My brilliant, accomplished, wonderful children

Totally shameless brag time. On the weekend we had Crystal's first gymnastic comp backed up with the dance concert for all three of them. I have no pics of the dance concert yet, I was costume lady so ran around like a banshee all night organising my group, but I can say they were brilliant! I wasn't totally sure Rainbow would actually go on stage but she did, she had a huge smile on her face the whole time she danced, it was so amazing the transformation from even a month ago when she would stand in class staring at the ground only to get home and do all the moves perfectly and say "When's the next class?" She loves it but didn't like the other parents watching her.

So here's some gymnastics pics, Crystal competed in six categories and got four gold and two silver! Way to go kiddo! She's a natural and some days I think she spends more time cartwheeling places than walking.

Unschool Monday - Freedom

I hope I'm doing this right, I'm still not tech savvy, but I'm going to start participating in unschool Monday, an idea from Owlet's wonderful blog.

The most wonderful lesson unschooling has taught Indigo so far is that she can be ok, so much of her school time was spent not being enough, not fast enough, pretty enough, popular enough, smart enough (even though she's crazy smart, pretty, fast etc) Un schooling has given her this sense of freedom and independence that I was hoping for, but it's gone way beyond that! I've lost the moody, whiny, jealous little girl I had and in her place is a confident, self possessed, free thinking young lady who is a pleasure to spend my days with, and who feels confident enough to go play with her friends, join clubs, walk to the shops, talk to people on the phone, a whole range of things. I'm SO happy with our decision, my one regret is that I didn't unschool from the start, as I wanted to, but I can't go there, I did the best I could at the time and now that I know better I'm passing that on to her.

owlet: unschool monday :: look at them learning

Had for $14

Now I'm back in the spend spend SPEND mode (just kidding, I'm being very good really, the no spend challenge really did change how I use my money) I went op shopping yesterday. I'm very lucky that there's no op shops near by because I could seriously do this all day every day, I LOVE the hunt. This lot is surprisingly from a Salvos, and a new Salvos at that, I went in expecting majorly overpriced stock like you usually get with those guys, but this one is a goodie, I'll be back many times here! You can't really see in the pic but I got sixteen clothing items as well as a doll (who looks familiar, I'm thinking it's a Madeline? Rainbow won't know, but it's cute anyway) that is going to be put away for Christmas, she's sitting on a sewing kit, again is going to be for Christmas, I'll stock it up and give it to Indigo, an animal cage - that red wicker thing, which is awesome, I've been looking for one and this is the coolest one I've ever seen, I was sure I was going to have to get an ugly plastic model, this one looks great and is the perfect size for the cats or the rabbit when I need to take them to the vet, and lastly the big cane basket which is what I've been looking for to store shoes near the front door. Not thrilled with the color, I'll live with it for a bit and maybe paint it, but it's huge, perfect for all our shoes. I'm so happy that this lot only came to $14, I did a double take when the cashier told me!

Cute little kittens!

Here they are at one day old!They are little gooey balls of sweetness, but the girls annoyingly invited their friends over for cuddles so Jemima has fled with them up the manhole into the roof, so I can't get to them at the minute! We'll have to climb onto the roof and pull off a few tiles to reach them because they are too far from the manhole and we can't get to them. But at least they're not being bugged by kids at the moment! We'll have to wait for a day when it's not pouring rain to climb up, I don't really fancy doing it today in the wet.

Kitty love

This is not the mummy of the new kittens, and I sure as heck hope it's not the dad, because he's also their uncle, but just had to post a photo of Ginger involved in his fave pass-time - sleeping in someone's bed. This little guy thinks he's a person, at least in this pic he's in a traditional cat pose, I can't tell you how many times I've pulled back the covers to wake up Crystal and Ginger is there, flat on his back, paws above his head. Scares me every time! He's a treasure.

What would you do if you had no fear?

So what would I do if I had no fear? I can't tell you! Not that I don't want to, not that I won't, I will, and I'm bursting out of my seams to tell, but I can't. Ducks must be aligned.

