WIP Wednesday ~ Waldorf Dolls!

Here they are, finished and clothed.


It took me a while to get the dresses done. The little pinafore tops are simple, I love to make them. But I always struggle with how to make the dress underneath. I don't want to have to use velcro, and would prefer not to have a really bunched up elastic neck, but it has to somehow fit over their heads and all that hair! After several days I finally came up with a pattern I like.

These dolls are for two little red-headed sisters. The daughters of a friend from high school. They will be on their way to their new home later this week. I hope they they will be very loved!

some of our days

It was snowing for most of our weekend. Sunday especially was one of those quiet, darkish days, with the snow falling slowly, in a very comfortable feeling way. I spent a lot of time sewing, and that added to the good, comfortable feeling. Nice to be standing at the ironing board, cutting fabric, sewing at the machine.

And today was sunny. Bright blue sky. Very, very cold. But the sun was able to melt some of the snow away...

If you look carefully in this picture you can see the snow on the garden fence through the curtain. This is the nature table that Chloe set up in their bedroom, which is now more often known as "Kindergarten". Chloe has created her own little Waldorf kindergarten, made especially for Chessa. So she of course would be Miss Chloe. They do circle time, story time, wool crafts... This has been going on for many weeks now.

There is an abundance of branches and sticks.. rocks and pine cones.. acorns and cattail leaves...

Some special books...

I love the bench that they made! And on the table is Chloe's lantern.

We went on our lantern walk on Wednesday. The girls did watercolor paintings in the morning while I baked bread, all which we brought with us to Sara's in the afternoon. A fun farm visit with sweet children, lantern making, a bit of wandering in the fields. Good food... pumpkin soup, roasted vegetables, fresh bread. And then bundling up and out into the dark night with our lanterns. It was an almost all girl lantern walk. The boys were too busy working on the skateboard ramp but Jason took a little break and came with us. And one littlest boy crept into bed right after dinner, being much too tired to go out on a walk, or perhaps a little bit too afraid of bears.


This is the only picture I have of the lanterns that night. If I had known that the picture in the dark was really going to turn out then I would have taken more.

I have so much enjoyed reading about everyone's Martinmas celebrations this year! The stories, the beautiful lanterns. We read the Martinmas story from the Festival of Stones, one of our first Tiptoes Lightly books from when Chloe was 5 or so. I love to have these special stories which we can read or tell again and again, year after year.

I would love to make more lanterns now. I have always wanted to do tissue paper jar ones. And I can't believe those beautiful beeswax lanterns! Such wonderful creations... I can just imagine the warmth, the scent, the glow... Perhaps you have seen that my dear friend Rachel (and by dear friend I mean one of the most kind full of love people I have ever known) has posted a beeswax lantern making tutorial.

Speaking of beeswax, we bought some local honey this past week. We had some on homemade bread, and this morning some in our oatmeal. It is thick, it moves slowly, that is nice, we slow down...

last night and last month...

We had our first home camp fire last night. (Is it still called a campfire if it is just in your backyard?) And Jason started the fire with a bow drill, one of the many amazing skills he learned at Tracker School.

Once he got the coal started in the tinder we all helped gently blow on it to get it going a bit...


and then into the fire circle it went.

Warmth, light, a space for family gathering!

I also wanted to introduce you to my new friend. Ms. Henny Penny. I am seriously in love with her. She sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, I say hello to her every day, we spend a lot of time together. (You know, cause of all the time I spend washing dishes.) Ms. Henny came to be with our family at the end of last month. October 25th was our 10th wedding anniversary! Chessa and I went to the antique shops in town to see if we could find a special family treasure as a gift for the day. And so we did! Without realizing it, I found exactly what I was looking for. We had one just like her when I was little. I feel like she was missing from our home. And now here she is. Can you tell I really do love her?

Perhaps I should have been instead talking about how much I love Jason, that most wonderful husband of mine, whom I have now been married to for more than 10 years. My kind, compassionate, handsome soul mate, who is also such an amazing father. We were married at my dad's house in Washington, on Whidby Island. It was a tiny wedding. We couldn't invite everyone so we invited no one. It was also kind of last minute. We had known for several years that we would get married, have children, be together forever. But in September of 1999 we decided that we did not want to wait any longer, for any of it, baby included. We decided we had to get married the next month. We chose a date. My dad and his wife arranged everything. We flew to Washington. We were married on the water. It was a rainy day, but cleared up just in time for our ceremony. The woman that my dad's wife found to marry us was wonderful! She helped make our wedding magical. You know what is so funny.... about 5 years later I was looking around on the internet for festival ideas, I don't remember which festival, but I came across this woman who leads what she calls "a festival life". It was the woman who married us! And she used to be a Waldorf teacher! She even trained in England with Margaret Meyerkort. I always knew she was a special woman, I was so happy to find out more about her. Super neat, I thought. Now, if I was more technically savvy I suppose I could scan some pictures of our wedding day and post them here. But I tried the scanner thing once, about 6 years, didn't work. Hmm, I see people doing it all the time now. Oh well, trust me, it was a beautiful day!

weekend fun and holiday thoughts

Sometimes I don't post anything because I don't have any good pictures to accompany my words. Then again, sometimes I feel I'm not sharing any words that are all that significant. But I shall write anyhow...

Our weekend was very nice. We have been blessed with absolutely perfect autumn weather. Sun, warmth, blue Colorado sky! We are taking advantage of it by getting as much outside work done as we can. Jason is working on a stone wall and a small fire circle. The girls are busy with mud and clay, and lots of running through the tall golden grasses. We are also trying to complete some additional garden beds. We should have about twice as much growing space next spring!

