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What does Mother’s Day usually look like for you? For me it’s often a bit of a non-event because it’s right after my birthday so I’ve already had a “special day” and we usually spend the day travelling long distances to visit my Mum and Mark’s mother as well. It’s often rush rush rush, and busy busy busy. So when we were invited to try one of the amazing ice-cream cakes from Baskin-Robbins, I thought it would be a wonderful chance to enjoy a relaxed early Mother’s Day celebration. We enjoyed a very special (and absolutely delicious!) morning tea together, free from other commitments and with nowhere else to be but enjoying each other’s company.

My favourite sweet treat is ice-cream. I’m not fussy with flavour either. Give me strawberry, give me choc chip or cookies and cream, hey, give me vanilla and I’m happy. My other favourite dessert is cake. Who doesn’t love cake? Can you imagine what kind of Heaven I’m in then when my two favourite things are combined into one sensational combination? Ice-cream cake is where it’s at!

As we were tucking in to our special Mother’s Day cake, it occurred to me that we Mums always arrange cake for birthdays, christenings, anniversaries and Christmas but not on Mother’s Day. Why is that? I guess it’s because, we don’t really want to be baking for ourselves on our special day – we’d rather put our feet up! The custom ice-cream cakes from Baskin-Robbins make it easy  to have your cake and eat it too! Ordering our cake online was quick and easy – oh except for choosing a style and flavours. They ALL looked incredible and it was so hard to choose! In the end, R made the final choices. He was thrilled, not only because we were ordering ice-cream (he takes after his Mum, it’s his favourite dessert as well!) but because he was able to feel independent and choose a present for me all by himself.

If your family is anything like ours, everyone has a different choice when it comes to favourite flavours. Mine is well, anything (ahem) but Mark loves chocolate and R adores strawberry. The Baskin-Robbins premium custom cakes are the perfect solution because they can be ordered with up to two flavours so you’ll be able to satisfy everyone’s tastes. R selected Chocolate Mousse Royale (I KNOW! It tasted as good as it sounds!) and Very Berry Strawberry. So fabulous.

Hello! Look at that. So pretty. So yummy!

What could be more lovely for Mother’s Day? Hand made gifts from your little one and ice cream cake.

WIN your own Baskin-Robbins custom ice-cream cake!

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Parenting Party and thank you to everyone who linked up last week. There were so many helpful and inspiring posts linked up lat week. Here are just a couple of my favourites.

The Worth of Your Job: treating motherhood as the prestigious career it is from Brighton Park.
Brighton Park is a new-to-me blog and I was so happy to have discovered it. Lots of wonderful posts to read over there from homeschooling, to crafts and parenting.

To Schedule or Not to Schedule Naps from Austin City Little 
This is a wonderful post about establishing a routine but keeping it flexible and responding to baby’s cues.

If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week. We invite you to link up your parenting posts, old or new, humorous or heartfelt, and as many as you like. We ask that you don’t link up kids activities. This linky is purely for posts about parenting.

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Parenting Party and thank you to everyone who linked up last week. It was difficult as usual to choose just three to feature, but I couldn’t go past these posts.

Saying Goodnight, The Importance of a Bedtime Ritual from Happy Whimsical Hearts

Finding Happiness as a Stay-at-Home Mom from Connecting Family and Seoul

10 Ways to Keep Kids Walking from Making Boys Men

If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar.  I’ve had to disable right clicking on this site, at least for the time being, so you won’t be able to copy the html for the button. If you’d like an “I’ve been featured” button, please message me via Facebook, send me an email or leave a comment below and I’ll email you the button code.

I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week. We invite you to link up your parenting posts, old or new, humorous or heartfelt, and as many as you like. We ask that you don’t link up kids activities. This linky is purely for posts about parenting.

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Parenting Party – the last edition of our linky for 2012. We’ll start it up again on January 6. This week I’m featuring posts that focus on simplifying the holiday season. I have tried (sometimes in vain!) to make this Christmas less stressful and to just focus on family and time spent together. Reading these featured posts really helped me to regain my focus on keeping it simple. I hope you enjoy reading them too.

{A Season of Giving} 12 Days of Christmas: Celebrating through Giving – The Good Long Road

Happy Family Times, Working While They Play – Happy Whimsical Hearts

December’s 10 Easy and Inexpensive Ways to Show Your Kids You Love Them – Little Wonders Days

Thank you again to everyone who linked up. If you’ve been featured this week, please feel free to grab a Sunday Parenting Party “Ive been featured” button from my sidebar. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s posts again this week.

Now to this week’s linky.

We invite you to link up your parenting posts, old or new, humorous or heartfelt, and as many as you like. We ask that you don’t link up kids activities. This linky is purely for posts about parenting. If you do have a kids activity to link up, pop on over to The Weekly Kids Co-op. We would love to see you link up there.

Today I am honored to be welcoming Marnie, creator of Carrots Are Orange, to the blog as a guest writer. Carrots Are Orange is a blog focused on Montessori inspired activities, teaching kids about money and parenting musings. If you ar just starting out on your Montessori journey and you would like to understand more about this method, be sure to check our Marnie’s “What is Montessori” series. Marnie also shares some wonderful parenting stories which are always honest, moving, and inspirational (and often very funny!). Thank you for being here today Marnie!

~ Ness

I am thrilled to be guest posting at one of my favorite blogs, One Perfect Day. Please leave a comment! I love hearing from you!