And I'm not doing it because I have no fear of it, I have plenty, horrible fears both rational and irrational. I'm fearful that I'm going to disappoint some people (so many people :( but it's inevitable) I'm fearful that I can't hack it, I'm fearful that I'm going to damage my children, I'm fearful that I'm selfish, I'm fearful that it's all going to go horribly tragically wrong, I'm fearful that I don't know what I'm getting in to, I'm fearful that the bubble will burst, I'm fearful most of all I think that the fantasy is going to be just that, and that the new reality will be even more crap than the current reality but it will be too late. I'm fearful that I'm going to lose all I have and hold dear, and that I can't get it back.

HEAVY STUFF!!!! So here's a picture that makes me smile. Indigo in 'I'm a hippy, peace man' mode, yet she's blurred out Crystal in the background! Peace and Love doesn't extend to little sisters don't you know?

Oh, and tiny little footnote, I'm quite embarrassed to add, little Jemima our cat had kittens today. I know, I know, irresponsible pet owner me, I was planning to get her de-sexed I swear! I really was, she beat me to it though! It's her one and only litter, promise and I'll make sure they get good homes. Pictures to follow but they are four sweet little babies! They're going to be heaps of fun!

I pretty much suck

At the no spend challenge! I can't remember when my month is up, I can't remember what I've spent cash on and I can't be stuffed trying to figure it all out! To be fair I think I've basically done well. I've stopped spending for the sake of it, I haven't gone into an op shop for ages (well, ONCE last week, I spent $20, I know I know, that's way too much!) but I feel like it was valuable to get me really thinking about my buying habits and I have become more aware of it. But I'm done now! I'm not going to go nuts but on Thursday I am going to go op shopping in a big way, Indigo has this habit of growing like a weed and she doesn't have any bigger sisters to pass things down to her, so she needs new shoes (I'll probably get those new, but I've been lucky getting brand new shoes at oppys before so I'll have a hunt) and new summer clothes. And I'm really looking forward to it!

Pox on us and random things

Indigo has chicken pox now, again for the second time! What's with that? I thought we escaped with only Crystal getting them but nope, the minute we got back into society Indigo gets all spotty. She has it so bad, I feel really sorry for her. All over her face and body plus on her tonsils and all through her mouth. She's miserable, poor dear.

The positive is that it's made the no spend challenge a breeze! I spent $1.74 on soap, I count that as spending not groceries because I got the soap to do felting so it wasn't a necessary purchase. But that's it! Other than that it's only been food and petrol, I'm quite proud! I've walked past op shops and not gone in and I've thought about purchases and then not gotten them, I'm ace! The huge huge pay off is that I put an extra $300 on my debt and have money sitting around the day before pay day - RARE! So that's good, although I confess I am looking forward to it being over so that I can get some plants.

Meet me at facebook!

Scary stuff. I just did a business page for Treehugging Tots and sent invites to all my friends. Now if nothing sells I'll know that my friends all hate my stuff. Hehe. Not that I want sympathy purchases. Well I wouldn't complain at this point, I'm so desperate to sell SOMETHING! I'm so excited the market season is coming up, I'm going to hit them hard this year! Anyway if you'd like to find me on facebook just search for Treehugging Tots and there I am!

A big old fail

Rainbow modeling one of the cute dresses that caused Mama to fail fail fail the no spend month

Of course! I knew it, I told you! Somehow at the Steiner fair $50 magically floated away from my wallet. How could I not buy beautiful wool for felting and a gorgeous silk dress ($10 - bargain!) that because of the magic of elastic fits both myself AND Indigo (how versatile is that, how could I NOT buy it?) plus some yummy biodynamic food and some pre-loved clothes. Sigh. Oh well. Sunday I did pretty well at the Expo, I spent $16 on a cloth nappy, which I've convinced myself falls into my grocery budget since I parted with my nappy stash and Rainbow has decided to become Miss Peepants every night, it was buy a cloth nappy or disposables, what's a girl to do? Which leads me to today. Indigo, Rainbow and I went to a teddy bear picnic sadly situated right next to an awesome op shop, so I went in to see what they had I could use as night nappies, I scored big time with two nappy covers and some flannel to cut up for inserts, all for 75c. So how I managed to spend $33 I'll never know! Somehow I ended up walking out with about 10 items of kids clothes. Darn it why when I happened to be there did someone come in with beautiful handmade dresses and tie dye tops in my children's sizes? Oh well, onward and upward, my week is full of lovely things that are not going to take me near any cool shops so I'm back on the wagon! Promise!