I tried to get some sewing done, but really much more time was spent in the kitchen. Bread baking this morning, and we had homemade pizza for dinner tonight.

I did do lots of thinking about sewing though... made a list of gift ideas to make for the girls... New dresses of course, something I have done since Chloe's first Christmas. They want long sleeve dresses, and I'm thinking of using some beautiful printed flannels that I have, I'm just trying to figure out a style that won't come out looking like a nightgown. Kind of challenging, but I have some ideas.

I am also going to make them new aprons. Their favorite game to play lately is "Waldorf kindergarten" and Chloe keeps going on and on about her need for a new apron. I have some special embroideries in mind that may find their way onto the aprons.

I would love to knit them some warm wool mittens but I have never knitted mittens before. Would anyone like to recommend a very simple, very easy beginner mitten pattern? I actually spent some time on Ravelry last night looking for one but didn't find anything very appealing. (And speaking of Ravelry, oh my, it's pretty neat. And did you know that you can have "friends" on Ravelry? I had no clue until someone mentioned that she had added me as a friend. Maybe after I'm done here I will have to go find some of you over there...)

I will probably also make new doll dresses and maybe doll quilts and pillows too. (Kind of cheating here cause I already have one little doll quilt from this summer, so I just have to make one more. There, now I have already gotten started on gifts. Yea.)

I may also make them pin cushions or little needle books as stocking stuffers. Felt headbands are another idea. I'm not sure if this is a too big, too ambitious list. Hopefully I can get it all done. We usually do not buy any gifts other than a few special books. Anyone else want to share some of their gift making ideas??

One last thing before I go... did you all see these beautiful crowns? Chloe is so looking forward to St. Lucia day! She has many plans for it, and is very concerned over what she will do for a crown. I haven't mentioned it to her yet, but I thought we could make a felted one, wool candles and everything. Of course I wasn't entirely sure how I intended to go about making them, so I was very excited when I saw these one. And Cadi was kind enough to explain much of the process to me. (Thank you!) If you look in the comments of my last post, or in the comments on her blog, you can get more details.

See you later this week!

p.s I just remembered... I might make knitted sweaters for the dolls. And maybe some felted bowls. I don't know how to make felted bowls, but I would probably just crochet some a little extra big and then put them in a pillowcase in the washing machine. Or maybe that is a totally bad idea and very wrong way. These are just ideas anyways, I would say nothing is definite except for the dresses and aprons. Maybe Jason wants to make them some little baskets....

WIP Wednesday

(Again on Tuesday evening. I tried to schedule it for Wednesday morning, but for some reason it is insisting on publishing now.)

I finally finished my needle felted autumn woman! This is the first felted figure I have done besides my little gnome, and I am pretty happy with her. She was so much fun to create, and as I went along I kept imagining more and more possibilities.

I kept her pretty simple, adding just one tiny orange flower in the back of her hair.

And although she wasn't yet on our nature table on November 1st, she was sitting there before midnight. She greeted the girls the next morning... they are in love with her.

I also got some more knitting done this past week. I still hadn't finished my wool hat, it sat on the needles for two months, but when I saw a forecasted low of 9 degrees last week I quickly finished it up!

And I am happy to say that I did meet my goal of finishing the two Waldorf dolls by November 1st. Unless you count their clothes, which I am not. I did start their dresses though. I will wait until next week to share some pictures of them.

Now, finally, I can turn my attention to the girls gifts for the holidays. My head is full of ideas!

Orange - part 2

More orange! The back cover of the Wynstones Autumn book...

the last vase of calendula, still brightening our kitchen table...

not quite ripe tomato, so it is orange rather than red. This makes me especially happy. We have three tomato plants in containers which have now been indoors for more than a month. Our tomato plants in the garden froze on the first day of autumn, so this has really extended the harvest for us. The plants are just covered in tomatoes, which I'm sure we will still be eating at Thanksgiving, and maybe even on the first day of winter!!

Pretty pot holder that my sister gave me, which usually sits in my sewing space with pin cushion or scissors on it...

and orange fabric, just a few which happened to be out, I could have gone digging for more...

little wall hanging that I made about 7 years ago... in my mind the orange plaid fabric represents the sunset, cause in my mind plaid is good for everything!

Orange flowers on one of my most treasured possessions, a vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt... you will see and hear more about this another time...

Orange wool braiding made by Chloe...

basket full of yarn...

and a corner of our nature table, so orange and golden it seems to be nearly radiating light!

Orange! (part 1)

Sara posted a color game, passing along the color orange, so I have been taking pictures of some of the orangeness around our home. Very easy to do, because orange is definitely one of my favorite colors! As a matter of fact, I think this will have to be a two part post, I ended up with so many pictures!

Obviously the fact that it was Halloween contributed a lot to the orange.

Chloe is looking quite orange herself. (But if I was doing the color brown I would post this one for those big brown eyes!)


The day after Halloween seemed to revolve around pumpkin seeds. Sorting seeds, rinsing, seeds, toasting seeds, eating seeds, stringing seeds on thread for decorations... more wonderful gifts from those big beautiful pumpkins!

A favorite Halloween story...

And our own pumpkin moonshines. The basket belongs to Little Red Cap (Chloe). She included some pumpkin cookies to be eaten up on the little mountain across the road... we took an evening forest walk as the sky was becoming dark...

