heirloom seasons

Waldorf Fifth Grade - Ancient India

2012-02-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

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Here are some lesson book photos from our first Ancient Civilizations block. We spent about three weeks on India. I planned this block mostly using Charles Kovacs' Ancient Mythologies book for our stories with some extra guidance and inspiration from Christopherus.

When Chloe read that there have been many poems written about Krishna and Radha she asked if we could find some. She wrote this verse into her lesson book, along with this pretty picture.

We read the Mahabharata (Donna Simmon's very nice retelling in the Christopherus book) and Chloe wrote some of her favorite parts from the Bhagavad Gita. She also drew this picture of Arjuna and his bow. She really enjoyed this adventurous story!

We finished the block with the story of Sidhartha. I feel like the message of compassion and kindness towards all beings really made an impression on Chloe. I know that these stories will always stay with her.

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moments from the middle of winter

2012-02-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

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We celebrate the middle of winter, Brigid's Day, Candlemas. Inside and outside.

We have been reading stories of Brigid. Yesterday we wrote a small play about her, and the girls and I performed it for Jason this evening.

We had buttercup squash soup for dinner. We baked "snowdrop cookies". We only make these cookies on this day and on the winter solstice.

Earlier in the afternoon I was thinking about what kind of painting we could perhaps do tomorrow. I had a thought of Brigid's well and imagined trees intertwining above it. Then I suddenly decided I should sit down and do a crayon drawing. (Done mostly with beeswax block crayons.) As I started I realized the picture was going to be much more spring-like than wintery, but I decided that was okay, it is nice to look ahead at this time of year. It has been a while since I have practiced my drawing like this. It was nice to take the time for it, I would like to do it more often.

I wrote a Brigid blessing on a small chalkboard and placed it with the drawing next to our table at dinner. And we lit a new candle.

(And you see, all that was this evening, with a dark and snowy sky. So no photos to share...)

And earlier in the week...

A wonderful outside day, so much sunshine, so much happiness and running around!

Time with our horses.

The girls were so delighted with the smell of the dried up grasses and flowers in the hay.

Chessa told me I had to stand with my eyes closed and the sun shining down on my face and take deep breathes of the hay and it would feel like summer. Of course it really did.
Then the girls tucked bits of the dried flowers and grasses into their braids.

And inside play...

Setting up camps.

Doll picnics, doll parties, lots of doll love and play.

Chessa's dolls get much more worn that Chloe's ever did. Smudged faces, dirty hands, scuffed feet. So loved. I am noticing here that Isabella's mouth is quite messy. Hmm, it seems someone may have been feeding her...

She looks like her dolls.

And just this one perfect photo of my dear eldest child. But so many wonderful moments with her.

Wishing you all wonderful mid-season days!

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moments from the weeks

2012-01-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

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(The girls are supposed to be asleep, but I can hear that they are up. They are cleaning. So am I supposed to say please stop cleaning and get into bed? They are allowed to clean for a little while longer and then they need to get to rest.

I really enjoy going over these photos and being reminded of the simple moments from the week. Sweet moments of play...

Kitchen play...

and more more kitchen play.

Animals.

Exceptionally cuddly cats.

Handwork.

New dress for tiny doll.

Valentine's Day is a good reason for lots of pink. Though really there doesn't need to be a specific reason, pink is always very good.

First though we are looking forward to Candlemas, Imbolc, Brigid's day...

Winter is a good reason for lots of color. And such a nice time to be working on the granny squares.

Our days have been nice.

(the girls are in bed now...)

Wishing you all a wonderful winter weekend!

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2012-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

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Dear King Winter, Thank you so very much for finally coming to visit us again!

Yes, that is my youngest child out in the big storm dressed somewhat inappropriately. She was sure to wear her coat the next time they went out.

They are very good at getting themselves very covered in snow.

Snowy wandering child...

Beautiful wintry white.

And then in the afternoon the sun came out to say hello...

Only for a little while though. Then it snowed some more. And it was a very happy day. And we felt very hopeful for winter.

So, I really enjoyed doing the moments from the week post last week, and I intend to continue doing them, but these winter days sure do pass quickly. Maybe I will have to post the next one on Sunday evening, or maybe just catch up at the end of next week...

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

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~ Yarn Along ~

2012-01-17T19:27:00.000-08:00

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I am always happy when I am able to Ginny for her wonderful Yarn Along.

I have just one small knitting project to finish up right now and am really feeling the need to start something new. I already have more cardigans planned, maybe pink ones for spring and summer birthdays, but those will have to wait until yarn can be purchased. For now I will try to think of something small and fun, maybe something with the girls. Ahh, that is a good idea...

So now I will finally show you finished pictures of a few of the handmade holiday gifts.

This is one set of the nesting bowls. These sure were neat to make. I was able to knit all the bowls in the evenings, and the wet felting was very enjoyable. Goodness I love wool!

And mittens for the girls, the first pairs I have ever knitted. Also very fun.

Since I knit both pairs from the same green yarn I decided to add a small bit of embroidery to each pair. These mittens have seen a lot of use already. Chloe's are even kind of muddy. Chessa's have come home from the horses covered in burrs.

And some hat/bonnet pictures. I plan on updating my ravelry page with notes on patterns, etc., but I've never really ever updated much of anything on my ravelry page, so who knows when I will really get around to it. The hat pattern though is called Pauline, and quite wonderful I think. I love how it covers the girls ears so well too. I may want to make these again in thicker yarns next winter.

I am happy to say that hats, mittens, and cardigans are worn almost everyday. I am so grateful that my girls love to wear their mama made clothing. It feels so good to be able to clothe them in handmade warmth.

I had been wanting to share this beautiful old book, in really great condition, that we found at the library book sale a few months ago. It makes me very happy. I just so happened to be in the picture, and rather than edit myself out I decided I could just leave it...

I do believe our winter wishes have been answered, winter seems to have finally wakened!
I wrote last year here about some of our other favorite winter books. (And if you asked about the winter book from my last post, you can see more of it there.)

(And this brings up the whole comments and questions thing again. I never know where/how best to answer. I would like to try to start responding more within the comments. I think I will try that...)

And finally I have picked up my poor neglected granny squares. I do not mind that I went three seasons without working on them. It was always meant to be that kind of project, most special for cozy winter days. It was nice to start working on them again, on a beautiful snowy day...

I wonder if you have any special winter handwork projects happening?
Happy creating!

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moments from the week

2012-01-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

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My friend Jules does these nice "moments from the week" posts and I have always wanted to join her, so here we go...

Simple play.

Corn has been banned from the bedroom. It must live in bowls on play kitchen shelves. It really must.

Last of our onions. We will have to grow at least 3 times more this season.

I made coconut milk yesterday. Here is the prettier picture.

Here is the messier picture. It was fun. I had coconut milk to add to our dinner of roasted carrots, garbanzo beans, and brown rice. And 5 jars of coconut milk put into the freezer. It feels good to have food stored away like that.

Cuddling kitty love.

And some more.

Yes, we still have our tree in the house. Undecorated. But we just haven't been able to take it out yet. It's lovely in it's simple greenness.

Snowy pictures. Wishful thinking. Please snow.

You wouldn't believe the worlds these girls have created out of beeswax. And the hundreds of people!
(Okay, maybe not hundreds, but seriously probably close to at least one hundred!)

And one of Chessa's nice chalkboard drawings, of a horse yet again. She also drew many horse pictures in her notebook this week. And some fairy pictures too.

We also had a good and productive school week, which we will continue with tomorrow.

I know it's not really quite the end of the week yet, but Friday to me is like the beginning of the weekend and I don't usually do posts then...

Thanks Jules for inspiring me to put together this post!

Happy weekend to all. See you next week...

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new year daybook

2012-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

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I was considering writing a post without pictures, since I don't seem to be taking many lately, and then I was reminded of this nice idea, and so decided to take part for the first time...
From The Simple Woman's Daybook. I wrote my answers quickly, first things to come to my mind...

Outside my window... It is dark, because I am actually writing this "daybook" entry late at night.

I am thinking... About homeschooling and lesson work which we will return to in the morning after our holiday break.

I am thankful... that we are all here together.

In the kitchen... Garbanzo beans soaking. I don't making them as often as other beans because they seem to take so much longer to cook. A large batch will simmer all day in the crock pot tomorrow. An extra jar full will go into the freezer.

I am wearing...Green linen skirt and a green plaid top. Both handmade.

I am creating... an embroidered piece, most likely to become a wall hanging for our home.

I am going... to town on Tuesday. Rarely more than once a week. Sometimes less often.

I am wondering... if my eldest child is asleep yet, or if she is still laying in bed reading.

I am reading... Ancient Mythologies is on the desk in front of me. Our new main lesson that we are beginning tomorrow. Waldorf 5th grade...

I am hoping... for a peaceful week.

I am looking forward to... Snow! Really. It is winter. Please snow.

I am learning... Why is this the first one I am pausing on?

Around the house... Nice and tidy. Tree undecorated and all Christmas ornaments put away. New winter nature table arranged earlier this evening.

I am pondering... the week ahead.

A favorite quote for today... I read a good one earlier, but can't at all remember what it may have been...

One of my favorite things... the sweet little notes my girls write to me, and to suddenly find one, and a smile comes to my face.

A few plans for the rest of the week: I feel like I mentioned them all already. A town day. Homeschool days. Embroidery. And I need to start a new knitting project. (And need to finish another small one started over the holiday.) And can't forget to get started on the girls winter dresses soon. And maybe another nice walk like the one we went on last week.

A peek into my day...

So many times a day I stop to admire this little basket of wool wonderfulness. So many embroidery thoughts filling my mind!

Wishing you all many lovely days this week!

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ending and beginning

2012-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

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Into the snowy forest on the winter solstice...

An amazing sunset that turned the forest red!

Journey to the light completed.

My own dear angels.

And we begin a new year with hearts full of hope.

I hope for a year of peace.

I hope for my children to have many moments of joy.

I know we will have lots of wonderful family togetherness.

Wishing everyone a beautiful new year filled with abundant happiness!

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extremely glorious

2011-12-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

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These days the girls are always exclaiming how glorious everything is. Glorious. It is their new favorite word. And Chessa's second favorite word right now is "extremely", and she always says it at least twice in a row.

Well here are some glorious pictures from the wonderful Tasha Tudor book Take Joy that I told you about last time...

So so so incredibly beautiful!

And our own Mary now traveling the last stars along the path.

Maybe next year I will get around to making Joseph to accompany her...

This year there are mittens to finish seaming, a few more holiday cards to make, and lots of Christmas cookies to bake!

Tomorrow we will head into the forest to celebrate Winter Solstice and bring home our Christmas tree. We will have hot apple cider, snowdrop cookies, and bring out our handmade ornaments and vintage decorations.