Another update. Yawn

Still doing well. How boring. Don't worry, tomorrow I'm going to a Steiner fair and Sunday I'm going to the baby expo in Melbourne so I'm sure my no spend month will come crashing down in spectacular fashion. Unless I claim it's all Christmas purchases. Hmm, yeah might try that. I spent $90 on food, which should do us the fortnight with a small top up next week. That plus I'll have to do a few fruit and vegie runs but I should come in at way way under $300 for the fortnight. I'm actually pretty proud because up until now I've been housebound but today I had to go to town to a big shopping centre but I just went in, did my banking and shopping and left. No meandering, that would only lead to bad things!

No spend update

Has it really only been one day? Time has lost all meaning since Crystal has gotten chicken pox, I can't believe it was only yesterday! She's plodding along like a little trouper, sleeping lots but not complaining too much. Just a little, but I would be too, she's got three pox on her eye lids that are pretty painful, and some in her mouth plus the usual all over her body and through her hair pox. My poor baby.

Anyway, no spend month. So far I've spent $40 on food, not bad for a week's worth, I shopped last night so Monday night and I won't need to shop until Friday night so I'm pretty impressed. We had a well stocked pantry though, so the $40 was just for some fruit and peanut butter, milk, rice cakes etc.

I also spent $30 on Christmas, I found an awesome wooden treehouse at the supermarket (who would have thunk it?) and it was the only one there so I snapped it up for Rainbow, my first Christmas purchase of the year, woo! I don't know when I'll get to go lay by bikes now that we're stuck at home.

So it's been kind of easy so far, although I have to admit I've found it challenging to think of the whole next month not buying anything non-essential. I really want a new rug for the lounge room! I'm going to a twilight fair next weekend! I want to spend spend spend! It's only going to get harder I think!

It just got a whole lot easier

This no spending thing. It's called chicken pox. Crystal had a temp yesterday and this morning and now she's rapidly getting blisters on her back, tummy and face. Again. Sigh. She had them when I was pregnant with Rainbow, but a little too mildly apparently. Oh well, it'll be all that much easier to not spend any money, don't need to put petrol in to go to school and back, can't go out anywhere, we're home bound! Should be kind of fun as long as she's not too uncomfortable, she's fine so far, just a little tired. And I have to add a new exception to my no spend rule, I'm allowed to by calamine lotion!

No spend month

I know I should probably wait until the start of next month or something to make it all nice and even, but I can't wait, I need to do it right now! Mainly because

a) I'm in a little bit of debt. Not a lot, I know it would be peanuts to some people but as I don't have credit cards or anything like that ANY debt makes me feel sick

b) I spend way too much. I have way too much. I don't NEED anything but I love shopping, especially op shopping!

c) My children need to learn that we don't need to buy buy buy

d) I have a few plans for next year that require big bucks so I'd better start saving now!

Here's my rules -

I'm allowed to buy food. Phew! Thank goodness for that! But not take away, and I have to spend $150 or less per week

I'm allowed to buy petrol. I'd love to go public transport but I can't, where we are it's very limited and does't go anywhere I need/want to go, such as school!

I'm allowed to pay bills. Although I don't really want to.

I'm allowed to do Christmas shopping. Which kind of seems like a cop out but I'm getting the girls new bikes for Christmas and if I want to be able to afford them easily I really need to lay by them now! And if I see anything that would be perfect I'll buy it and put it away, they wont be getting much other than their bikes but if I see anything unique for their stockings I'll get it.

I'm allowed to buy supplies for the market. This rule has a bug BUT. BUT I can only buy supplies once I've done all the sewing I can with the materials I already have. Market season is almost here and I have lots of new project I want to whip up for our stalls but I know if I go buy what I need for my new ideas I won't get around to finishing my old ideas!

Wish me luck!

Day one: spent nothing. Kind of hard to because I'm at home with no car and a sick Crystal home from school.

An open letter to home educators

I like it, I like it a lot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2PGGeTOA4

Beautiful unschooling days

I have a love hate relationship with our unschooling journey, but it's been a love fest lately. I think it might be the weather, the seasons have this effect on me, I do love winter but then come spring and I feel like I've woken from a deep sleep. I'm alive!