Chessa was Little Pink Cap! (Thank goodness the girls are very easy to please as far as costumes go. I made these hooded cloaks several years ago.)

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. Ours ended up feeling rather festive, though simple, and really made me excited for this upcoming season of celebration.

I will be back soon with part two...

WIP Wednesday (on Tuesday evening)

I am very happy to say that I have finished my little pumpkin. Once I had all the various pieces knitted I abandoned the pattern, and things got especially amusing when I attempted the stem, but it's done, and I think it does look like a pumpkin, so I will consider it a success.

One doll is finished too, though still naked. I have grand plans to have the dolls completed by November 1st, but I also want that little needle felted doll to be finished for our nature table, and I have not worked on her at all. She may have to take priority over the dolls. We'll see what happens...

Hope you are all having a nice cozy autumn week. I think we are about to get some snow here!

this past week...

Beautiful autumn days, some with lots of warmth from the sun, others getting very, very cold... reminding us of what is soon to come... I think I need to start mentally preparing, I do not always do well with the cold and snow... but there is certainly lots to look forward to with the upcoming holiday season.


One of our days was spent gathering cattail leaves and enjoying a walk around our small neighborhood lake.

Perhaps the baby ducks from a few months ago, now all grown...

And I am happy to say there has been quite a lot of handwork happening here lately. I missed WIP Wednesday, but next week I should have two completed dolls to show. One is finished, the second is on it's way. And Chloe has been doing a lot of knitting and needle felting. We went to visit Sara a couple days ago and Chloe spent the morning making these gifts to bring for her and Ila. The larger one is Sara with Ila in her arms. Very sweet I think. My girls have so much love for that wonderful farm family.

I have a feeling I will not return here until next week, so I will now wish you all a wonderful weekend filled with lots of autumn happiness!

first WIP Wednesday

I have been wanting to start participating in the WIP Wednesday for a while now. There is so much great creating happening there, it is so very inspiring, and by joining I hope to keep myself motivated. (Of course the real problem isn't motivation, it's time!)

All of the following projects were started in early September, and are still unfinished! Hmm, perhaps I have too much going on at once??

Here is Chloe's autumn dress, which I would have had done long ago, except that it was still summer when I started, so I decided I was getting to far ahead of the seasons, and then it sat on the rocking chair for about 6 weeks. The dress is actually finished, it is the apron that goes over it that I still need to complete. I have been saving that oak leaf fabric for many years, I think it will make a perfect autumn apron.

And then of course there are still the dolls. Started in August actually! Fortunately they are for a friend who very well understood that it would take me quite a while to finish them. They are Christmas gifts for her girls, but for my own personal crafting reasons I intend to have them finished way before then. Cause I have about 20 other things I need to get to making, and having these dolls still sitting here is a bit overwhelming. There were recently a few weeks when I wasn't able to work on them at all, but I finally got started on the hair a few days ago. Only one layer so far obviously, with the other doll still completely bald, but I actually love doing the doll hair so hopefully I will be able to work on them much more in the next week or so. And then it will be on to doll clothes. There are a couple dolls of our own eagerly awaiting new dresses too.

And then here is the most disappointing part of my recent creating. My little needle felted woman who was supposed to be on our nature table for the first day of autumn. So sad... I have never before not finished something so special that was to be a part of our seasonal celebration.

Perhaps I can have here finished in the next couple weeks so that she can at least keep us company throughout November.

And it would be nice if I could finish this little pumpkin while it is still October.
Because I'm pretty sure I should be moving on to winter holiday creating very soon!

catching up

Here are some of the pictures that I took over the past month but was unable to get onto the computer until now...

Still cannot get enough of these beautiful calendula!

There are still some blooming in the now mostly faded garden. And today I started gathering some seeds from them, to be sure we will have many more blooms next year!


Since Jason was away I was left to do the first day of autumn chalkboard drawing. Of course I did not remember to do it until late the night before, so was done a bit hastily.


The first weeks of school with Chloe were filled with many days of watercolor painting. So I made sure Chessa got some painting time of her own too. I will try to post pictures of some of their paintings soon.

What... is this not a common site out on the road where you live?


And then daddy came home! And we have been having lots of fun. (Combined with lots of rest... we are all pretty worn out for the long time apart.)

We went out and did some apple harvesting last week. Visited just a few trees and came home with about 50 pounds of apples!

Yesterday we bought ourselves an apples peeler/slicer. Seemed like a good idea. And it's cute and red. We will be baking apple pies soon, some are sliced and frozen in the freezer already, and of course the girls have been eating apples all day long!

Chickens!

I made a typo in my last post.. commented on our strange desire to have chickens.. but I only wrote "chicken"! And that makes it sound like we want to eat them, which we most definitely do not! I just find myself loving all kinds of birds more and more these past few years, and that love has now extended to chickens. But if we were to have chickens we would have to eat the eggs. At least we feel we would need to, or else it would be wasteful. (We wouldn't have a rooster so there wouldn't be unborn baby chicks to consider.) The thought of eating eggs is very strange to us though. But we also have all these great self-sufficiency homesteading desires, and eggs from chickens would add to our producing as much of our own food as possible dreams. So we have these kinds of conversations sometimes now, Jason and I, and while we are having the conversations we are like, "I can't believe we are even talking this way!"