(After we finally finish moving the girls into their new bedroom...)

Friday is my birthday and I have this kind of crazy idea that I would like to do some sewing for myself that day. Maybe a new wrap skirt to wear over wool tights on winter days. I can sew while my family makes dinner for me...

Then it's Christmas Eve.
Then it's Christmas Day!

My sister is coming for Christmas and will be here until New Year's Eve. We have all kinds of kitchen adventures planned, and I'm going to teach her how to knit...

So to all of you here, my dear friends I am so glad to know, I wish you and your families an extremely extremely glorious glorious wonderful holiday season!!!

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Advent Days, Yarn Along, and a Handmade Holiday...

2011-12-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

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It is snowy on this St. Lucia Day, but with a brightness to the sky that is bringing us lots of light.

And bringing lots of happiness to us on these December is a wonderful vintage Tasha Tudor book called Take Joy. So much goodness is this beautiful book! Holiday stories, poems, songs, recipes and delightful traditions!

I have so many favorite pictures from this book, I will post again one day soon and share some of them with you.

This year our handmade holiday seems to be all about knitted gifts. Mittens for the girls, the first ones I have ever knit. They are fun to make! I think I am going to add a bit of embroidery to these so I haven't sewn the seams yet...

Knitting i-cord ties for the winter bonnets. Chessa's green one is done too...

Finished knitting both sets of nesting bowls, but only half of them are felted yet.

The other day the girls made some holiday cards to send to relatives.

Chessa's of course all say "Love" on them.

And some made by Chloe...

I love all the angels!

Our St. Lucia crown has been serving as our table centerpiece, except for this morning when Chloe was wearing it.

And our Advent Angel continues her journey. Now wandering through the trees and joined by some animals.

(Some of you have asked if I made our Advent calendar and angel... Yes, I did. You can see how I made the wool starry path here. I actually meant to share the link last month in case anyone wanted to make one, but time of course got away from me...)

Now I will tell you, most of the above pictures where taken while I was in bed. A really yucky sickness has decided to visit our house. Jason was in bed for 8 days! All the symptoms are very mild, except for extreme horrible horrible dizziness. And just before Jason came down with it we had taken apart half our house, decided to move the girls bedroom, need to paint and redo the floor. We though it would be done in just a few days (or maybe a week) and now we are way way behind! The girls are sleeping on the couch bed and there isn't even space for a Christmas tree yet.

Fortunately now Jason is much better and probably by the weekend the project will be completed. Fortunately I am nowhere near as sick as Jason was but still need to really take it easy. (Thank you homeopathic remedies! Jason has been very over-worked lately, and we didn't even realize he was getting so sick, so we weren't taken care of him well enough...) Fortunately the girls are healthy.
Fortunately knitting is a very restful activity.

And when we are finally able to get our tree and do some more decorating things will feel all the more special and festive!

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autumn ending...

2011-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

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December is here! I truly do try to stay within the moment of each season, and of course winter does not officially begin until later this month, but really it seems that these advent days are a time unto themselves. With certainly a more wintery feel to them.

Yesterday I spent several hours in the garden harvesting the last of the carrots and cleaning up the beds. I was so very grateful for one last outdoor garden day! Tonight more snow is arriving and will likely continue for several days!

I have been so quickly falling behind on posts here so there is some randomness to this one...

A non-wintery, not autumn either picture that Chessa drew on the small chalkboard recently. If you look closely you can see that she has written "I love you Rose" on it. Besides her name and our names, and the word "the", these are the words she knows how to spell (and has known for at least a couple years) so she writes them often. Also "Lily".

Cardigans with buttons! Yes, I finished knitting the cardigans in time for Martinmas, and then didn't sew the buttons on until the first day of Advent.

Chessa's cardigan is way too big...

Chloe's cardigan fits her perfectly. Too perfect! She may grow out of it before the end of winter...

But both are keeping the girls warm and cozy, and quite cute, so I'm happy with them!

And now our little Advent angel is walking slowly along her starry path, with each day holding a bit of holiday magic.

Wishing you all peaceful Advent days filled with beauty and happiness!

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Waldorf 5th Grade - Botany (and...)

2011-11-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

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Here are just a few more of Chloe's lesson book pictures from our first Botany block...

~ Title page of main lesson book

~ Parts of the flower

~ Mushrooms and Fungi

And cute little elves in the ferns!

We are now finishing up our first geography block (I will obviously be behind on pictures, but am impressed that I am managing to get any of them posted at all...) and next week we will begin our first Ancient Mythologies block with India. That is probably as far as we will get before we take a break in mid December for the winter holidays.

We just had 3 days with no internet connection, which was mostly really nice (really really really nice!) but also a little inconvenient (but only because of Little Sprouts closing and having orders to ship, fairly unfortunate timing...)
Really though, no computer, pretty nice!
I knit lots. Lots lots lots!
And now I am going to go knit some more...

Well wishes and happiness to all...

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Waldorf 1st Grade - First Lesson Blocks

2011-11-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

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First of all, I really must say, Chessa is such an adorable 1st grader. The sweet little voice with which she answers a question or recites a verse, she just melts my heart!

She is also a rather shy 1st grader. She is allowing me to post some of her lesson book pictures, but there are others that she has asked me not too, and so I will of course respect her wishes.

We started her 1st grade year with a two week block of Form Drawing, same as I did when Chloe was in 1st grade. After that we began her first Language Arts lesson block, introducing the letters of the alphabet. Chessa already knew all the letters, not because I ever taught her them, but how could she not pick this up herself with an older sister. However, there is still much work to be done. For example, she often writes the letters backwards, and really has not much awareness of the sounds that accompany the letters.

I had grand thoughts of creating an entire new lesson block for Chessa, different than the one I did with Chloe when she was in 1st grade, but in the end I was forced to be practical, with planning out the homeschool year for two children now, I am mostly following what I did before. Which is mostly based on Donna Simmon's Christopherus First Grade Curriculum.

~ My own drawing of a swan for the letter "S" to go along with the Grimm's fairy tale The Six Swans

First grade was the only year which I had a complete curriculum purchased for. It gave me a great foundation that allowed me to continue in the following years more on my own. Unfortunately I don't own the curriculum any longer (and I really do wish I did, Donna writes with such wisdom, I would love to go back through the whole thing) but since I completed entire lesson books alongside Chloe that year I am still able to go back and fairly accurately recreate the lesson for Chessa. In my own lesson book I had written the container story to accompany my drawings, I preferred to read from my own book and writing rather than the typed curriculum pages. (Nope, I didn't tell the story from memory!)

My first drawings were done on individual sheets of paper which where then hung on the wall. Then Chloe and I, and now Chessa and I, would do a drawing together. As you can see, my drawings are very simple, and I am certainly no great artist!

~ My own drawing of the King, Queen, Prince, and Wise Woman

The container story tells of a kingdom where the Prince must go on a journey with the Wise Woman, so that he can learn how to become a good king.

~ Chessa's lesson book drawing of the Jester, who tells the Prince the story of The Golden Goose

~ Each picture has letters written on the opposite page.

~ Chessa's lesson book drawing of a door in the mountain ~ a door which the Prince was convinced must lead to a Deep, Dark, Dangerous Dungeon (though it did not...)

You can imagine my delight when while drawing the letter "D" Chessa said, "A straight line and a curved line!" Yes! Form Drawing success! She pointed this out often while drawing her letters.

~ Chessa's lesson book of the prince calling to Rapunzel

We worked our way through much of the alphabet (not in order) and will continue with the rest in early December.

Now we have moved on to our first math block on the Quality of Numbers. Again, Chessa already knows the numbers fairly well, she actually seems to have quite a good sense of them. She will sometimes amaze us with little mathematical figurings she does in her head.

~ Chessa's lesson book drawings for the numbers One and Two

For this block we are memorizing a verse by Eugene Schwartz... "One is the sun that shines so bright, One is the moon so high. One is the day, One is the night, One is the sheltering sky. One is a head, so still and tame, upon one body whole with health. And "I" is the one and special name that only I can call myself." And then the verses continue with the next numbers.

Although we mentioned the sun and moon for One, they also symbolize the duality of day and night, the opposite qualities of light and dark, and so we used those images for the number Two.

~ Three makes a family

~ The Four Seasons

~ My own lesson book drawings for the numbers Three and Four

And our journey continues...

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Yarn Along and a Handmade (Handknit!) Holiday

2011-11-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

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It has been a while since I have been able to do a Yarn Along post, very happy to be joining Ginny today! And this can even count as my first official Handmade Holiday post for the season.

It seems most of my gift ideas for the girls this year are knitted gifts. I want them to have new winter hats and I found this really cute bonnet-like pattern. Here you see Chloe's, in dark red to match her cardigan. It is not blocked yet and I still need to knit the ties. I had a lot of fun knitting this bonnet, and learned quite a bit too, like how to do a neat attached i-cord binding. Chessa's hat will be green to match her cardigan...

Another gift will be a set of felted nesting bowls for each of them. They seem to be always in need of containers, baskets, boxes, bowls...

(I will try to include Ravelry links next time...)

Oh oh books! Wonderful wonderful books! Have any of you ever read the All-of-a-Kind Family books by Sidney Taylor? I had heard of them a few years ago but we only recently checked one out from the library. And we all fell in love with them! Our library has only two out of five from the series, and then I discovered that most of them are out of print. Tragic! Being as book obsessed as I am I of course had to hunt down some used copies. Even used they can be quite expensive, but fortunately I was able to find the first four books for us. These will be saved as Christmas gifts for the girls as well. They know that the books are out of print and they will be so excited and truly appreciate how lucky we are to have them. My book loving girls!

So I know I never even posted pictures of Chloe's finished cardigan, and here I am showing you Chessa's. Or part of Chessa's. I wasn't up for spending too much time on photos...
Chessa of course wanted a green cardigan. I wanted her to choose light green. She really wanted the dark green. I kind of had her talked into doing the lighter, but then I felt bad since I knew she really wanted the other, so I went ahead and knit it with the dark. We both liked the idea of adding the light green trim. Still waiting for buttons for the sweaters, so they really aren't 100% finished yet....

When I first went outside this morning this big boy deer (yes, I know really he is called a buck) was standing right by our fence. Later I looked out the window and saw that he had decided to stay and make himself comfortable. Always nice to have visits from our deer friends!

Oh, and happy November to you all!

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october...

2011-10-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

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Oh goodness, are we really nearing the end of the month already?

And apparently I am becoming a very, very slow blog writer...

Well then, how about some random thoughts...

Knitting. That's what I've been up to lately. So so much. Almost done with the second cardigan. Almost done with the first winter hat. Which is really more like a bonnet. And which is really really cute. All of which I will soon take pictures of to show you all...

