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...