Today Indigo rode her scooter to my mum's while I stayed home and played with little Rainbow. My mum has been really anti homeschool but she's finally jumped on board and true to her style she's being fantastic! So she and my step dad and Indigo were doing 'science experiments' with bi carb the yummiest of which was making honeycomb. Then she had a swim in their pool and planted some seedlings and seeds and I went over and had coffee but she didn't want to come home so I took Crystal to gymnastics while she stayed there and lucky she did! They found a swarm of bees in a tree so they called a bee person to come and look and Indigo got chatting and was invited to go to the keepers house and she showed her all the hives and how they get the honey out and gave her a jar of honey and some honey comb and some dead bees to look at in the microscope. So she spent the rest of the day on the internet learning everything there is to know about bees! Pretty much perfect unschooling days!

A revelation!

I have a clean kitchen. Shock. Complete and utter shock. I do not tend to have a clean kitchen without having spent a lot of time doing dishes and collecting random bits of rubbish. It's too soon to say, but I'm going to be optimistic and say this is the dawn of a new era in my house. It was very simple, I'm sure most people actually already work this way, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. Last night, while I was cooking dinner I filled the sink full of hot soapy water. While I was waiting for the vegies to steam I put all the ingredients back in the fridge/pantry and gave the scraps to the chooks (they were out of their pen so I only had to throw it out the window, easy as) I plated up dinner and before I called everyone in I quickly washed the saucepan - I'd only used it to steam vegies so it was a two second job. Then everyone ate and I told them to scrape their scraps to the dogs and wash their own plates and cutlery each. Then I washed my plate and the frying pan. And then it was done. Seriously. It was that easy after all the times that I've sat there procrastinating about whether I should do the dishes and then end up not doing them and waking up to a trashed kitchen and food stuck on plates. It was that easy! My head is spinning!

365 project day 7

It's getting warmer! We can go to the beach without freezing!

365 project day 6

All you need is love... looks totally posed but I just walked into my kitchen and thought cooool, Beatles and fruit, looks like a still life.

365 project day 5

We had a bunny tragedy at our place, I went out to give them breakfast one morning and all but two were dead, and one of the ones that was alive was paralysed and so close to the end. I couldn't bring myself to put her down so I nursed her, basically all I could do was give her sugar water and keep her warm. Then a miracle! She completely recovered, she went from not being able to hold up her head to sitting but having tremors to bounding around the place like nothing happened! The other bunny that I thought was fine did die though so we only have this little baby left, so we took her to church for the blessing of the animals day. With the number of mozzies already around so far - and it's only spring - I have no idea how I'm going to keep her from getting another mozzie born illness, she's living inside now, but even so we don't have screens so I just squished a mozzie then. Hope she lives.

365 project day 4

Rainbow, completely and utterly worn our, bbq for the afl grand final, I'm proud to say I slept through the first one but decided to be social and go out for the re-match, I managed to completely avoid watching any of it though!

365 day three

Nothin too exciting, one of the kids toys. His eyes freak me out!

365 day two

My best friend on a walk near my house.

365 day one

Another bonus is now I can share my 365 project on the blog! I know I could probably link it somehow... but I really don't know how to anything other than the basics, so I'll just put the pics here.

Day one, Rainbow and Crystal in the canola fields near our house.

It worked!

Blogger thank you for listening to my whinge and fixing the problem. I am happy. So now for a photo post. Joy!

blogger you suck

The world is conspiring against me! Yes, I have been watching far too much Glee, and yes I'm channeling the spirit of Rachel Berry, but again, THE WORLD IS CONSPIRING AGAINST ME!

So here's how it goes:

Start blog. All is good

Camera dies. Very sad. Don't blog much without pictures

Figure out I can upload photos from my mobile. Happy, although photos are dodgy quality wise

Get new camera. Happier still, crystal clear pictures

Go to Perth, lose camera cable, can't upload photos. Very sad

Get new computer, can't upload photos from my phone anymore. Sadder still.

Get new camera. Hopefully better quality this time, sick of shit cameras breaking on me.