Sewing. Finally. All this knitting has me really missing my sewing machine. A sweet friend asked me to make her a wrap skirt, and so that is how I spent my Saturday morning. How good it felt to be sewing again!

Homeschool. Going a bit slow but very well. Just finished up the Botany block with Chloe and will be starting some North American Geography this week. Just finished Chessa's first Language Arts block, letters and fairy tales. Real homeschool post coming soon...

Food. Harvested. Much stored away. Carrots and potatoes still in the ground, but not for long. Still harvesting fresh greens, yet already missing them. Apples still seeming never ending. Which is of course a good thing.

Our mountains. Beautiful. Getting colder.

This week. On Tuesday. Our 12th wedding anniversary.
My husband. The greatest most wonderful man in the world.

Love and well wishes to all.

And now back to knitting...

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autumn nature table, harvest stew, and snowy days!

2011-10-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

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Last week it rained and rained and rained. We knew that up next was going to be some very cold days, temperatures dropping below freezing, so we had no choice but to go out into the downpour and do lots and lots of garden harvesting. It was cold and wet but fun nevertheless.

By Thursday the rained turned to snow. Snow! It snowed all day long, and much of the next day too. It was beautiful, and exciting, but kind of concerning too. This year we had snow even in June so wow, 3 months only without snowfall!

We are so grateful for our bountiful garden harvest! This stew had a little bit of everything we had harvested in recent days... onions, carrots, yellow summer squash and zucchini, potatoes, beets, beet greens, collards, kale, and swiss chard. I threw in a handful of millet but other than that it was a completely homegrown stew. And it was so so yummy!

Autumn days are feeling good!

Michaelmas pictures drawn by the girls...

Michael has chased the dragon back into his cave, that's the dragons tail sticking out. I like the stars shooting across the sky.

Harvest day picture in progress. The little girl is munching a carrot. The girls had to carve out a bit of drawing space amongst all the winter squash covering the table.

The other day Chloe found this picture she had drawn when she was in 1st grade. The women seem to me to be dancing with their brooms. And I love the pumpkin border.

Pumpkins make me very happy! I have always wanted to grow an entire pumpkin patch, and someday we will. This year we planted just one hill, because I wasn't sure if they would even have time to mature or not. But they did (mostly, close enough) and so now we have four of our very own homegrown pumpkins.

I have been having a nature table dilemma. Due to the fact that we have a new kitty who is quite mischievous! That little rascal gets into everything! I was too scared to put anything handmade out on the nature table. Leaves, grasses, flowers, nothing would be safe. So I did a bit of bookshelf rearranging and am hoping that kitty will let it be.

The girls have been bundling grasses and gathering acorns. Rosehips and fallen leaves have since been added to the shelf.

My first needlefelted figure made a couple years ago, and a knitted pumpkin that took me so so long to make, I think this year I have knit almost an entire sweater in the same amount of time.

Our littlest pumpkin, and sweet acorn fairy made by my truly dear friend Rae, who I am so happy to have just spent the day with, as she is visiting this week. We will cherish our brief time together.

I still have our original nature table set up, I am too attached to it to let it go. Wooden trees are safe from kitty. A favorite autumn print and the leaf garland the girls and I made last year keep it simple yet festive I think.

Thankfully the snow has passed for now, but I think the chill is here to stay.
We are all feeling so excited for all that this season has to offer!

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autumn

2011-09-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

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On the equinox I really felt the need to go be in the aspens. And so that's exactly what we did.

We decided to have an evening picnic at the lake.

It was actually quite warm and the girls were able to spend hours playing in the sand and beside the water.

We walked up the river after dinner. The lake was very low.

Chessa of course walked in the river, my little water child.

And she can never resist digging into that soft cool sand.

Here she was a raccoon. She would run off just a bit further and then drop down and start digging again.

Joined by Chloe, digging a little more tentatively.

It was the perfect way to spend the first day of our beloved autumn.

Wishing you all a beautiful new season!

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botany, cardigans, and golden...

2011-09-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

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First pages from Chloe's botany main lesson book.

She is feeling like she can't draw or write well enough with her hand injury but I think she did beautifully. For this reason though we are taking it a little bit slow.

Rather than Charles Kovacs Botany book we are mostly using The Living World of the Plants by Dr. Gerbert Grohman. I really like the Kovacs book, but I really love The Living World of the Plants. And Chloe agrees, so that is our focus. I also have the Christopherus Botany lesson guide, which we are not exactly following but provides good inspiration for my lesson planning.

And please excuse my not great photos. Jason has been taking the camera with him most days, he has been out bow hunting this month... (Yep, from 17 years as vegans, to not even vegetarians and hunting!) So I tried to take a few quick pictures before he left today, with very poor lighting...

Some Tasha Tudor book love. Goodness she makes me happy.
I was recently gifted two vintage books illustrated by Tasha Tudor, maybe I can share pics of them soon...

One of my favorite trees at the moment...

And the cardigan! So close to finished! So not perfect, but so perfectly fine to me. I feel like I have learned so much knitting this first sweater. I intend to go finish that other sleeve right now (yes Melanie, I know I have been saying that for a few days now...) and hopefully by the end of the week I will be casting on the next cardigan for Chessa.

With the days turning cooler I have been wishing I could just sit and knit all day long, perhaps outside beneath some of those beautiful golden trees...

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all kinds of good things...

2011-09-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

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First of all I need to say, dear friends, I'm so very sorry that I caused any of you worry. And I apologize for my weirdness and defensiveness regarding the deleted post. Chloe is fine, she will heal, she is strong. And I will try to not overreact in such a way again...

So, on to the good things...

These photos were taken about a week after Chessa turned 7 in May. She asked me if I would teach her to play flute. Cause she sure was waiting to turn 7 years old so that she could be a first grader!

And so we began.

This past week we began our new homeschool year. My sweet little first grader and my big girl fifth grader! I decided to start with a week of form drawing for both girls. Next week Chessa will be continuing with form drawing and Chloe will begin a first botany block.

Circle time included many of our favorite apple verses and songs as we traveled off to the orchard...

And all that apple singing must have brought us good luck. Because when we stopped to check on a wild apple tree that we have had our eyes on we discovered that the apples were absolutely perfectly ripe! Big, red, rosy apples, so juicy and sweet. We gathered two bushels that day, and Jason and the girls returned on Sunday and harvested another two.

I found it so funny on that first harvest day... we had only one bag with us since we weren't expecting to be picking apples yet. The bag was actually full of veggies from the garden but we just set those in the bag of the car so it could be filled with apples. Then Jason layed out his flannel shirt and we filled that. Then, since I was wearing my usual cooler weather ensemble of long skirt over pants, I took off my skirt, tied up the top, and we used it as a big apple sack! Now you may think I am strange for always wearing skirts over my pants (or pants under my skirts) but it sure had a practical purpose that day!

And we found plums! How excited everyone is about that! When I came up the stairs this morning the smell of those plums greeted me, and I spent the first part of my day in the kitchen getting lots of them pitted and into the freezer. I would like to make some plum jam too, but I am waiting for the canning jar lids that I ordered to arrive (the reusable bpa free ones) and these plums are not going to wait, so into the freezer they went.

Not all of our house smells sweet and fruity though. Sometimes the smell of sauerkraut overwhelms us instead. I have nearly two gallons fermenting, this is my first attempt at it and it seems to be going well so far. Goodness we grew some huge cabbages this year. I just had to weigh one before I started slicing it and it weighed 17 pounds!
(And on a kind of scary note, one of our cats does weigh more than the cabbage! Oh Taddy Orangeo, we know you cannot help being so big. You have a big name, and huge double paws, and you used to have a big meow, but you seemed to have lost that...)

So, homeschool, apples, plums, sauerkraut. It really doesn't take much to make us happy.
Oh, and we have pumpkins growing quite big in the garden!
And I baked plum crisp, and it came out so so beautifully pink!
And it is September, a wonderful month that holds such promise of the beautiful autumn season to come.
I hope you all have been enjoying beautiful happy days too!

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pretty pictures only...

2011-09-05T18:49:00.000-07:00

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If you happen to have noticed, yes I have deleted my last post. To those of you who shared such kind and supportive words, I thank you very much...

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to remember...

2011-08-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

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It passes so quickly, this moment of summer. I want to remember that it was green...

That they climbed into trees...

That they ran in the grass...
(That sure is some well trimmed grass. But they ran through pastures and tall meadows also...)

That they wandered together...

That they wondered together...

That they touched the earth...
(Definitely dirt more often than grass...)

That they had all the time in the world...

And now this month is nearing it's end. Outside it is not only green, there is golden too, more and more everyday.
The sun still blazes during the day, the thunderstorms come in the afternoon, the chill comes late at night and stays to greet us in the morning.
The season is changing. We feel so ready for it, but are going to continue to enjoy these last summer moments while they are here...

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around the house the other day...

2011-08-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

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Hello friends. I thought I would share some random photos taken while I wandered about the house one day last week...

Bee and honey. This was all Chessa's idea, a craft she thought up for herself. She put yellow wool in jar, drew a little bee on paper and cut it out, attached bee to string and suspended it in the jar by closing the lid on the string. I though it was cute.

Hollyhocks are blooming. And finding their way indoors, usually floating in a bowl or basin of water. The girls have also been making dyes from the petals, which they then use to dye little fabric squares for their dolls.

Little girl dressed up as a knight.

Little girl's playstand fort.

Inside little girl's special space.

Little girl's special friends.

Pasture and stable for the animals.

Little girl's clever wagon for the family.

Another family traveling about.

Building materials of the very best kind.

Chloe's handsewing. Her dolls are opening a little shop. She is making a pinafore :)

Mama's sewing.

Art. Often.

Sometimes it's a castle, sometimes it's a village, or a town...

The beauty of wet-on-wet watercolor painting. Chessa's paintings always feel so alive to me.
(We have still been not at all consistent with our paintings days. I really hope to do more during this coming school year.)

Girl with glue on her face. (If you looked closely you could see...)

Girl loving kitty cat.

And suddenly I realized how it was that I ended up walking around the house taking pictures. Because really I was going to sit down to knit, but then discovered this big orange cat in the chair...

Hope you are all enjoying happy days in your home!

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Five Spheres of Waldorf Education

2011-08-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

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I was so very happy to receive an invitation to participate in a new e-course called the Five Spheres of Waldorf Education. The class is offered by Little Acorn Learning and taught by Dr. Rick Tan. I am spending much of time these days planning out the homeschool year for my children, I think it will be good for me to be continuing my studies as well.

The class begins August 15th and includes 5 full weeks of lessons, videos and assignments.

In their words...