And yes, hooray, Jason is home! But I have one more quiet evening to myself cause he had to go to bed with the girls... so very tired. Me though, I'm gonna stay up much later, maybe all the way to 9:30 or so.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Kreativ Blogger Award

My dear friend Sara at Farmama has passed on this Kreativ Blogger award to me. Recipients are supposed to do the following...

1. Copy the award to your site.

2.Link to the person to whom you received the award.

3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.

4. Link to those sites on your blog.

5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

.....and you are also to list 7 things about yourself.

I do wish I could just pass this back to Sara! Such a creative, hard working, truly good person she is! But there are certainly others...

1. Heather at Shivaya Naturals

Her blog is so full of warmth, as is the home she has created for her family. Her knitting is amazing, and I wish we didn't live at apposite ends of our state so that we could spend some time sewing together!


2. Nicole at Gardenmama

I was just in awe the first time I saw Nicole's blog. The images she captures with her camera, and the images she creates with her words, are absolutely breathtaking. The correspondence we have shared the last couple months has warmed my heart. Thank you Nicole!


3. Suzanne at Down in the Meadow

There is so much prettiness and festivity happening over at Suzanne's. Even the every day moments at her home are filled with beauty. She always has such kind words to share, and brings a smile to my face.


4. Cadi at MaeheGirl

Talented and funny. She makes me laugh! And offers homeschooling encouragement. Inspiring!


5. Sarah at In These Hills

As soon as I read her Michaelmas post this week I knew I would have to include her here! Her words gave me strength when I so very much needed it.


6. Kelly at Free Flowing Ways

Nature goodness, crafting greatness, homeschooling happiness!


7. Well, I am thinking I cannot choose just one more. I'm sure we can all agree that there are just too many amazing women doing wonderful things around here, in their homes, for their families! If I read your blog it is because you are creative, inspiring, loving, a good mother, a wonderful artist... a generous person who is sharing a part of yourself and has inspired me to do the same!



I guess that means it is now time for me to share 7 things about myself...

1. I am originally from California. I was born in the Los Angeles area and lived there when I was very young, but then we moved north to Carmel. I love fog, ferns, trees, the ocean, and fairytale-like cottages. I desperately miss my home town and find it somewhat unfair that I cannot move back home, seeing as how it is one of the most expensive places in the country to live. I can visit though... hopefully soon!

2. I first came to Colorado in 1995. So I guess this is my home now. I love rivers, mountains, spruce and fir trees. And aspens. I love to watch the snow fall, I love to see the forest covered in snow. But I do not always love the snow. And I won't drive in the snow. Fortunately Jason is from Ohio and is an expert winter weather driver.

3. I like to be at home, and I like to be with my family. I really don't feel the need to get out much, except for out into the forest! Jason is the same way, (except for he feels the need to get out and go skateboarding too), and the girls also are happy to live a very home centered life. Therefore we need to make an effort to make sure that we do get out sometimes!

4. Both of our girls were born at home. Homebirth, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cloth diapering... all of these things are/were a very important part of our life, they are just a bit in the past now and so not something I have really mentioned here before.

5. I love homeschooling. I also believe very passionately in Waldorf education. If there was an established Waldorf school nearby and we had the option of attending it would be a very, very difficult decision.

6. I taught myself to sew when I was about 19 years old. More than 17 years ago! I still have pieces of the fabrics that I first bought all those years ago, but not many of the things I ever made. I had a bad habit of making dresses, wearing them for a while, then deciding I would rather have a skirt and cutting them in half! I have also made and sold many dresses, probably more than 200! This was in the days long before etsy or anything like that, it was very hard to do and I eventually took a break. A very long break. I am still waiting to get started again, cause now there is this thing called etsy you know... (I also make all Chloe's and Chessa's dresses and skirts, and much of their other clothing too.)

7. I have been vegan for 16 years. Jason too, we both already were when we met. Also not something I have mentioned here much yet, not sure why. Maybe I will start sharing some recipes some time, cause after so many years of cooking and baking every meal for my family I seem to have become kind of good at it. I must warn you though, don't be surprised if someday you find me discussing our strange desire to have chickens. (Which for now is not accompanied by a desire to eat eggs.) You know it took us several years to decide to use wool, so maybe in ten years, our own chickens...


Okay, I did it! Now I think I shall take a break here for just a bit. I'll be back next week after spending some days doing nothing but enjoying the love of my reunited family!

a few years ago...

Some old favorites...

I have been taking pictures the last couple weeks, and when Jason gets back I will be able to get them onto the computer. I'm sure he has about 100 new pictures too. Just a few more days and he is home! Hooray!!!

I do apologize for the somewhat uninteresting blog posts lately. I suppose I could have just posted nothing instead.... Feeling so off with Jason gone, just trying to get through each day... the girls have been so wonderful, it's like Chloe is trying to be all brave and strong about her daddy being away. Whereas I just spent Michaelmas feeling totally lacking in courage. Blah, I know, sorry... Today was better though, woke up to a thunderstorm and lots of wind, made me feel excited for the day. I shall try to return soon with more happiness!

The autumn winds wail through the woods

O Michael, lend us your starry sword,
the darkness of earth fill with light.

from Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures

autumn watercolor painting

From last year, some autumn trees we painted using the wet on wet method of watercolor painting. (Sometimes I feel like it is obvious this is how we did it, but then I realize some people may not be familiar with the process.)

This first one is mine. Kind of pale, though nowhere near as light as my first attempt which looked much more like a blossoming springtime tree.

But I really love Chloe's! So much more movement and color in hers!