We are embarking on reading with our three year old. Here are a few ways that we’re working with him to help his learning.
1) Sand Paper Letters – Traditional Montessori sand papers letters. Your child traces the letter with his finger and says the sound to emphasize the learning. You can create DIY Sand Paper Letters, buy wonderful letters and numbers from Etsy, buy authentic straight from a Montessori company or Amazon also supplies Montessori Sand Paper Letters.

2) Sand or Salt Tray – The child draws the letter or number in the sand with his finger or with the use of a small stick. You can DIY, buy authentic from a Montessori company or Amazon also supplies Montessori Sand Trays.

3) Tracing Paper – I made upper and lower case letters pages, then laminated them. Then, by placing tracing paper over the page, my son can practice his writing in his writing center.

4) Montessori Books – I recently read about these Montessori Letter books on How We Montessori and fell in love with them.

5) Emphasize Sounds – All day, every day, simply emphasize sounds when speaking and reading to your child. May seem a bit annoying at first but your child gets so much from this approach.

6) Sound Bag – We love our Sound Bags. It is fun to wander around the house seeking objects to place in our bag. We choose a letter and go from there collecting throughout the week.

7) Sound Box – I bought an artist box that has enough compartments for small objects. Each compartment is labeled with a letter. We switch up the objects as we discover more around the house and more that fir our box. You can create a larger box but this works for us now. Safari has mini replicas that work well and their small replicas even fit. Plus I have newly discovered Japanese erasers. They are mini sized and cover a wide variety of topics from school to shopping.

8) Sound of the Week Box – Each week we focus on a different letter sound. We have a box in which we collect various objects that satisfy that sound. I place a small sticker letter on the box and my son collects objects through the week. Interactive and involves movement as he seeks out new objects to include in the box.

9) First Readers – Our favorites first readers are Miss Rhonda’s Readers. Miss Rhonda is a Montessori teacher by day and amazing author by night. Please check out these Montessori First Reader books for your home and your classroom. Adorable illustrations and cute stories that your children will love to read on their own.

10) Create an Environment for Reading – Place baskets of books in various areas of your home including the living area, bedrooms (your bedroom and your children’s bedrooms) and even the kitchen. Besides a reading nook, children will find places you least expect it to curl up and read. We also have plenty of books in the car.

11) Apps – We love Montessorium’s First Letters and First Numbers apps. They provide a sensorial experience with a twist on your standard sand letters. When you trace the letter, the app make a scrapping sound and creates a line representing the line drawn. Montessorium’s Intro to Letters is by far one of the best Montessori apps that exists in cyberspace. The options include tracing lower and upper case letters, identifying letters, tracing double letters (th or oo, for example) and sounding out the letters and letter combinations. The app’s voice is realistic and reads/sounds to you but also gives the opportunity to record. Plain ol’ awesome.

I hope that you enjoyed this post.
Marnie

This post contains affiliate links.

Marnie writes Carrots Are Orange, a Montessori inspired homeschooling blog she started in 2010 after the birth of her first son. She hails from Maine, a wonderfully down to earth place to grow up. Marnie moved to the west coast in 1999, currently living in Seattle with her husband and two young boys. She is pursuing Montessori certification. Marnie can be found on Facebook, Twitter @OrangeCarrots, Pinterest and Google +.

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Today you’ll find me over at KidsActivitiesBlog.com. Earlier this year we made our very own book to celebrate Chinese New Year and to learn a little about Chinese culture. This was a fun hands-on learning experience for R and he was so proud of the results. Click over to our Chinese Cutlure Activities post to see our book and learn how we made it.

~ Ness

Today you will find me over at Be A Fun Mum where I’m guest posting about a fun imaginative game / sensory bin I created for R. This activity kept R happily engaged for ages. Pop over and take and look!

If this is your first time visiting One Perfect Day – welcome! If you like what you have found, please join us on Facebook  or follow us on Pinterest. We are always sharing new ideas to play, learn, create and explore.

I am delighted to welcome Carolyn from The Pleasantest Thing here today. Carolyn’s blog is filled with creative ideas for kids to play and learn as well as books, crafts and food with an emphasis on fun! You can also find The Pleasantest Thing on Facebook. Thank you so much for being here today Carolyn.

Afternoon Car Races: Simple Together Time

I am thrilled to be guest posting here at One Perfect Day. Today I am sharing a simple activity that has led to countless hours of outside fun with both of my sons (ages 4 1/2 and 1).

One of our favorite ways to spend an afternoon is to bring our toy cars outside, and get down and play together.  We frequently set up race courses.  These courses are varied, and include tracks scratched in the dirt with a stick, or lining up rocks to create lanes, or marking a path with sidewalk chalk.

Carolyn is a mom to two boys, ages 4 1/2 and 1. She believes play is critical to child development. Her blog, The Pleasantest Thing, focuses on learning and developing imagination through adventure, play, reading, and nature.

If this is your first time visiting One Perfect Day – welcome! If you like what you have found, please join us on Facebook  or follow us on Pinterest. We are always sharing new ideas to play, learn, create and explore.

We’ve gone fishing! Well, not really, but I am taking a short break from the blog this week. I will still be posting Tuesday Tots later today and The Weekly Kids’ Co-op in Friday, and if you follow One Perfect Day on Facebook then I’ll still be posting our “Picture Book of the Day” updates, so you won’t be short of inspiration for kids activities.  We’ll be back again next week sharing everything we’ve been up to recently. Have fun everyone, and see you next week!

Ness