The Five Spheres of Waldorf education encapsulates the sweeping themes of this educational movement: Self, Relationships, Balance, Rhythm, and Course. In the five-week seminar offered at Little Acorn Learning, Dr. Rick Tan will discuss one sphere per week and the relevant topics in anthroposophy and Waldorf that are connected with the sphere.

Dr. Rick Tan is an artist, musician, and graphic designer. He was a homeschooling parent and currently is the seventh grade teacher at Davis Waldorf School.

Week 1 - The Self Sphere:
The topic of Anthroposophy as the human being’s inner striving to understand oneself will be reviewed. Here, the many natures of the Self: ego, astral, etheric, and physical bodies will be discussed.

Week 2 - The Relationships Sphere:
We will touch on the synergy of our connections with each other.

Week 3 - The Balance Sphere:
This week will present us with a foundation for the three fold social order, and the three fold human being as thinker, feeler, doer.

Week 4 - The Rhythm Sphere:
We will cover the four-part main lesson, and the four temperaments: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic.

Week 5 - The Course Sphere:
This lesson will touch on the curriculum of Waldorf education.

You can visit Little Acorn Learning for details on enrollment.

Goodness, now I am adding studying to the list of home, lesson planning, cardigan knitting, garden, kitchen... Well, I do love it all!

Happy weekend to all, see you in the new week...

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knitting, homeschool, knitting...

2011-08-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

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Knitting, reading, and playing along with Ginny and her Yarn Along...

Thinking that maybe this winter I will have time to knit for hours of the day, that sounds very nice. But for now it's mostly just little bits at a time. Sometimes I will try to do nothing but knit and sew for days, (besides the baking, cooking, kitchen stuff), but that can only last for so long, especially during the summer, with garden chores sometimes taking hours of the day.

And then there is all the homeschool planning, which is of course a very happy thing. I always seem to begin thinking about the year ahead in mid-spring, as we finish one year and look ahead towards the next. I then become very consumed with the task of researching and planning out the coming year. Lately I am often thinking about the amazingness of the fact that I now have a 5th grader and a 1st grader, and this will be our first year of all three of us having school days together. Oh my.

(It does make me kind of sad that I didn't write much about our fourth grade year. I would really like to do some homeschool posts soon and keep up with it better throughout the year. After all, it is one of my favorite topics, and I could go on and on...)

So, what I'm reading... lots of homeschool stuff, everything 5th grade Waldorf, old lesson plans from first grade with Chloe, need to decide Chessa's year of main lessons...
I am also reading Rhythms of Learning, selected lectures by Rudolph Steiner. I had been wishing to read this book for so many years and was happy to see it on the shelf at Sara's one day recently. She is very wonderful for having homeschool books to share, I'm lucky like that.

Reading Steiner on educating our children makes me totally inspired to do my best as we continue this Waldorf homeschool journey.
My children totally inspire me to do that too.

Oh yeah, I also have a few random piles of books around the house pictures...

The girls each have their own copy of Tasha Tudor's A Time to Keep, a gift from my sister one year. We consider our books to belong to all of us a family, but with this special book it seemed like it would be nice for them to each have a copy to have in their own homes someday.

Books move around often in our home. These vintage books on top are fairly delicate so I brought them upstairs recently, they sit on the shelf in the hallway now.

We have inadvertently created this little nook for Jason, next to the chair where he sits and reads, we have been keeping his library books there, along with a few others. Also the globe he had when he was little kid.

Now back to knitting, the best for last. Because now she is seven, and in 1st grade, and as she has many times said, it is time for her to learn how to "needle knit".

So I sat next to her on the couch, between the two of them actually, and I taught her how to cast on, and with every stitch added she exclaimed so happily that there was one more. And then she knit her first rows.

And then we all sat there together with our knitting projects.. cardigan, scarf for dad knit by Chloe, and doll blanket knit by Chessa. Such knitting happiness!

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for the love of creating

2011-08-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

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As I am sure it is quite clear, I really like to make things.

So I have put some of the things I really like to make into a little shop on Etsy.

I have considered doing this for several years now. And over the summer I have been doing a bit of creating here and there with ideas of this shop in my mind.

And then summer started passing, and a few weeks ago I decided that I needed to stop putting this off and really commit to it. So I did.

Sewing has been such a big part of my life for so long, and sewing clothing for children has always been my focus. I would love to someday have a shop full of beautiful clothing for children. For now though I had to start smaller. The shop has mostly just little handmade things, but I of course had to include a couple of pinafores :)

This pinafore above is kind of extra special. (I had Chessa try it on for some pictures. She says she loves it too much and that it has to be hers. I feel kind of sad about it. I promised I would be making her one this next week.)
So, why this one is so special... The white floral fabric is a vintage calico that I got just a while back. And about 18 years ago, when I first started sewing, I went to a little vintage fabric shop in northern CA and got another version of this exact same print, just a slightly different colorway, it was a creamier off-white. And with that fabric, combined with some light blue plaid, I made myself my very first dress.
Oh yes, it is kind of hard to be possibly parting with this pinafore.
I will definitely be saving the rest of the fabric for myself, or for my sweet Chessa.

I of course have all kinds of other things I would like to be making for the shop. But this week I will be taking time to create for my children, my most favorite kind of creating of all!

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garden morning

2011-07-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

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Most days in recent months find us very busy in the garden. And not just one garden, but two. This year, in addition to the smaller garden we have in our backyard, we are also gardening over at the ranch were we keep our horses.

We started the garden over there in early spring. There was an area already fenced in up near the barn, originally meant for animals, ready and waiting for us to start digging. We made 21 long beds, and lots of big plans for all the good food we would grow. Funny how quickly you can run out of room in a 2,000 square foot garden. You might think it would be plenty of space, but apparently for us it is not. You might think that since we have this big new garden we wouldn't have to dig up half of the remaining space in the backyard. But we did. Cleared space for a greenhouse too. There is just no way we can start another season here without a greenhouse, definitely a necessity when living and gardening above 7,000 feet.

Yes, needless to say, our gardens have been keeping us oh so busy. Sometimes I take a few pictures. Mostly I plant, water, weed.

The other morning the girls and I went very early to do our garden chores. But before getting to work I wandered about with the camera for a while.

I am so in love with our cabbage. (Oh gosh, I know that sounds weird.) It is just so pretty.

For a while our cabbage was looking kind of strange, our broccoli was doing much better. Then our broccoli started forming little round heads, our cabbages sending up tall center stalks.. That's when I realized I mixed up the cabbage and broccoli while transplanting our little seedlings! Well, at least now I know all is well.

The land around the ranch, even though it's just 10 minutes away, is very different from the forested land around our home.

And the soil is so much better! Not nearly as heavy with clay as our backyard garden, and hardly a single rock! We have never experienced anything like it, so so great (say the people who have dug many gardens in these rocky mountains)...

Well actually, our very first garden, in 1998 or 99, was in Ohio, so that was some pretty nice soil too.

We grew corn that year in Ohio. We haven't grown it since then, until now.

Yes, lots of pictures of the corn, cause I love it also. We have it planted amongst the winter squash, with pole beans planted to climb the corn stalks.

Lots of carrots. Two beds of beets planted a week or two ago. (I should be keeping better garden notes..) Seven beds of potatoes, but we kind of accidentally planted fingerling potatoes. Please don't ask how we could have accidentally planted them, they were given to us, we didn't put much thought into it, we just planted them...

As always we are just so very grateful that this family is willing to share so much of their land with us. It is definitely hard though, tending to a garden that is not at our home. I do love to be out in the garden, but I also really really really like to be at home.

We have developed a pretty nice rhythm with it, and I am just trying to embrace the busyness as part of what summer is. Lots of outward activity. I am also being mindful that the girls get enough rest and home time.

They sure are having a great summer.

Soon enough it will be time to turn inward again.

We intend to keep making the best of every beautiful summer day we have!

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yarn along - cardigans and vintage book love

2011-07-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

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I am always happy to join Ginny for her Yarn Along... And this week I am especially happy that I have finally started knitting my very first sweater! I am making the Knitting Pure and Simple Children's Neckdown Cardigan for Chloe, to be followed by one for Chessa of course, though I do realize it could be quite a while before I get that far.

I have wanted to knit sweaters almost forever it seems. When I was about 20 I had a favorite thrifted orange sweater, and I always wished it had a hood, so I decided that someday I would definitely have to make myself an orange hooded cardigan. But first a red cardigan for Chloe, and then a green one for Chessa, and Jason has requested a brown sweater.

There is something else extra special about this sweater... my dear friend Melanie and I are knitting these cardigans together for our sweet little (big) girls. We wish they could play together, we wish we could knit together, now we kind of are...

And here is an extra special book, one that was included in the books Chloe received for her birthday. A wonderful vintage book full of fairy tales from around the world, with a print date of 1910. I find it amazing to hold a book in my hands and imagine who held the very same book more than 100 years !

I never did get to share what I made Chloe for her birthday, besides the pinafore, so I took a couple quick picture this afternoon, though you can't see her completely.

A summer maiden, traveling through the countryside perhaps...

Oh dear friends, there is so much more I would like to be sharing with you. This summer has been keeping us so busy, I guess summer is just like that sometimes. We are certainly enjoying it though, and I hope you all are too!

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pinafore love ~ my storybook girl

2011-07-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

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My oldest child has just turned 11. Oh my goodness, my dear sweet girl.

And this sweet girl of mine surely needed a pinafore...

So I made one for her.

It just so happened that there was some "storybook apron" sewing going on, and as I finished up this pinafore I realized I could contribute...

Our beautiful children's books are always inspiring me.

When Chloe received the pinafore she exclaimed, "You made me a Five Little Peppers pinafore!"

Vintage fairy tale illustrations always offer inspiration...

Elsa Beskow books are adored around here...

Tasha Tudor inspires us in so very many ways!

Vintage green linen..

all kinds of pleats..

And a little hand embroidery.

For this beautiful person who inspires me so much every single day!

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summer days...

2011-06-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

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A summer girl, with a birthday coming very soon.

Greens and herbs, best friends to high altitude gardeners.

Bare feet.

Eager hands seeking treasures.

Looking like it will be our best strawberry season yet.

Sweetest deer families who come to visit us often.

And a mama who has been very busy with the gardens, the birthday gift making, the homeschool planning which seem to greatly occupy her thoughts during this time of year, and much other goodness of life...

Wishing all of my dear friends a wonderful summer weekend!

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yarn along, and pinafore pieces, and summer...

2011-06-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

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Well, I sure have been quiet here lately... So before I get on with anything else I need to wish you all a happy summer solstice! We celebrated with a little picnic, a lot of gardening, and so much appreciating of the sun and warmth that has finally come to us.