We had lesson time this morning followed by a long day in town. Too long really, didn't get home until almost 7 o'clock, which is the time the girls are usually going to bed. But it was a good day... a short but nice visit with a friend, and then yarn, antiques, and library. And how beautiful it is looking in our mountains these days! No longer just golden, now there is red, orange, nearly fiery color! I wish I had pictures to share with you. Also wish I could show you this wonderful Malabrigo yarn we came home with, in colors that perfectly match those amazing autumn mountains!

First week of school

As I have mentioned, last week was our first week of school. Chloe is in 3rd grade this year! This is Chessa's first official year of kindergarten, but it will be very unofficial. She did join us for circle time every day though.

It was really a very gentle beginning, with the main focus being celebrating autumn. We did a wonderful orchard circle time which we have done every autumn since Chloe was 6. The girls love it, they will never tire of it. We will only do it for the one week though since we done it for so many other years. It is from Let Us Form a Ring, an Acorn Hill Anthology. This is one of my favorite resources for circle time activities, and really helped me to understand how a circle could move, flow, breathe... I have another favorite too, which I will tell you about later in the week.

We are trying to make sure we get started on lessons early enough in the morning, about 9 or 9:30. Our morning Tuesday was a bit delayed though as we had to spend about an hour in the garden and kitchen rescuing the half frozen swiss chard. Several giant bowls full, have a which is now in the freezer, the other half has been made into soup and eaten.

We didn't really have a main lesson for the week. I just took the time to get us back into our rhythm, and introduce some of the new ideas we would be working with this year. One of which was a spelling list and special English notebook. Our spelling words for the week focused on autumn, apples, orchard, etc... We did 10. I told Chloe we would play a spelling game at the end of the week. (Spelling quiz!) She loved it. There was also some math review time. And lots of flute playing, which I wasn't sure we would get to the first week, but Chloe wanted to, and we learned a new song.

So it all went really well. (Especially since we were also dealing with the whole daddy being gone and crazy hospital incident!) Tomorrow we start our first main lesson block, Old Testament stories. I have been doing some watercolor painting practice in the evenings, want to do some more with that tomorrow night. For tonight I am going to again read through our Creation story from Roy Wilkinson's book, and then see if I can come up with an idea for Form Drawing tomorrow, something I forgot about last week!

Of course I have no recent photos for you, but here are some I never posted of more 2nd grade school work. They are from what we were calling a word family book, but I kept struggling with how exactly we wanted to approach the work. So here are a few pages that we came up with. You may have to click on them to make them bigger to see well enough.

(No, there are not 7 pictures. Let's just be impressed if I actually post every day like I said I would.)

big sister

Did I just say that I was going to post every day for the next 7 days? Was it just yesterday that I said that? Already I am wondering what I was thinking..... Well, let's open iPhoto and see what we've got...

We didn't have a digital camera before Chessa was born, so that's were all of our pictures start. So here we have seven photos of the sweetest, most loving, most helpful big sister that ever was! (She is assisting our midwife in this first photo.)



The photo quality is not so great but the moments certainly were.


Chessa needed sunlight!

Complete adoration!

a pretty good really bad week

Unfortunately it was not a happy birthday for Jason. (But thanks for all the happy wishes anyhow.) He ended up in the hospital! It was really awful. Really really really horrible. Bad enough that it happened at all, but to happen when he is all the way across the country... and I could not be there with him... he was all alone... I won't even try to explain how terrible it was, for him especially of course... it completely broke my heart to not be there with him!

So how can I say that it was a pretty good week? Well he is out now, he is all better, he is healthy, he is safe. He is going to go ahead and stay and finish his last class this next week. And then he will be home! And then he will never leave us again! (Well, maybe at some point, for only a very short amount of time, but only maybe. The girls and I are mostly doing okay here, but he is not handling being away well at all. Much too sad, way too hard.)

Speaking of hospitals, look at this poor injured child.

And remember, this was our first week of school. And it went very well, despite the crazy disruptions. And most of our garden froze, but at least I rescued all the tomatoes the day before. And Tuesday was super cold, just in the 50's, but today was probably 70 and so perfect and autumny.

So, Jason took our camera with him, my sister was nice enough to send me hers to use in the meantime, but I have no way of putting any of the pictures on the computer. Of course I do have iPhoto with 6000+ older pictures to choose from, so I think for this next week I will try to do a post each day with some sets of random pictures. Seven seems like a good number. I will start right now with 7 family photos.

Sadly, it was hard to find very many pictures of all four of us. So first there is a couple of just Jason and the girls.

(I could probably do a whole set of 7 of Chessa and her funny faces. And another 7 on Chloe and her dimples!)

I love this one!

Now I guess we can go from oldest to most recent...

This one here is really our very first family photo, all four of us in our bed, probably just an hour or two after Chessa was born. Maybe even less time than that, she is still just wrapped in blankets and a towel.

And even though you can't see me in this one, I am obviously right there on the other side of the bed. And I like that Kalis is in it. (Our sweet white doggie, she is not with us anymore.) And you can see how Chloe was with Chessa from the moment Chessa was born, right there to help with every single thing, so full of love for her!

Well, as you can see, most of our family photos were taken ourselves, with an arm reaching out holding the camera. Really there are more that my mom and sister have taken, but this is all I could find for now. And look, here again we have a funny face and lots of dimples!


Oh, and I almost forgot, I have some first day of school pictures. Not pictures of this weeks first day of school, but Chloe's first day of kindergarten 3 years ago.