BLOGGER BECOMES TOTALLY FUCKED UP AND WON'T LET ME ADD PHOTOS. Screw you blogger! I think it's all my fault but go to the help section and sure enough, there's lots of other people yelling at blogger too. Go back to the old easy way of uploading photos, and stop stuffing me around! AAARGH! Goodnight!

Fairy Park!

It's just like it was when I was a kid, fan-freaking-tastic! It was a great day weather wise, not too hot, not raining, can't ask for much more than that at the moment! It's on a big hill so you need it to be a little cool if you're going to hike up and down over and over!

Idea thief...

Stealing this from Simple Kids.

Outside my window... dark cold and windy - but not raining for once!
I am thinking... about tidying the study but I might watch tv instead :)
I am thankful for... lovely friends and phenomenal children
From the kitchen... pocket bread pizza, inspired by my own blog!
From the play room…there's lots of clean washing ready to hang up
I am going... to enjoy my weekend with my family
I am reading... The power of a praying wife
I am hoping ... that the girls will be asleep soon!
I am hearing... Rainbow calling out to Indigo "DOG! DOOOOOOOG!" because Indigo is pretending to be her pet
Around the house... So much needs to be done
A few plans for the rest of the week … the first half - cleaning like a mad woman. The second half - playing with my fantastic interstate visitors!!!!

Sleeping ALONE!

I can dream can't I? Maybe, if I ever actually get to fall asleep!

I DO love co-sleeping. I do. I love the cuddles, I love watching them sleep, I love having a ready made hot water bottle. But sometimes it would be nice to have a little personal space. So last night I decided to sleep on the couch - our couches are big and soft and oh so comfy. But pretty soon I woke up with not one but two little bodies lying on top of me. So I managed to wiggle out from under them and left them sleeping there and snuck off to find an empty single bed. The only free one was our beautiful but crazy narrow antique bed, but it would do. Until I woke up with little Rainbow trying to squeeze not next to me but UNDER me and wanting to feed. Boo, so very uncomfortable! And so was the pattern of my night, I would move, drop off to sleep and then wake to somebody squishing me or sitting on my hair or telling me to move over, aaagh! I know one day I'm going to look back and miss these days so much, but tonight I think I'm going to drag a mattress into the walk in robe. They'll never find me there. Muhahaha

And yet another dinner for cheap

Pocket bread pizza. Mmmmmm. Ok so it's not the most nutritious, but sometimes when you have no money the most important thing is full tummies! It's probably more expensive than other budget meals we make, but because I usually have the main ingredients in my fridge I only have to come up with the $1.70 for pocket bread. So simple so yum, just pocket bread, tomato paste (or passata if I have no tomato paste) some herbs from the garden, sprinkle some cheese on top. And whatever else I can find. I almost always have olives in the fridge, or a stray mushroom or capsicum to slice up. Frozen spinach is yum too. Sometimes when I've run out of cheese I've drizzled a beaten egg over the top and that's surprisingly good!

More mmm, muffins this time!

The never ending lunch box dramas, blergh, if I never see another lunch box I'll be one happy lady. School is bad enough but even without it I try to pack a lunch box when we go out because the girls are guaranteed to be staaaarving and need food then and there, which gets expensive! These muffins are so cheap, so yum and with a few tweaks not terribly unhealthy.

Chocolate banana muffins

makes about 30 mini muffins

2 over ripe bananas

1 tablespoon of cocoa

1 cup of self raising flour

1/2 a cup of sugar

1 tablespoon of milk

1 tablespoon of butter

1 egg

pinch of salt

mash bananas, mix in the egg followed by the rest of the ingredients. Fill the mini muffin cups about 2/3 full, cook for about 10 - 15 minutes at about 180.

I make it a little healthier with all the usual tricks - substituting wholemeal for white flour, halving the sugar. They taste just as nice without the butter, and I've made it without the milk too (not for any good reason, just that I forgot!)

mmmmm, dinner

Still no camera cable joy! But have decided I will bravely blog on without photos.

I've been getting into living more frugally lately - being utterly despondently broke will do that to you! So I might share here what I'm doing, I pretty much need to make dinner for the family for under $5. That's $5 a meal, not $5 per head like those poxy budget meal ideas usually are. So tonight was fried rice, always a popular one here! It's amazing to think that until about 5 years ago I didn't like the taste of rice, other than creamed rice or rice pudding. I blame a childhood full of icky fried rice dishes, sorry mum, but I just hated them. Hope my children don't feel the same way, although Indigo does sometimes sigh "Fried rice AGAIN?" but she eats it all so it must be nice!