It has been a while since I have joined Ginny for her Yarn Along, I am happy to have a little contribution this week. Most of my reading lately has been in preparation for the coming homeschool year. Chloe will be in 5th grade so two of our main lesson subjects will be botany and ancient civilizations. I'm very excited about these Charles Kovacs books, so many homeschool thoughts filling my mind lately...

Also so many knitting thoughts filling my mind lately. I am going to soon be starting on my first sweater, a cardigan for Chloe, to of course be followed by a second one for Chessa. (Who knows though how long this ambitious project will take me!)

So lots of knitting thoughts, no actual knitting. I am missing it. I have been occupying a few spare moments with a little crochet project though. A set of nesting bowls, the largest one having scalloped edges. It reminds me of a flower.

Mostly my yarn basket has sat neglected. I have even set aside my granny squares for a bit, things such as sewing and gardening have taken much of my time lately. The granny squares will patiently wait for slower days to come.

Lots of sewing has been happening though. I wish I could say I was getting as much accomplished before Chloe's birthday as I did before Chessa's. But no, I have not finished one single birthday gift yet! I suddenly decided I wanted to make Chloe a pinafore rather than a dress or a skirt. It is coming along nicely and will hopefully be done very soon.

Happy stitching, happy gardening, happy summer days to all!
(And happy cozy days to my friends beginning their beautiful winter season!)

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handmade ~ birthday gifts

2011-06-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

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Her birthday was at the end of May. I actually did pretty good getting most things made in time. Quite surprisingly I had her skirt and top sewed like 10 whole days before her birthday. This has never, ever happened before. I have always made the girls dresses, or once in a while now skirts, for their birthdays (and winter solstice). And I am always sewing in the days just before, and of course many times till very, very late the night before.

So it was nice to have some more free time to consider what else I might like to make her. Our gifts are always few and fairly simple, but still there is so much thought put into the specialness of each gift. Also for the set of books they always receive, often the only gift that is not handmade, how I love to choose their stories for the season or the year.

And since Chessa was getting two very sweet gnome books I decided that she must have a little gnome. This little gnome has been given the name of Leaf. She was very fun to make. I thought I would want to add some embroidery to her dress, but then I felt like I really like the plainness of her just as she was. Chessa loves her.

And I knew all along the other gift I was going to make her. My mother helped us get her this set of beeswax stick crayons. Since she will be beginning first grade this year! It would have been nice also to give her these when we were actually starting school in september, but this way it helps us so much when it comes to getting what we need for school supplies and books for the coming year.

So I made her a crayon pouch to hold all of her new crayons. I made crayon pouches like this for their block crayons, which they have had for a few years now, and it really helps to keep the crayons clean, organized, and all in one place. Chloe has a set of stick crayons but I never made anything to hold them. They are just in their tray, and Chessa uses them too, and that has worked okay, but not as nice as the crayon pouches.

And then there are always the handmade birthday cards. This one made by Chloe, because she knows Chessa likes when she makes her this kind of card, meaning a door that opens, the house opens up too. And she wrote "cats", I guess in case anyone was confused as to whether they were cats or mice, which is exactly what happened.

Cats can be very wild in the house you know.. (We know, we have four cats..) Do you see the one inside the house standing on it's head? That's the one you see when you open the door from the front. I think this is very funny...

The green top you saw in the last post. Chessa says one of her favorite colors is green. So I wanted to use this piece of treasured vintage calico to make her a top, to go with the green corduroy skirt that also has a trim of the calico. The skirt fits her a little big, which is just fine really (I always make everything big, but sometimes way too big) and I don't have any pictures of her in it yet. The top has a trim of light green on the front, really the pictures in the last post were better to really see the top.

Here you can see the back, it has some of the green corduroy to match the skirt. You can also see that the button is a little too small and the back keeps coming undone, so I will have to change that. I didn't have many button options, and Chessa always reminds that she doesn't like it when her gift doesn't have it's buttons sewn on. Just because that happened once...

By the way, in that last picture she is tying a rope to a little wooden rocking chair. All the dolls were having a picnic down by the garden, but then became to warm from the bright sun, so the girls had to quick get them all back inside, by making this rope pulley thing with the rocking chair and lifting each doll individually up onto the back deck.

~

Also, I really like to make things. Really really really. I love to sew, and often it's all I want to do, and I feel like I could just go on making things forever, which I probably will.

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green, thank goodness

2011-06-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

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It took until June. It took until June for it to feel like spring, and then like summer all at once too. Spring was mostly a mix of cold and snow. Pastures becoming a bit greener each day, but still sometimes becoming covered in snow. Sixteen years of these cold mountain springs, you would think I would be used to the slowness of it by now...

So June sure is feeling wonderful. Outside everyday. Green everywhere.

Or at least almost everywhere. The gambel oak are slowest to bring their leaves, and if you look closely at that hillside above the horses you can see that they are only just beginning to show their greenness, their leaves are still small...

And then there is of course the happiness of beautiful food from farm and garden.

The girls love to create lunches from the garden all summer long. Mustard greens sauteed with onions and chive flowers.

And this salad was pretty interesting... Spinach, chives, green onions, lots of oregano leaves, and grapes.

Chessa took such care while making her own salad.

Because you know, she is not such a little girl anymore.

Yet she is...

Oh my sweetheart.

I am actually still not over the fact that she is 7 years old. She is amazing me with her growing up. Oh, but she is still so my little one.

A little more sweetness. And a little more green. The top Chessa is wearing is part of what I made her for her birthday. So this would be a good time to commit and say that I will post again this week and show you the rest of the handmade birthday gifts. See, now I have said it so I will really finally do it...
(Gosh, let's hope...)

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She turned seven...

2011-06-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

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A day just for her.

We are so grateful she came to be with us.

And now she is not quite so little anymore.

She even lost a tooth on her birthday!

I hope all her wishes and dreams come true!

(I will post soon with pics of the handmade birthday gifts. Our days have been full of goodness. Sunshine. Gardens. Making. Reading. Lots to share, not lots of time to write. Thinking of my dear friends. Hope you are enjoying your days. Love to all!)

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Waldorf Early Years Resources

2011-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

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I am sometimes asked what we do for kindergarten, what curriculum we use, etc...

I have been intending for a while now to write a post sharing some of our favorite Waldorf books and resources. And since my youngest child will be turning 7 in just a couple days, leaving these earliest years behind, it seems now would be a good time to get this post done...

I wrote a bit here about our daily rhythm as a family and as homeschoolers. As far as kindergarten goes we are very unofficial and do not use a curriculum. This is just our life. But we do have some favorite books that have accompanied us through the years and helped to enrich our days.

(As you may know, books are among my most favorite things ever. Our little Waldorf home library makes me very happy. There are many more books I could mention. But please realize that even just a few of these wonderful books will serve you well, and our collection actually grew quite slowly over the past 6 years.)

Story time is a big part of our every day. I will admit that stories in our home are more often read out loud than told from memory, though I would encourage you to try to at least sometimes bring the story directly from yourself to your child. Some favorite Kindergarten stories we told over the years I have handwritten into a special notebook.

Though many people may think the original Grimm's fairy tales are just that, grimm to say the least, even violent in many cases, there are many wonderful stories that I feel are so important for our children to experience. Of course you need to use your best judgement and know what is appropriate for your child (so many stories are too much, too intense for my sensitive Chloe, even still at 10 years old. But she now picks up this book and read freely on her own, they have truly nourished her over the years..)

Some original Grimm's stories that can be more suitable for 5/6 year olds, ones that we have enjoyed together, are...

The Frog Prince
Mother Holle
Snow White and Rose Red
The Elves and the Shoemaker
Sweet Porridge
Star Money
The Golden Goose
The Queen Bee
Little Briar Rose

Actually most of these stories Chessa experienced during her K years but for Chloe some of them were not told until her first grade year during our fairy tales/letters block.

Another favorite resource for not just stories but also songs and poems are the Wynstones seasonal books. These are particularly suited to the K years, and I always appreciated knowing that the stories would be gentle enough for my young children. These books can also help give you a good sense of how to tell a story, and there is lots of repetition that delights little ones. Some of these stories will be familiar to you from your childhood... Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the Three Billy Goats Gruff. There are sweet little nature stories as well as stories related to traditional Waldorf festivals.

A Child's Seasonal Treasury is a beautiful book with verses, songs, and simple seasonal crafts and activities. I think it may be out of print though.

I just love the watercolor painting on the cover!

The Children's Year is full of so many sweet (and mostly simple) crafts and handwork projects to make with or for your children. (Toymaking with Children is another great one.) The other two books will guide you through the Waldorf festivals of the year. If I could only choose one to have it would probably be All Year Round, it goes into most detail for the festivals and has beautiful crafts.

Chloe especially loves The Waldorf Kindergarten Snack Book. The recipes are simple enough for her to follow on her own and the illustrations are inspiring. Remember, Chloe wants to be a Waldorf K teacher when she grows up, she has even created her own menu pages (lovingly illustrated) based on this book.

Baking Bread with Children is newer to us and definitely a favorite.

Besides valuable information on technique and recipes, the book includes stories, songs, poems, and blessings. The first chapter is on what baking bread brings to children. There is also a chapter on the seven grains and nutrition.

A Lifetime of Joy by Bronja Zahlingen is a book that seems to be not so well known, but I think it is exceptionally wonderful! It is one of the books we have had the longest and one that is most loved! So many stories, songs, verses, circle games and plays for puppets.

First chapters include "In Praise of Early Childhood", "Movement, Gesture and Language in the Life of the Young Child", and "The Pedagogical Value of Marionette and Table Puppet Shows for the Small Child".

Let Us Form a Ring (Acorn Hill Anthology) has a favorite "orchard" circle time that we have been doing for many years, along with many more great ones. There is a second book called Dancing As We Sing that includes more spring and summer circles. Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures is another one I like very much. Most of the circles are longer and more involved but you can start out shorter and add to them over the weeks that you continue the same circle. You can learn a lot about how circle time breathes and flows from both of these books.

And one last favorite resource to share for now, Sing a Song of Seasons by Mary Thienes Schunemann. We also love Lavenders Blue Dilly Dilly and This is the Way We Wash a Day. These books/cd's will bring so much song into your lives! Recently we have even started listening to the actual cd's, but only after singing the songs myself with the girls for many years before. Even Jason (husband) can be caught humming or singing nursery rhyme tunes throughout the day!

I will also mention a few online resources...

Lisa from Celebrate the Rhythm of Life has created wonderful monthly guides as well as a new online magazine called The Wonder of Childhood.

Marsha Johnson has a yahoo group where she shares all kinds of Waldorf wisdom with an especially great files section. I suggest searching the files for the articles "A Week in the Home Kindergarten" as well as "Please Do Not "Home School" Your K Child!"

