More rainbows

I am loving this rainbow stamp-pad I bought at a craft store recently. I found some scrapboooking letter stamps I had from a few years ago to team with it. So perfect for making birthday cards for little friends.

Advent Calender

My lovely friend (our eldest children are 9 days apart & our next are only 3 days apart - we had synched pregnancies ;) brought us this gorgeous surprise gift yesterday - a wooden advent calender!

Each date has a wooden drawer that can hide little treats and wishes. I've never had something like this before & had only been admiring this gorgeous felted calender a few days ago & dreaming of such things so it was a much welcomed & appreciated blessing. Ahhh :) 

I have a few ideas for filling it... What special things do you plan to put in *your*advent calender?

Circus Bizurkus!

Hug loves going to his circus classes. We had missed a few weeks so it was pretty exciting to be back today.

p.s. He calls this his *number rods* t-shirt :)

The tree is up!

The Christmas tree is up! Actually it's been up for 4 days already ;)

I personally like to follow the December 1st tree-up tradition but Hug *absolutely loves* Christmas & had negotiated with his daddy to put it up a week early!

 

Previously T and the boys have built the tree (unfortunately it isn't a real one - I'm too scared of a real one falling on them while they're little, which is lucky as Lovely even managed to knock this one down) & then I have dressed the tree with help from the boys. But this year I was busy with something & when I came back Hug had done it all by himself! 

A few years ago when we realised that our good-quality tree-ornament collection was non-existent we decided that the way to remedy it was to buy 2 beautiful ornaments each year... to go with our eclectic mix of home-made bits ;) We haven't chosen this years ones yet but it was lovely opening up our special ones that had been packed away all year. 

Playing at the park with Lovely

Apples & Bananas

Ooo, I'm a bit excited. How cute is this banana cutter from Montessori Services! :) I mean - it's not that bananas are exactly hard to cut but this is too cute!

Seeing it made me wonder if I'd blogged about my favourite kitchen tool - the apple cutter! I can't believe that I haven't but I looked over my posts & can't see it. Which isn't saying that it's not there - I found 2 different posts about the same Watermelon juice - woops! ;)

Anyway, this apple cutter is brilliant. The child places it over the top of the apple & pushes down & not only is the apple cored but it's also cut into segments. It can be a bit hard for the child to push down with enough strength so I usually assist but you can use it with a pear & they are soft enough for the child to do independently. Now, I bought this at my local supermarket & haven't seen them elsewhere but I'm sure that you could google it.

Now, I don't have one of these magic apple machines but I think they're great too. These photos were taken at a local community school fair. You attach the apple to one end & it cores & cuts the apple into one huge coil. I think it can also peel the apples. Too  much fruit fun. 

p.s. I found the Banana cutter after reading this post from Squirrel Acorns (a new blog to me :) & Montessori Services also have some other great sets that would be easy to recreate at home like these: Peeling a carrot, Juice squeezing activity. 

Breakfast time

Bead patterns

Having been inspired (as i always am :) by My Montessori Journey I put my own bead patterning work together this morning. I loved the idea of using straws but haven't glued the beads on, instead using some tiny pegs to clip each end. 

By the way, Lovely isn't interested in doing it... Hmmm, have to try Hug when he's home from playgroup.

Green water is fun

Lovely is having fun with this activity right now! I have laid down a beach towel on the kitchen floor & filled a bowl with green water. I keep giving him a different utensil to move the water into a muffin tin... chinese spoon, small lid, scoop etc. It's a great opportunity to introduce the concept of moving left to right & then starting a new row... and having some water fun too ;)

Watermelons rock!

T came home with a 12 kilogram watermelon recently! It was one of those unique times when I was glad the fridge was empty ;)

Okay, so we had to juice some of that baby. We have this great juicers that cold presses the fruit/vegies so the boys can't really hurt themselves. (It makes *awesome* pure frozen fruit icecream too!)

Look at these fabulous juicing guys in action! They were completely working as a team. Lovely fed the watermelon in & Hug did the squeezing down. Rock on boys :)

Yum.

Hug discovers Lego sets

I probably wouldn't have bought this for him but he got it for his birthday from a little friend & I was so impressed with his ability to follow the instructions and build these things himself. So was he ;)

Here he is playing with the jetski out on the water (the blue of his bed doona) while the vehicle waits on the green 'grass'. Sweet. The very interesting thing was watching him after he had built them... he did play creatively for a while but eventually he just got a bit bored & precious about it & wanted it *up* and away from pesky little hands ;) So, mama stepped in & we decided to pull it apart and put it back in the box. Hmmmm, he so wasn't sure that was a good idea... but imagine his delight next time he picked up the box & there it was ready to build all over again. Now *that's* fun!

Trees are made for climbing

Hug test-driving the tree-climbing options at what will be his school next year. I think he's going to love it!

{I am quite behind in all of the pix I am wanting to post so please excuse me while I do lots of simple catch-up posts for a little while :}

Gee, Science Centers are fun!

Hug's Birthday Space Adventure!

Yeh! Our very own Astronaut recently celebrated his 5th birthday. His nannio is *the best* and makes him at least 1 or 2 fabulous costumes each year. This was one of his special birthday presents from her. Lovely also got a helmet and belt but wouldn't wear them ;)

Our Space Adventure map!

It all started at the 'rocket' in the park next door. Each child got their own personalised astronaut i.d. & boarded the rocket. Then T showed them the mission map, got them to 'strap in' and they did the count down. 5,4,3,2,1 Blast off!

Their astronaut i.d.'s were printed out with their own photo & name (this is Lovely but I've blurred out his name :) and slipped into a lanyard with a clear pocket.

Onto the Milky Way (the path between the park and our house) where each child collected a silver-wrapped milk drink.

You couldn't see them in the photo above so this is them waiting to go out to the Milky Way.

Into the house & the Solar System. This isn't the best photo but it was all a bit exciting at the time! The craft project Solar System that Hug & I had been working on was here as were all of the helium balloons & tied to the balloons were glow-in-the-dark SPACE glasses for each child.

Next stop - Deeeeeeeeep Space. We took all of the furniture out of the boys bedroom (leaving 1 mattress for bouncing!) and blackened the windows & put up some glow stars. 2001 Space Odyssey was playing softly & I let 3 or 4 children in at a time. They had to space walk (over the mattress) to find a bucket of Space Food Sticks. Yum!

Finally, it was outside to the yard where there was an obstacle course (over the climbing frame, 5 big jumps on the trampoline, crawl over the 'moonsand' & through the window of our International Space Station) where the final booty was found... a huge bag of crafty items ready for some d.i.y rocket creation!

The kids loved it!

Lovely just snipped & snipped. Completely in his element :)

Some of the masterpieces!

Too cool ;)

And it was time to eat.

A play in the sandpit for the little ones. The ISS didn't stand up too well to so much attention!

Frozen fruit rockets were a yummy treat.

And finally it was cake time.

These are organic Kamut flour mooncakes :)

Happy birthday sweetness!!! We love, love, love you.

{Sorry this post is sooooooooo very long. When I'm excited I find it near impossible to cull my pix & this is what happens ;) Please forgive me!}