store didn't have any & then I found this spearmint oil in the bathroom - which I thought was fine seeing that it's not going to be eaten) in it & silver glitter.

The red has a *lot* of red food colouring in it - like almost a full bottle! - and red glitter. The boys helped with adding the glitter and the colour and oil & the stirring. 

When it was made and while the boys were sleeping/resting, just for fun, I made separate portions & bagged them up with a name tag each & put them under the tree for the children to find. It was a sweet surprise :)

Roll out a red snake and a white snake and then roll them together to merge the colours. Give it all a bit of a twist and another quick roll and...

...Voila! 

I put them in the oven on low heat but our oven is playing up & kept turning itself off & I've never baked playdough before so I don't think it's really worked... might pop them back in later & hopefully by tomorrow morning we'll have some new ornaments for the tree!

Oogly-boogly-eyed Santa

Another Christmas-themed activity we've been working on here, with playdough. I hadn't made any new playdough when I first put this together so we used our Halloween (not quite ;) orange playdough. 

Usually we have a *lot* of playdough equipment out (different animal cutters etc) but I got really lucky at the thrift store last week with a bag of brilliant themed cutters for $1 so I put everything else away to keep it simple and more focused. Love it! There was a rabbit and a pumpkin - alas too late for Halloween - and a birthday cake and these Christmas ones. 

There is enough on the tray for both children to work together - stamping out the shapes & adding the oogly-boogly eyes if they want to. Cute, huh!