Donna Simmons has a nice book called "Kindergarten With Your Three to Six Year Old". She also has written some very good early years post on her blog, including some very opinionated "early years rants", which I love.

Well, of course I could go on and on. I have favorite handwork books I could share, favorite Waldorf child development books (Beyond the Rainbow Bridge, The Incarnating Child), favorite personal development books (The Spiritual Tasks of the Homemaker, Homemaking as a Social Art)... See I can't stop myself...

And I don't know if I'm ready to leave these early years behind!!!

(p.s. I am editing this to add one more resource, Little Acorn Learning.
I haven't ever actually used the materials myself but from what I have heard from others and can see on her website and sample pages I think it looks very lovely. If you felt you needed more specific guidance it seems like this could be very nice and helpful.)

...

this moment ~ in his arms

2011-05-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

~ Inspired by Amanda Soule ~

~ Hopefully she will never be too big to be held in our arms ~

~ Wishing you a lovely weekend ~

...

Along the River

2011-05-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

..

Into the forest on a day that truly felt like spring. (We haven't had all that many of those days yet, but it is finally starting to feel like it's definitely here...)

A few miles along the trail until we reach the place where we can head down to the river.

The river flowing so very strong, but these fallen logs create a safe little space for wading and playing.

A warm sunny day, but that mountain water sure is cold...(Freezing!!!)

She was talking to a little bush. She found a rock with a shallow indentation and used it to bring drinks of water to the bush.

Not sure who she was talking to...

And then we saw that she had two different socks on. And Jason says, "You can't go hiking with two different socks on." And Chessa says, "But then I would have had to go hiking with only one sock on."

It was such a beautiful day!

Hope you weekend was filled with lots of beauty and happiness!!!

...

Sewing Time!

2011-05-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

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The spring Kids Clothing Week Challenge comes at a very convenient time for me. Chessa's birthday is in just a couple weeks, so of course I would be sewing anyway, but the challenge is fun and very helpful in keeping me from procrastinating!

I actually didn't get any sewing done on Monday, but I did think about sewing lots, my how contemplating patterns can keep my mind occupied for hours.

I made up for lost time on Tuesday when I started and completed this skirt for Chessa. Of course finding the time for sewing would be a lot easier if this wasn't secret birthday sewing, but somehow I managed.

You will probably be seeing a lot of this green corduroy. I got 8 yards of it about a year ago, for only $12. Or was it 12 yards for $8. But then it took me about a year to get green thread to sew it with...

The corduroy is supposedly vintage, 70's I would guess. The green floral is definitely vintage, another one of those great fabrics that reminds me of when I was a little girl. I am making a blouse out of it to go with the skirt, got the pattern pieces cut out today. Chessa says her favorite color is green, so this outfit should make her very happy.

So, I had planned to post pictures of our day in the forest, but have now been interrupted by sewing.

Here are a few to get started with though...

Cause there are many more to come...

...

Waldorf May Faire

2011-05-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

..

This was the weekend of our nearby Waldorf school's much anticipated May Faire. We have been attending festivals at this sweet little school for several years now, it is a place we all love to be.

When it was time to dance around the May Pole Chloe became suddenly too shy to participate, (this has never happened before) which brought tears to Chessa's eyes, until I brought her over to a friend who was happy to lead her along.

She never let go of her hand.

I see Chessa really thrive here.

She is brave,
happy,
and content.

Chloe dreams of being a kindergarten teacher here when she grows up. (We often dream of moving over to this smaller town...)

How excited the girls were when at the end of the day dear Miss Polly asked if they would like to help set the kindergarten room back to order!

And then there was time for a story outside beneath the trees.

Such a lovely day!

The next day we headed into the forest, so I have many more pictures to share with you this week...

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!!

...

May, hopeful...

2011-05-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

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On the first day of May we awoke to a bright blue sky. How very nice of the sun to greet us. Especially since within an hour it was snowy and grey...

And sometimes snowy and sunny, all at the same time, typical Colorado spring I suppose. The girls went out to pick dandelion bouquets, at that time the snowflakes falling very gently.

Honestly, they are not as solemn as they appear. It was a happy day. Just kind of quiet feeling.

This little May child of mine, it is her month, she has a birthday coming in just a few weeks.

(The girls are wearing the hooded cloaks that I made them many years ago, not so long and flowing anymore. And for once they are not wearing handmade dresses. Chloe is wearing a vintage Gunne Sax dress I got for her a few months ago, which I love for so many reasons, including the fact that my sister and I had ones that were very similar. Chessa's dress actually may have been handmade, it is vintage too, worn by another little girl so long ago...)

It snowed all night and we woke up to several inches of whiteness.

We hoped, and hoped and hoped, that this was the last snowfall of the season.

Once again the sky was sunny and we felt optimistic.

And then it snowed some more!!!

Surely though this was the end of it. (Please!) Beautiful May, we are so ready for you!!!

...

spring cheer

2011-04-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

..

As I peeked into the drawers that hold our seasonal nature table creations I was somewhat surprised to find more colorful little eggs than I thought we had. I forgot about some that I had needle felted last year, though of course I remembered the "giant preppy easter egg".

I spent my evenings last week knitting two more colorful eggs and an "easter bunny", from this simple pattern. It has a cute little tail...

The girls arranged the nature table on Sunday, after they searched not once, but twice, for all the hidden easter eggs. The hiding and searching happened indoors though, it was such a rainy day!

A nice cozy day with leftover hot cross buns and tea at breakfast, and the baking of some special bread in the afternoon to go with our simple dinner of soup and asparagus.

I must admit though that we really wouldn't have minded having some warmth and sun.

Eventually that rain turned to snow. It has been fairly dreary, and really very cold. So we are needing to make extra efforts to seek cheer and warmth!

On a recent sunny day the kitchen was feeling quite cheerful to me so I took a few pictures.

I was also intentionally taking pictures of the cluttered counter top. I tend to have a hard time with clutter, but it was seeming kind of pretty to me that day, so I was trying to embrace that...

Hope you have been finding warmth and cheer in your days!

...

Fairy Hollow

2011-04-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

..

The girls have lots of games that they love to play while outside. Sometimes they build villages for families of little people. Often these villages are made of mud, usually there is a bakery filled with many, many mud delights, or at the least "ma" is very busy with (mud) baking day.

But a definite favorite is "fairy houses". Every spring the building begins anew, usually in a spot different than the year before.

This year there are more possibilities for fairy houses since there is also the 40 acre property down the road where keep our horses. A perfect site has already been found. (Probably the first perfect spot of many.)

There has been much talk, especially from Chloe, of how she truly truly believes in the fairies. Not just fairies, but other little nature folk too. After all, she found a gnome home just last summer.

She also thinks that there are probably not so many bad fairies anymore. If there weren't too many very long ago, and now there are even less fairies, then there are probably hardly any mean ones left.

There is also a lot of wishing and wondering... Will they ever see the fairies for themselves?

They have created such a special little space down in this fairy hollow. We are imagining how lovely it will be as the leaves begin to appear and enclose them in their magical little world.

Mom and dad have found a "perfect" spot here too. A spot for a wonderful new garden, to grow food that will feed our family throughout the year.

Oh yes, while the girls have been playing with the fairies, we have been very busy in this new garden. (Though the girls of course help out in the garden sometimes too.) There may be not much more than a lot of dirt to show for it yet, but it holds much promise. I look forward to sharing more about it with you soon!

I have some sewing projects to share also, new tops for the girls and even one for me. You see the one I made for Chloe here, this kinda wild green and blue paisley vintage fabric. I think it looks really nice one her...

Lots going on in this bustling spring season.
Hope you have all been enjoying many wonderful days!

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a day in the forest

2011-04-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

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On Friday we decided to head to the back of our neighborhood for a little walk in the National Forest...

which turned into quite a big hike.

Oh how we love to be amongst those tall tall trees!

Needless to say, it was a very happy day!

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making, reading, gardening!!!

2011-03-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

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Perhaps it's a stretch to call it gardening quite yet, but we have been busy preparing, and lots of dreaming. Several days now we have been blessed with some outdoor hours, enjoying the feeling of that nice cool dirt in our hands. And today I just couldn't help myself, I planted some spinach seed. Not sure if it's a little too early, but I really don't care!

In addition to a great stack of books from the library (I told Jason I needed to run in for just a minute or two to grab a couple books, came out with more than ten, but really it only took me about 2 minutes. This little library is really pleasing me lately..) we are reading this fun new Tiptoes Lightly story. It is an Easter tale, which I gave to the girls on the first day of spring since Easter Sunday comes at the end of the book, I thought we could slowly enjoy it up until then.

Please just ignore the fact that I don't seem to be working on the little quilt lately. In my defense, I am at the point of putting the layers together and basting and the big table is always covered with the girls projects, a good excuse to procrastinate I guess... And also we really needed new potholders. And by new I mean I really needed to cover up our old potholders, so I stitched new covers for them. Much prettier now!

I also added a new color to my granny square project, this nice light aqua. I think I like it very much. I did however also take some colors out of the afghan, wasn't feeling they were quite right, so my stack of squares is still growing somewhat slowly.

And here is a nice spring feeling picture that Chloe drew. I'm not sure when she did it, the girls do almost all their drawings in blank sketchbooks (cause 100's and 100's of loose drawings in the house does not seem like it would work out so well) but once a cat puked on one of the notebooks so we had to tear out a bunch of the pages, trim off the cat puke part (sorry, gross I know) and I came across this in the stack of pictures the other day. I just love all the detail she includes in her drawings, and there is always a story to go along with them, and she never seems to forget those stories.

Thanks to all of you lovely ladies who always share such inspiration, including sweet Ginny with her Yarn Along, crafty clever Julia and her Sewing Bee, and wonderful Melanie for her super great emails and long distance sewing companionship!

We may not have much spring color outside yet, but we are trying to create it inside as best we can!

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beautiful (snowy!) morning

2011-03-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

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This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning...

It had started snowing the evening before...

Saturday we had spent the entire day outside, enjoying the sunshine, working on a new garden space...

Sunny early spring days always need to be taken advantage of here, because you never know when there could be a brief return to winter...

I really enjoyed the light growing stronger through the trees on this cold and quiet early spring morning!

It kept snowing most of the day, the clouds doing their best to chase that sun away. Nice and cozy, a good day for handwork, and books, and pancakes...

Hope your weekend was beautiful too!!!

...

this moment ~ happiness with grandpa

2011-03-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

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He told the story of how his mom (my Grandma Anne) taught him to play checkers, more than 50 years ago. He gave Chessa all kinds of pointers, they must have played at least 5 games in a row.

Days were filled with lots of game playing, some nice walks, and lots of story time. Lots and lots of story time. After the first nights bedtime story Chloe says to Jason and I, "I just love how grandpa reads a story!" With a happy sigh.