Here's the recipe, it's not hard at all:

Cook some rice. I failed miserably at this until I got a rice cooker, which I love love love, perfect rice every single time, and it was only $12 at Aldi and it's one of my fave kitchen appliances

Cool rice in the fridge. I skip this step if I'm in a hurry, but it does make for a nicer meal if you have time, the rice doesn't stick together like it does if you use warm rice

Mix together a couple of eggs and make a thin omlette. I usually go 2 eggs for the 5 of us

Take the omlette out of the pan and put in about a cup and a half of frozen mixed vegies. I like the Aldi one, it's $1.50 and the vegies are chunky and it has lots of broad beans which have to be one of my fave vegies.

When the vegies are defrosted add the rice and stir to combine.

Add your seasoning. I usually use soy sauce and kecap manis, tonight I didn't have either so I put in some garam massala powder and a little bit of passata, it was so yum!

Stir it all up, divide it into bowls and serve topped with the omlette

Dinner for 5, under $5!

Poor little blog

I still can't get photos off my camera onto the computer! And I just struggle to blog without photos! Booo. Things are still flowing along here at Treehugging Tots Central, children are growing and playing, I am still tiredly dragging myself behind them! I've been rearranging the house which is a long and messy process, and is maybe 3/4 of the way finished, I have to get a bit of cleaning mojo to keep plodding away with it! We've really really been growing out of this space, but since we aren't going anywhere we have to make it work! So the solution is that instead of us having the master bedroom, dd1 having her own room at the back of the house and dd2 & 3 sharing the middle room, we've jugged it so that the master bedroom is for all three of the girls to share (sniff, I lost my ensuite) the middle bedroom is the much needed study, with the treadmill, the tv and the computer, and when I find the perfect table MY SEWING SPACE!!!! Which makes losing my ensuite worth it, and the bed room at the back of the house is now ours. It's actually working very very well, the girls always ended up sharing beds anyway so it's just cut out some dead space. HOPEFULLY one day in the near future I'll have some photos to show you! Well I can dream can't I?

Poor little neglected blog

Sigh. I have such good intentions but I just stuff myself up in the end. I love my new camera, but I've already lost the cord that connects it to the computer so all my photos are stuck on the camera instead of being blogged and shown! And boy have I had some blog worthy times, I went to WA to surprise my friend Jannah for her birthday, and ended up spending 2 weeks in Perth with my lovely friend Barb, then 5 days in Kalgoorlie then back to Perth before heading home. I want to go back. I miss warmth! Hopefully I can blog all about it soon, I just can't get in a blogging mood without photos! Here's one taken on my phone on the drive to Kalgoorlie, oh red dirt! Blue skies! I miss you!

Another photoy post

My head is the clouds at the moment, and I'm finding it hard to put a coherent thought down in writing! Lots has been going on in the treehugging household, I picked Indigo up from school last week and she came bounding to the gate saying "I emptied my locker, I said my goodbyes, today was my last day!" So I can add homeschooling Mama to my repertoire! It's been a long time coming and I'm glad we've reached a conclusion, school dramas do my head in, and Indigo is going to be a great homeschooler, she's driven to learn which gets a bit squashed at school, even though their school is awesome (I should know, I went there growing up!) she's just not suited to the school environment. So a little sad, but mostly excited about this new phase of our journey. As well as that my niece is coming to stay! We haven't seen her for 3 1/2 years and she's just turned 11, so we're pretty excited! It's just a quick visit, a night or two, but we've been waiting for her to come down here for so long, I can't wait to give her a huge hug! And she and Indigo have already planned what they're going to do on their sleepover.

look what I have!

Sorry for the lack of posts, will be brief as I have a feverish 2 year old asleep on my shoulder. I'm pretty lucky that she hardly ever gets sick, I would not want to deal with green boogers more than once every second year!

I GOT A NEW CAMERA!!! NO MORE FUZZIES!! Some clear pics for blogland:

Rainbow and Crystal at a party with their cousins
Rainbow climbing high in a tree, trying to get up to where her sisters are
Indigo and Crystal tree climbing.