Chessa thinks she is smiling in this one!

Okay, so that was so many more than seven, I will try harder to stick to the limit next time.

Happy Autumn

Wishing you all a wonderful happy autumn season!


(p.s. This is Jason's beautiful chalkboard drawing that greeted Chloe and Chessa on the first day of autumn last year. Which was also our first day of second grade last year. And also Jason's birthday. And tomorrow is our first day of third grade! And also Jason's birthday, again, too, of course..)

Apples and Trains (and Bears too!)

Look how many apples there were already at this time last year! How pleased the girls look... Chessa is thrilled!

For the past year Jason has worked part time for the historic railroad in our town. (It has been running since 1882! Still coal-fired/steam operated.) Most of these apples were picked from trees along the railroad tracks where no one else can really get to them.

Jason's job is to ride along in a little patrol car and make sure the tracks are safe. Sometimes there is some maintenance to do, sometimes there is a fire to put out, but there is also plenty of time to enjoy the scenery!


Lots of wildlife too!


Jason saw this bear (below) one day early in March. It had obviously just woken up from it's winter sleep! It was drowsy, yawning, stretching, and basking in the warm sun! Sometimes he would see a mama bear with her cubs.


This is the depot in the little town the train goes to. The tourists get off and wander around, Jason goes and has lunch by the river, maybe takes a little hike. Then he starts the 3 hour ride back down.


These pictures were taken last year in early September. Snow already!


And here are some other nice autumn pictures from last September.

Goodness, was that enough pictures for you?

distracted...

I hardly know where to begin, and I don't mean to sound all dramatic, cause it's not like anything bad has happened. Quite the opposite actually. But yesterday Jason went out of town, he will be gone 3 weeks!!! and that is just totally crazy for us! So everything is feeling kind of off... the past week was super busy getting him ready to go... we were in town 3 or 4 days which is more than we sometimes go in one month... and we have never been apart for anywhere near this long! About once a year he will go on a backpacking trip for a few nights, occasionally a skateboarding trip for a couple days, he has even worked at home for most of the girls lives, so we are really used to having daddy around! I guess you may be wondering where is he went... He is at "Tracker School", a nature and wilderness survival school, all the way across the country in New Jersey. He flew there Saturday. (It did not go so well, he threw up 5 times, I wonder if he would care that I am telling you this...) But he made it, he is excited to learn, and even more excited to come home with the experience and knowledge.

The girls have of course been pretty sad about him going for so long, but they actually did really well today for his first day gone. They played with paper dolls all day. Really, the whole entire day. They started making them at about 8 this morning and cleaned up at 5 for dinner. I had to make them stop in the middle of the day to eat. Once I heard Chloe say, in a pretend daddy voice, (cause they have lots of play voices), "Guys, I have to tell you something. I'm sorry, but we're paper."


Now, the results of my hectic, scattered, distracted week... Jason is a pretty emotional person, he said with all the butterflies in his stomach he probably didn't even need an airplane to fly across the country, so he didn't have much of an appetite. So I made him cinnamon rolls. Surely he could manage that. (And a spinach lasagna for dinner Friday night.) I wanted to double the cinnamon roll recipe so there would be extra for him to take with him. I accidentally quadrupled it! 30 cinnamon rolls! Anyone want some? Wish I could share...


Good thing we have an abundance of fruit to make the breakfast a little more healthy. Apples from the forest! There is a valley here that long ago had many orchards. Now there are wild apple trees scattered about, Jason brought home so many bags of apples last autumn, this is just the beginning for this year. Nectarines too, which we picked at my brother-in-laws house. And the girls even love the crabapples!


I tried to take some pictures from the car while we were driving home from one of those many town trips last week. Jason took the camera on his trip, but my sister sent me hers so soon I will be able to take more pics.



It's still pretty green here, but every day it's looking a little more golden...

true (nature) story

Chloe came in from playing outside the other day to tell me something that had just happened. She then ran right back outside and I came and wrote it down...

"There was a dead bee on the ground and an ant was trying to help it, so I tried to help too just pushing it gently with a stick and the ant was leading the way. But then the ant just gave up, kissed it, and went away. I think it was it's friend."

Welcome September

On Monday I said to the girls, "Do you know that tomorrow is the first day of September?" Great excitement followed. They immediately started sewing special dresses for their littlest dolls. (because they were still, for days in a row now, just sewing away at little doll clothes.) The next morning was so golden, the sun shining in so bright through the windows at the back of the house, and the pine trees through the front windows all speckled with the golden sunlight. The girls were disappointed that Jason and I were up before them, they were trying to sneak upstairs to make us our cards. Apparently the first day of September called for special cards to be made. They dressed "special" too. Well, I didn't really have anything all that special planned for the day. Other than to be happy that September was here. I have been trying to be very patient with summer, but now I feel that it is fair to start looking forward to Autumn. The nature table did need some fresh flowers, so we headed out to the garden. Spent a while out there pinching off dead flower heads, decided to start leaving a few to go to seed to be gathered for next year. Transplanted a few small lettuces that we had started in containers. Filled our little jar with flowers and went back inside. And then I got a little carried away. I normally wouldn't have made any great changes to our nature table until the first day of autumn. But I just couldn't help myself. The flowers were so colorful, and it really needed more!

It is quite different than some of our past displays. I have never used any of our wooden trees on it before, and of course there has never been any wool. I usually save the pine cones for winter. The girls were very excited about the little gnome. I made it the other night, when I decided it would probably be a good idea to start with something small and simple before beginning the larger autumn figure, who really will not make her appearance until the equinox.