And then after 3 days we had to say goodbye, and I don't think anything at all ever hurts so much...

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this moment ~ farm friends

2011-03-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

...

~ inspired by Amanda Soule ~

I bet most of you will recognize where it was that we were last week...

I know this is supposed to be just one photo...

but there were baby goats! I could have posted 20 more...

Feeling grateful for...
the friendship of those great farm folks...
my daddy on his way to visit... (it's been a long, long time!)
the very last days of winter!

Blessings to all!

...

~ Yarn Along ~

2011-03-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

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Once again joining Ginny's Yarn Along...

Chloe especially loves the cover of this Wendell Berry book, she says she can't stop looking at it. I especially love what he has to say...

"For a long time now we have understood ourselves as traveling toward some sort of industrial paradise, some new Eden conceived and constructed entirely by human ingenuity. And we have thought ourselves free to use and abuse nature in any way that might further this enterprise. Now we face overwhelming evidence that we are not smart enough to recover Eden by assault, and that nature does not tolerate or excuse our abuses. If, in spite of the evidence against us, we are finding it hard to relinquish our old ambition, we are also seeing more clearly every day how that ambition has reduced and enslaved us. We see how everything - the whole world - is belittled by the idea that all creation is moving or ought to move toward an end that some body, some human body, has thought up. To be free of that end and that ambition would be a delightful and precious thing. Once free of it, we might again go about our work and our lives with a seriousness and pleasure denied to us when we merely submit to a fate already determined by gigantic politics, economics, and technology." - Wendell Berry

A little stack of books. Winter Cottage obviously needs to be finished up this week, because then it is on to a new season! A season of growing, gardens, so much goodness!
We got our copy of Four Season Harvest at least 10 or 12 years ago, a wise purchase seeing as how most have our gardens have been at altitudes between 7000-8000 feet. The book is worn, pages are loose, and in the resource section there is a very apparent lack of "www" or any mention of websites. Neat.

No knitting happening at the moment, I seem to be focusing on crochet and sewing.

I think I am doing better with the colorfulness of my granny squares. A brighter yellow and orange added, and I will definitely be including lots of that turquoise!
This afghan could likely be a year long project, possibly longer. I am taking it slow.. will it be done in time to keep us warm next winter, or will it be a cozy project to keep me occupied...

I still have more book post ideas on my mind. Up next, I think, will be some of my favorite Waldorf kindergarten resources. Sometimes I hesitate to mention something I will post, since there is always a chance I will take a while to get to it, but I already started making my list and taking some pictures, so hopefully soon...

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random thoughts...

2011-03-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

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Accompanied by random photos. I have really been slacking with the camera lately. So I just pulled some pics from iPhoto, taken in the last couple months.

Too bad we didn't have the camera the other day when we saw that mama cow with her baby who had clearly just been born. Baby all wet, afterbirth still hanging from mama cow! Or, I should say, too bad we didn't know we had the camera with us.

We had a few winter days that were warm enough for t-shirts and wide open windows. Though mostly it was freezing. Though also it sure wasn't a very snowy winter. I think our snow was stolen by all of you out east.

And speaking of stealing, Chloe has been reading (but not in this picture) The Borrowers by Mary Norton. It is about little people who live beneath a house and "borrow" belongings from the family above. But as Chloe points out, they aren't really borrowing, they are stealing, cause they don't give anything back. She really hopes we don't have borrowers living under our house.

I'm sure I have mentioned before, the girls often spend hours of their day drawing. Usually with their beeswax crayons and colored pencils, sometimes with chalks.

Really messy chalk!

Lots of their play lately has been a strange combination of "castle" and Little House on the Prairie.

With more and more outside time as spring approaches. Hooray!

Remember, these are just random photos, I don't really have anything to say about them...

But the other random thoughts...

Seeds. My mind is full of thoughts of seeds. And the garden too of course, but that is still buried beneath snow, so, seeds, seeds, seeds.

We probably don't get much more than 90 days between our frost free dates. Yikes, challenging.

Tonight after dinner and doing the dishes I almost started making dinner again, for tomorrow night. We will be in town tomorrow and on days like that I really like to plan ahead and have dinner already prepared and waiting at home.

But I just baked cookies instead. Oats, whole wheat pastry flour, coconut oil, maple syrup. And a few walnuts and raisins.

We are having a kind of busy week. We have had a kind of busy winter! Usually in the winter we are in town only a couple times a month, this year it has been at least once a week. Kinda don't like that.

We live in between a small town and a tinier town. And we have been visiting both libraries. It kind of concerns me, cause that's a lot of books to keep straight, we're lucky we haven't ended up with any big late fees.

Books. Gosh I love books.

Lets hope for more book posts soon!

So, care to share any random thoughts??

...

~ Sewing Bee ~

2011-03-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

..

Remember how excited I was about Julia's Sewing Bee? And then there was that incident, which I don't really like to mention anymore, (called the flu) and my poor little quilt sat neglected for much too long.

This past week I finally got to bring my squares back out. I had previously arranged them in satisfactory order, and carefully stacked them so that I would still know their order, but when I picked them up the other day I could not at all recall what I had intended to do with them! So I started over...

Here they are, squares sewed into pairs, and shortly after I got them sewn into their horizontal rows. I thought I was going to get a lot of sewing done today, but instead I got a lot of cooking and baking done and just a little bit of sewing.

I will always gladly take any small sewing moments I can get!

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~ Yarn Along ~

2011-03-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

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Happy to be once again joining Ginny for her Yarn Along...

Resisting posting belated valentines photos, since it is finally March, but still want to show you this little red gnome I had made to greet the girls that morning. There was a matching heart too. I had always wanted to make one of these gnomes, pattern from dear Tonya. So cute, I think I will be making more.

This book was sitting out, Chloe must have been reading it. I have several vintage fairy tale books from long before we even had children. This is a collection of Hans Christian Anderson.

Really neat illustrations.

I wonder if Chloe was reading Little Tiny. (Thumbeline.) I remember loving this story when I was a child, but I have written here before about Chloe's sensitivity to certain stories. The last time we read this one together, which was more than a year ago, she burst into tears at the end and threw herself into my lap. Poor thing. She said she never wanted to read it again, but I have recently seen her taking a peek at it.

Another neat vintage book found at the antique shop in town today. It's an early 60's copy in such great condition, and full of enough stories to keep our avid reader occupied for at least a little while.

More wonderful illustrations.

And here are some of those granny squares I mentioned. I have finally started our afghan, so very excited! It's somehow not looking colorful enough at the moment, but I have more colors that I will be adding. I think I have 17 squares done, based on Chessa's counting. (That girl loves to count!) But I made that many squares without weaving in any of my ends, and so on Sunday instead of making more squares I had to sit and weave in all those little ends of yarn. I sure won't be doing that again, I will try to be disciplined enough to weave in my ends as I go!

It is getting late, but I think there may be time for at least one square before bedtime!

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Finally!!!

2011-02-27T18:52:00.000-08:00

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Hooray hooray! I think that we are truly all better now!

Goodness, what a long recovery that was. It was so nice to have a normal enjoyable weekend. And so nice to eat some good food!

We had the buttermilk I had made that I wanted to put to use, and also bananas that really needed eaten (I can't eat raw bananas, they make me dizzy and kind of nauseas, is that weird?) so I made two loaves of banana bread. It was very yummy, even though I have just about no sweet tooth at all lately, good snacking for the girls though.

I had also made some creme fraiche (european style sour cream, not that I had ever had it before..) and we tried that for the first time tonight with an enchilada casserole. The best meal we have eaten in weeks! And leftovers still for tomorrow night. I really like when our dinners can last a couple nights.

And making cultured dairy products is so much fun! I seem to be really good at it, though I'm sure it's a pretty basic thing that anyone can do. Still, feeling impressed. I want to try making yoghurt next!

Clearly not much more than food was on my mind this weekend.

My sister just called and was laughing at me cause of my creme fraiche excitement. Don't care...

There was some nice handwork time this weekend too. Crochet. Granny squares, of course. I will try to take some pics and hopefully join in with the Yarn Along later this week.

Hope your weekend was full of happy wonderful goodness too!

(Anyone have any suggestions for using our buttermilk and creme fraiche??)

...

Still here, kind of...

2011-02-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

..

Sort of...

As some of you have guessed, we have been not so well. Actually, we have been more sick than we have ever been before, and all four of us at the very same time!!!

I can count on one hand all the things I have done in the past week...

One day I made a small loaf of bread. Since not much was eaten other than dry toast. We ate less in one week than we usually do in one day.

Another day I made buttermilk. Glad to save the milk from going bad.

Sometimes I cried. We all did, except for Chessa. Tough little six year old.

Oh yeah, and one day I drove Jason to the emergency room. He was becoming severely dehydrated, having been unable to keep even a sip of water in him for almost 5 days. That was a rough trip!

The list of what I didn't do is much, much longer!

Things to be grateful for...

The house was really really clean when we got sick. Thank goodness, since all chores were abandoned for the week.

A best friend who took hours from her day to run our errands and bring things to make us healthier.

And most importantly, we are all so so so so so much better now!

My wish for you...

May you never ever ever get sick at the exact same time as all the rest of your family!!!

Thanks to those who wrote to make sure we were okay!
Health and happiness to all!

...

Sewing Bee!

2011-02-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

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I am so so happy to be joining in Julia's Sewing Bee! All week it kept coming to my mind...

Just before I learned about the Sewing Bee I had decided that I wanted to make us a little quilt. So what good timing!

I cut squares as I had free moments in my days.

Don't let my lack of words make you think I'm not super excited about the Sewing Bee!

(I'm just too tired to be on the computer this evening. I think I shall go do some knitting...)

...

castles, and castles

2011-02-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

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There has been a lot of castle play happening here recently. Sometimes the girls are king and queen or princesses themselves. More often though they are creating their own elaborate castle worlds on paper.

The girls like to lay out notebooks together so they can draw extra big pictures. So we have here the interior of the castle as well as the courtyard. (This is Chloe's castle, Chessa had moved on to other things.)

Within the castle walls are gardens, animals, people working, and children playing.

I love the girls dancing in a ring. And the little woman leaning over the garden with her watering can. And the men harvesting the wheat. Okay, I love it all!

There is so much detail in these drawings, and much of it is very tiny. Therefore hard to take photos, and so we have here a blurry queen and king.

I love all the people bustling about in this one! The woman in the green dress and red apron, hair in a bun, is supposed to be me. I guess I'm a maid? (I won't take offense, the girls know cleaning makes me happy.) There are also a lot of cats in this castle!

There is a royal coach parked by the fence and a wagon traveling along the road. The wagon is called the "Help Yourself Wagon". You can go and get whatever you need.