I've realised most of my awesome photos I need to rotate, and I can't do it on the program I'm using! Will have to edit them and put them up next time!

Um, no, I don't like it!

Um, nice threads Indigo! Ugh, I have to say animal print and lime green are two of my most despised things in life. Truely. And the top doesn't do it for me either. But Indigo has a keen sense of fashion - well her own brand of fashion - and bought this outfit with her own money. While I watched on thinking hmm, wonder if allowing my daughter to commit crimes of fashion falls anywhere under child abuse laws? But I'm trying to suck it up and let her form her own identity, which in her words is "Wild, hippy, mismatched and individual" well she's certainly done that. Now to make sure that I'm always at least 3 meters behind her in public so no one clicks on that she's with me...

Montessori-ish playroom- part 4

Whoops, I thought I was done but I forgot about the nature table. Which is more of a Steiner concept than a Montessori one, but oh well, I'm just borrowing different bits of a few philosophies and forming my own :) I can do that right? In the pic it's still set up with summer finds, we're slowly slowly changing it to a more autumny collection.

Garage sale finds

I don't get to go to garage sales for pretty much the same reason as op shops - there's never any around here. Since we've been living here (31/2 years) I've gone to 2 garage sales! When we lived in Melbourne I'd go to garage sales nearly every weekend and I really miss them! But yesterday we were going into town and I spotted one - there was a manequin wearing a fruit platter head dress by the letter box which to me signaled that there was a lot of potential at this one! And I was right, if I had a trailer and lots of cash I would have gone nuts. But I stayed calm, got a few things I really liked and only walked out $16 poorer. In this first pic is a little bird in a cage, the lady gave that to me for nothing - it really helps having a cute little fairy Rainbow going up to her saying "Ascuse me, how much money is it?" in a sweet 2 year old voice. The lady said it was broken but Indigo had a fiddle and now when you wind it up the bird swings back and forth to a music box tune.

We also got a new umbrella for the dress up box, 3 wooden containers with butterflies painted on, a laquered black and red oriental container with a handle and lid, and excitingly, a new salt lamp. I love my salt lamp that's in my lounge and I've always intended on getting one for the bedroom too.
And Indigo got this dome with a butterfly and dried flowers in it, which led to a discussion of how some people kill and preserve butterflies and insects. Indigo and Crystal agreed that they thought it was terrible to take the butterfly's life, but they still wanted to buy it!

Everybody cheer! It's holidays!

I love love love school holidays! Why must they only go for 2 weeks? Today is the first day of the holidays, so my head is swimming with all of the plans for good times. Tomorrow is dance class all morning, then I'm thinking we'll go for a drive to town, I have to do a few boring things but we'll mix it up with a trip to the beach or the Botanical Gardens. I've got a few easy crafty ideas - we need some placemats so we might make some together, maybe drawing or sewing or glueing some things together then laminating them, who knows, we'll see where our creating takes us! Plus a few other craft projects, we'll do a couple of trips to Melbourne, I'm fairly desperate to hit Ikea, Indigo wants to go to the museum, Crystal wants to go to the Aquarium. I want to eat at my favourite vegetarian restaurant. Or maybe go to Collingwood Children's Farm followed by lunch at Lentil as Anything. I don't know, I just know it has to involve yum vegetarian food! Indigo already has a couple of sleepovers booked, and we scored some free movie tickets so I'll have to see what's playing (and appropriate!) I'm hoping to catch up with friends, and do as much of this as I can:

Indigo made her own face masks and treated us all. I think the main ingredients were sorbelene, essential oil, crushed lavender and the ash from some nag champa. It actually was great and felt awesome! I didn't have the heart to tell her that traditionally you have slices of cucumber on your eyes not zucchini... but the zucchini was still refreshing and cool! Maybe she's on to something!

The Montessori-ish playroom Part 3

The final part of the playroom tour! We got this bookshelf for Indigo for her first birthday, it's handled being moved around to 9 different houses in the last 8 1/2 years! It's actually a Blue's Clues house on the other side. We have a few toys on here at a time, the rest are stored in a cupboard and rotated when I think they need to be. Makes tidying up way easier when you only have a few choices at a time!