So Happy September to you all!

Weekend Handwork

I have discovered a new love! Oh my goodness, truly in love. Chloe and I made our first needle felting pictures this weekend. I am also working on a little standing doll, probably for our autumn nature table. This is our first real beginning with wool crafts. You see, we are a vegan family, have been for about 15 years, and in all that time have never worn wool, leather, don't eat honey, didn't use beeswax. Well, beeswax is actually how this all started. The girls never even had crayons, we just used the nice Lyra colored pencils. We were always looking for some kind of vegan crayon option, which would of course be synthetic. Petroleum based. Then a few years ago we stared wondering why we thought a petroleum based crayon was better than a beeswax crayon. After all, we never gave the girls any other kind of synthetic product, no plastic toys, only cotton clothing. We decided we felt good about choosing to use beeswax crayons and candles. (Totally personal decision for us. Other vegans may of course choose to do whatever they want.) Having the beeswax in our home brought us great joy really. Something about the connection to nature, to those sweet little bees so giving and full of love. The wool decision took much longer. Several years really. But recently we (and by we I mean my husband Jason and I) decided to start using wool. A lot of it again has to do with the synthetic versus natural. We never bought polyester fleece clothing or anything like that, (though we do wear synthetic shoes), not even the supposedly better eco type recycled fleece clothing, it's still just plastic to me. We just wore layers and layers of cotton. And we live where winters are very cold and snowy. I can't tell you how excited we are about the idea of having truly warm clothing this coming winter. I have already knitted wool hats for the girls and Jason, mine is still on the needles. The first wool that I used was from Sara from her own sheep. I really feel okay about using wool from my friends sheep, or purchasing it from a Waldorf homeschooling mother, and even supporting my local yarn shop and other small family businesses. Well, I'm certainly not trying to defend myself, it just really was a big personal decision for us, one that we took our time making (seriously, several years), and one that we feel very good about.

And now back to the original point of my post.. oh how we love needle felting! We didn't have any felt sheets to use as a base, so I just started with wool batting and kept felting layers of that until I had a nice thick base. I had started mine the evening before, finished it the next morning, and then Chloe wanted to make her own. At first she was going to make a girl and a tree, but then she ended up making Snow White and Rose Red. I love hers! I think it is wonderful. Little Chessa I just can't imagine letting use the felting needles yet. Too prone to bleeding and injury she is. But I have some wet felting projects planned for her and I soon. Chloe started another picture as a gift for Chessa, but then got sidetracked making doll clothes. The girls spent their entire Sunday making doll clothes!

Friday was a frustrating doll making day for me. I decided one of the heads was not good enough. I think I am too much of a perfectionist sometimes. In sewing this is fine for me, because after 17 years of dressmaking I can make them nearly perfect. But I'm thinking that in dollmaking there may be no such thing. I made a new head yesterday. So I am ready to attach the heads to their bodies. I will post some pictures as soon as I get hair sewn on their funny looking bald heads...

A Few Summer Thoughts

I figure I may as well post some more garden pictures while I still can. It certainly has been an interesting season. It seems all over the country everyone is having the opposite of their usual summer weather. It has definitely been the hottest mountain summer I can ever remember! In our town it is not unusual for their to be hot summer days with temperatures in the 90's. But we live about 25 miles out of town, and at least 1000 feet higher up, so while it may be 95 in town, hot for us is mid 80's. Not this summer though! Week after week of temperatures in the 90's. It's not so much that I'm complaining, I just don't understand! It is finally cooling down though. Perfects 70's, and of course nights are always cool. Already down in to the low 40's. Enough of a weather update though... how about garden update instead...

We have already harvested (and of course eaten) 3 tomatoes! Impressive for gardening at 7,500 feet, at least we think so. Still waiting on the zucchini though! Very strange I tell you.

Lots of greens of course. For some reason I decided not to plant the rainbow Chard this year. Wanted simple white instead. Kind of regret it though. The rainbow Chard seems much more productive.

Fortunately we had a few volunteers come up where we grew it last year. Next season I will definitely switch back.

You see this giant mullein here? With the big patch of dying daisies behind it? And perhaps you can see that this is an unfinished, unplanted bed. All because I couldn't bear to dig up the "weeds" that were growing there. Next year I suppose I will have to be a little bit more uncaring (just a little bit) and be willing to clear out more of the "wild flowers". I could hardly dig up any Lamb's Quarters either. Too yummy. One of our favorite wild greens.

Other favorite weeds growing in the garden are the yarrow

and the wild sunflowers. We have 100's of these! Not in the garden much, but everywhere else. Even in our gravel driveway. Taller than us and so beautiful!

And of course our little flower beds. Full of cosmos...

a new favorite variety of calendula, so much creaminess and beautiful darker orange around the edges and underneath...

and our lovely hollyhocks. I had to take more pictures of them because I think we are nearing the end of the blossoms for the season.

And those dear sweet deer were back to visit the other morning. They sure are getting big. Look at those antlers!

We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is still summer, despite how fast it feels like it is coming to an end. We were almost planning to have Chloe start lessons at the beginning of September, but then I realized that the girls need to have all the summer days she can! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer too!

day at the lake

We had been planning on going hiking today, but it has been so hot lately that I was a little concerned about the girls being out all day in such heat. I'm sure Chloe would have been fine, but I could just see Chessa's red hot face already. So we decided we should spend the day by the lake instead.