More artwork, the reading chair and the flag that we got on Australia day.
As with the toys, we only have a few books out at a time and rotate when we've read them to death. The suitcase there is stuffed full of books, I have a bit of an (op shop) book fetish, for myself as well as the girls. The 70's sleeping bag that I got at the op shop in my recent post is now folded on the suitcase so it's a nice sunny spot to lounge and read. And yes, the books are always displayed like that, even if I have to rearrange them 20 times a day! I can be totally anal when I want to be, it's very very rare, but when I am I'm diligent!

My baby sleeps in a cage

Well, not quite a baby, it's Crystal who is 6 1/2 who tonight just could not would not go to sleep. Finally in exasperation I told her I didn't mind where she slept, just as long as she slept. So logically she decided that the rabbit pen was way more comfy than my bed, her bed or her sister's bed. Oh well, Poppy was hopping around the house anyway and when you think about it it's pretty much the same as a cot! She never slept in a cot, maybe she's making up for lost time...

Op shop goodness

Oh how I love a good op shop! I hardly ever get the chance, the one op shop that's in my region is in the next town, about 10 minutes drive, and it's a really great one but it's open 1 (yes 1!) day a week from 9 - 12. And I have Bible studies at 10, so I hardly ever get to go. The bigger regional town near us is 1/2 hour away, but I try to avoid going to town where ever possible. There's just not enough days in the week and I'm fairly obsessed with my down time with Rainbow at the moment. But YAY! for us, not so yay for Crystal, she had another dentist visit this week, to make a mold of her mouth, so we had to go to town. I visited 3 op shops and got some good retail therapy in.

At op shop number one I got a collection of little dolls in different cultural dresses. I normally turn my nose up at little plastic dolls, but they're really cute! And as I type I can here them being played with by 3 happy little chicks. I also got a brand new pair of jeans for me, they're awesome and have the price tag on still $90. Also got 5 pairs of kids socks (they ALWAYS need new socks, we must have 100 pairs but where are they?? I have no idea!) and two queen sized sheet sets, much much needed! So how much did I pay for all this goodness? $7! Yep, $7! I am one happy camper!
Op shop number 2! Got a great vintage quilt, at the moment it's on Crystal and Rainbow's bed, I plan for it to go in the reading corner of the playroom, but they've claimed it for now. It's one of those heavy ones that you pick up and you know it's going to keep you warm. Also a pink woolen blanket, great because it's starting to get cold here! The green is 4 placemats, I got them because I wanted to stitch some pvc onto one so it's waterproof and put the cat's bowl on it to catch messes, but they're really great and I don't know if I want to mess with them now! Might re-think. And the cowgirl boots for Indigo, also brand new, no price tag but still stuffed with paper and not a spot of wear on them. She was very very excited, she's wanted a pair for a while but I couldn't justify spending a lot on them. So how much for this lot? $20! Another shop I walked out of grinning!
And the final op shop, one that's normally pretty useless but it's across the road from the top op shop, so I thought I'd stick my head in. Got a surprise, I found a few great things! The enamel cooking dish, I can't wait to use! I got it for camping but I might have to give it a test drive first. The table cloth I've been looking for a waterproof table cloth to stitch into a big pillow for the day bed on the veranda, this one's nice and sunny with the big red and yellow flowers. The sheets are lovely soft cotton, I have a thing for stripy sheets! And the calico on top is a cute skirt, Rainbow wore it today and it's so sweet. It will look good as a petticoat under skirts in winter, she has a petticoat dress that she loves. And this lot? $10. Meh, not a huge bargain but I really didn't want to walk out with out that cooking dish!

All in all a good day's hunting I think!

The montessori-ish playroom part 2

The blue table always has some art or craft supplies laid out, even if it's just pencils, paper, scissors and glue like you see here. That way they can just get to it with out needing me to get things out and set it up for them.
They're a crafty bunch, those kids of mine, this is our ever changing display of artwork.
And the other side of the peg and wool display. You can also see how much use the blackboard gets! Indigo's written 'I love you' at the top, Crystal's been writing 'cat' over and over and lots of swirls (of course!) from Rainbow
Some of the paintings on canvas. The top blobby one Rainbow did on her 1st Birthday, she tells me is a horse.