We started on one side of the lake where the path is so we could walk for a while.

Then we came to the spot where the girls and I went a couple weeks ago. They wanted to show daddy.

We thought it might be a good swimming spot but there was a lot of wind and waves, with the water getting deep pretty quickly. So we eventually moved on to the other side of the lake.

This is a very big lake! We found a nice area were we could lay out our blanket in the shade of the pine trees with a sandy beach and the waters edge just below.

The girls got to spend hours playing in the water, which was just what we wanted for them!

By the way, this happens to be a very, very extra special lake. You see, we used to live by this lake. Not 15 minutes away like we do now, but way towards the back of the lake, on the side of the mountain, in a small A-frame cabin. And that is the house where our dear Chloe Anne was born more than 9 years ago! But the house is not there anymore. There was a huge fire here in 2002, it burned for several weeks, it burned more than 70,000 acres! And it burned down that cabin. Fortunately we had just moved out the month before! Some other neighbors lost their homes too, but our friend next door was fortunate to have been spared. So we still go up and visit, and look out at the place where Chloe was born. There are still the aspens, and the yarrow, and the little blue flax flowers that we always said good morning to. "Good morning beautiful little blue flax flowers", every day when we walked outside...

Weekend Handwork.. and music, and flowers, and bonnets

This weekend Chloe told me that all she wanted to do was sew. Oh how happy this makes me! I often think how wonderful it is that the girls and I have a lifetime of sewing, handwork, and crafting together. One of Chloe's favorite handwork activities is embroidery. I know that usually comes a bit later in the Waldorf curriculum, but seeing as how it is one of my favorite activities too, it's something she's done a lot of in the past year. She doesn't use a pattern, doesn't draw a sketch onto the fabric, she doesn't even question whether or not she can actually embroider the idea she has in her head. She just picks up the fabric, chooses her colors, and starts. And she seems to prefer to make her embroideries into pillows. (All hand sewing for now. Chessa joins in sometimes too, but on a much smaller scale, with her little 5 year old fingers.)

The smaller pillow is an embroidery she did last year, she just needed to stuff it and sew it up. The larger one is an embroidery she finished this weekend and then sewed and stuffed that one too.

Here they are tucked into bed with her and dolls this evening. Along with the first pillow she made last year. (The doll on the left is the first doll I made her 7 years ago. Quite worn, very well loved! Her name is Emerald. And then on the right is Emma, the doll I made her for her 9th birthday this summer.)

My activities for the weekend included some more work on the dolls, a little bit of knitting, and giving myself music lessons! We started with the pentatonic flute in first grade, and now two years later have unfortunately not gotten very far. But this year I got the Shepherd's Songbook by Elisabeth Lebret and we will see how it goes. Please wish me luck, I think I need it.

Do any of you have one of these pentatonic glockenspiels? It is wonderful. We got it a few years ago as a Christmas gift. Many nights before we gave it to the girls I would sit and play it. It is like fairy music!

And here is where our instruments and some of our special books live...

A pretty and yummy salad for dinner tonight...

and a little bunch of flowers the girls picked for me. I am supposed to let them dry and keep them on the windowsill by my bed in case I want to smell something nice!

And hooray, Jason just got home and the bonnet pattern came in the mail! Yes, I will certainly have to make another yellow bonnet someday, but I think we may have to start with something a little more autumn like. Maybe even lined with flannel?? Oh dear, this may have to wait a while... dolls, knitting, lesson planning... I think I need to go now..

rainy morning, rainbow evening

It rained all night. This morning felt so wet and fresh. We decided to go wander around on "the mountain" across the road. The girls call it "the mountain", really it's more of the hillside on the mountain we live on...

(Chloe rarely takes of that bonnet these days. Jason has taken to calling her Yellow Bonnet.)


Chloe has a special rock friend up there. It has a name, Lily I think. (I feel kinda bad for not remembering the name of my daughters special rock friend.) So after some exploring, visiting the deer beds, looking for Oregon Grape berries, we sat on the rock and read a chapter in On the Banks of Plum Creek.


Our garden certainly enjoyed the rain. This afternoon I picked some fresh flowers for the nature table. We have so many calendula blooming right now! I'm thinking of gathering petals and making some salve.


And then this evening we noticed that there was a strange brightness outside, and look what we found...

Today I'm a Dollmaker

I have been asked quite a few times over the years if I would sell the dolls that I make. And my answer has always been no, I'm a seamstress, not a doll maker. But I have finally given in. I am working on two red-headed dolls for two sweet red-headed sisters. I could not resist! The most interesting thing about working on these dolls is that since they are not gifts for my girls I can work on them during normal daylight hours. Quite a change from secretly stitching away only while the girls are in bed, which although that is special and fun too, it can get a little stressful, especially when a birthday is just one week away and I have barely gotten started. So this morning I had a lovely time drinking tea, cutting, sewing, stuffing, while the girls played happily nearby. (The picture above is from one of my favorite books, The Children's Year. Really has nothing to do with the dolls I'm making, I just love the picture!)


And it seems yesterday the girls took the camera and had a little photo session.

When Chessa was really little she always squeezed her eyes shut when smiling for the camera. I guess she still does sometimes.

Chloe got to borrow this sunbonnet from a friend the other day. The idea was to use it to make a pattern so we could make our own. But after much debate in my own head I went ahead and ordered Amy Karol's bonnet pattern last night. Cause we all know that one is super cute, right?

Now, would you like to see where Jason was last week?