The girls often spend many, many hours a day on their drawings. There are always stories to go along with them. Chloe can flip through a notebook from a year or two ago and tell you what every person or animal in the picture is doing and thinking.

The castle pictures prompted a search at the library for castle books. They were enjoyed, but there was some doubt, and the girls have realized that perhaps they do not want to live in a castle after all. (Lots of violence in those old castle times!)

They did however want to build castles of their own. And how excited they were when I handed over some thick paper and let them cut and glue to their hearts content.

The castle is now populated by a beeswax royal court, and you will be happy to know that this kingdom is in a land of peace.

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Winter, Midway...

2011-02-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

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February is here! We have made it halfway through winter! And while it is dumping snow on just about every part of this country, here we are in our Colorado mountains, at 7000-8000 feet, and we have just had only our second real storm of the winter. If you can even call it a storm, barely more than a few inches of snow, when in other years it would not be unusual for us to have at least several feet of snow by now, if not much more.

It leaves me feeling a bit confused, almost like it's no season in particular. However, it is super super freezing quite often, so I guess there is really no doubting it is still winter.

Other days though it's warm enough to go out and pretend that spring might be on it's way soon.

The girls are always up for outdoor adventures, no matter what the season.

This day they set out on a picnic...

Seeking just the right spot, which was beyond the snow on a sunny stone wall...

Waving good-bye to daddy.

Whispering sister secrets?

Smile for mama.

They said they were going to stay outside the whole entire day. But after about 10 minutes they came in. They said they missed me too much and wanted to come be with me :)

This was another day. They were traveling to Wisconsin. On foot, because they don't have a wagon.

They are Caroline and Charles Ingalls.

See Pa's suspenders? He (she) finger-knitted them all by him(her)self.

And now we begin the new month. I guess I don't really have a Brigid or Candlemas post this year. We did have a nice day, perhaps most memorable part being the wonderful Brigid stories we shared together. (Here is my Candlemas post from last year, you see we do so love Brigid...)

I always look forward to these special days in February, we sure can all use some extra joy and fun to help get us through the last long stretch of winter. (I pretend that it won't be too long...)

Hope everyone in the snowy lands finds time to enjoy some nice coziness!

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Where does food come from??

2011-01-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

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Another book on the free shelf at the library the other day was called How We Get Things, a 1976 edition of the Childcraft How and Why Library. I actually had a whole set of these books once before but they only sat in a box for a couple years so I decided to pass them on. Still though I was curious enough to pick this one up again.

I do realize that it is somewhat outdated edition, several decades old, but still, I'm cutting them no slack.

(And now I am coming back towards the beginning, having already finished writing this post, to warn you that I totally go off on a tangent here. I don't even make my real point. There wasn't an end to the story. Thanks if you at all attempt to follow along!)

So, on the page entitled Fields of Food, the first paragraph says...

"Some foods are grown in fields. Usually, they cannot be eaten right away. First, they must be harvested or gathered. Then, the crops are sent to factories to be made into food."

Oh my gosh. I'm nearly speechless. I don't understand. I'm totally distressed.

And the year of print actually doesn't even matter because it has only become more and more true.

Thinking about food can get me feeling very political. But feeling political can be such a frustrating experience sometimes.

We obviously had very strong reasons for living a vegan lifestyle for more than a decade and a half. Treatment of animals being the original factor, factory farming being a gigantic part of it, and manipulation of food, farms, and families being likely the most horrifying part of it.

We of course still greatly oppose all of those things! And so much more really. Because we made the decision to no longer be vegan we were faced with many more serious decisions regarding where our food would be coming from. We would never consume conventional meats or dairy products. Actually we do not even ever purchase conventional (meaning not organic) vegetables or fruits. (Oh please please know this is not meant to criticize anyone who does!) And I know that it can be hard to afford to buy only organic, but trust me, we do it on a very, very small grocery budget.

To me personally a label of organic doesn't even necessarily means much when it comes to products such as eggs, dairy, or meat. There are still plenty of usda organic farms out there that we would never feel comfortable supporting. Most important to us is that many of these farms are meeting only the minimum standards for what can be considered humane living conditions.

So we make other choices. And lucky for us we live in an area with an abundance of local farms to support. (Though remember, we are super particular, so really there aren't too many we feel completely comfortable with, but at least there are a few, and we are grateful for that...)

These are animals. They have instincts and basic natural needs. We need to honor that. They give us so much. We need to care for them with respect. And how about some common sense too?

I don't even know why I am talking about animals and factory farming when this page in the book really had me more upset about the craziness of the processed food industry. I guess I better not let myself get into that one now...

Why can't food just be a common sense issue? How could such a simple thing have gotten so incredibly messed up?

I realize this is lots of rambling that might not even make much sense! I wasn't even intending to write much (for this very reason really, I knew I would I would just go on and on)... I just wanted to show you that almost humorous but really very sad page in the book...

Clearly I wasn't really speechless.

Sorry not such a cheery post.

Really though, sometimes I think the most important thing in the world is to Grow Your Own Food!

Have you noticed I almost started rambling again?

Really I just wanted to let you know that despite the non-cheeriness of this post there is no need to worry.. We are still our usual happy selves! I promise to post something pretty next time...

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recent creating, sewing love

2011-01-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

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I would really like to post here more than the barely once a week I have been managing. We'll see, I may become quite chatty...

More sewing love with my vintage feedsack scraps. The natural/white fabric I use is an organic poplin, which is my current substitute for linen.

First I made this little piece. (Patchwork trivet? Sure, let's call it that...) The colors feel nice and warm to me, wishful thinking...

And then I made this piece, the coming Valentine's holiday offering a nice excuse to create with one of my most favorite colors, pink! Both of these little pieces are being sent off to some very sweet friends. I hope they bring some cheer to the recipients.

And here is the bigger piece that I recently finished. I mostly love it, but not completely. I tried to be a bit carefree and do some random stitching on the white part. Well to me it just looks like I can't sew a straight line. I think I would like this look if someone else did it, I guess I am just too particular/critical about my own work. And clearly still need to work on letting go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. (Let's not even mention that upper left-hand corner...)

I wanted to show some of the girls recent creating too, mostly in the form of artwork, but the pictures are on the camera and the battery is dead so maybe next time.

Wishing all a creative and inspiring weekend!

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yarn along and library luck

2011-01-26T19:08:00.000-08:00

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Once again joining my friend Ginny in her Yarn Along... (though I totally break the rules, sorry Ginny, too many photos, lots of books...) And the only thing I made from yarn this past week was a pink crocheted dish scrubber. A granny square dish scrubber actually. Yes, I love granny squares that much. And you see I am about to make a cheery orange one too.

Lots of excitement at the library yesterday when Jason discovered a wonderful stack of hardcover National Geographic books on the free shelf! We did our best to think of others and left more than half of them behind, still bringing home enough for us to have quite a collection.

Such neat old books with all kinds of wonderfulness to them.

The cover on the right here totally reminds me of our farm friends!

Beautiful hardcovers underneath their pretty paper jackets.

Jason had just chosen a John Muir book in the library and now we have this great book too.

Simpler times. How we long for them!

So really it was a crazy library adventure, cause we brought home 15 of these new/old hardcovers, 28 books checked out of the library, and then realized that our home is literally piled up with books at the moment! Jason is finishing up some house painting and so most of our books have been relocated to various stacks around the house.

Random books piled on and around shelves.

Old paperbacks, all collected used when I was about 20 years old. I am noticing a great lack of fiction in my life these days.

Books even stacked on the nature table, which is actually kinda sad. The table has been empty the past couple weeks, waiting for some kind of seasonal inspiration. I look forward to getting things back in order and making this space special again.

I have also been thinking about doing some posts on children's books. Books, books, books, we love all kinds. But our children's storybooks are especially dear to us. Sometimes I'm surprised at how infrequently I share book love here, since it's such a part of our lives.. So yes, perhaps a little series on that.

I have some sewing creations to share next time, I have been much busier with fabric than with yarn these days.

Happy well wishes to all!

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works in progress, yarn along, & a bit of homeschool too...

2011-01-18T18:33:00.000-08:00

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I thought I would join in with Ginny's yarn along this week. Then I realized that most of my reading this past week has been homeschool related.

We have been slowly beginning our Norse mythology block, using the very beautiful D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths.

The three fays of destiny who spin the thread of life for all at the foot of the world tree.

(It seems like soon would be a good time to get caught up with a homeschool post...)

And then I realized that I am not knitting anything at the moment either. But there is this granny square that I have been crocheting. Some of you might remember that I had some kind of granny square doll blanket on the list of possibilities for christmas gifts. I was working on them a little bit but then I didn't like one of them very much, and it didn't look like I was going to be able to finish them in time anyway. This is the one I was making for Chessa, I like it mostly, though I'm not sure if it's a little dull. I will do more yellow as I continue to try to brighten it up. And suddenly I have a really good start on Chessa's birthday gifts, (end of May,) I like that.

But actually I haven't worked on the granny square for a while. Mostly the past couple of weeks I have been enjoying embroidery during any handwork time I have.

And some special sewing too. With vintage feedsack scraps that just make me so so happy.

And one other project, very different than what I usually create..

I made an entire new website for our Little Sprouts shop.
Oh my, it was quite an undertaking, especially for such a non-technological person as myself.
I worked really hard on it, it is not completely done, but it is done pretty well for now.
Please remember us if you should need cloth diapers or other such things :)

So, it is feeling like the new year is getting off to a pretty good creative start. Though it does seem like we sometimes need to try extra hard for the inspiration during these still dark winter days. What are you creating or being inspired by these days?

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belated handmade holiday post

2011-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

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Eagerly awaiting present opening time. I still had to get the cinnamon rolls into the oven. It seems that what we have here is a lot of christmas "action shots"...

The girls started with their stockings. And of course Santa's gift was right on top. Each year they receive a "Santa Claus gift". Always something wooden and handmade, cause we know the elves don't make that plastic stuff from the stores. (I originally had a word other than "stuff" there, but it sounded pretty harsh, even if it is true...) For a few years now Tonya (Plain and Joyful Living) and her family have been the ones to make the Santa Claus gift. Simple wooden pieces, from wood that does not grow around here, so obviously these were not made by us..

These legwarmers took a lot longer to knit then I thought they would, I barely got them done in time! I was so afraid they wouldn't fit, all I thought about when I cast on was my girls super skinny legs, I forgot they would still need to be able to pull them over their feet to get them on! So I was really happy that they fit, and the girls really like them. Right now though I know that at least one of Chessa's is being used folded up as a little doll bed in her doll's house.

And here is a little doll that Chloe made for Chessa, which Chessa loves very much. There were lots of sweet handmade gifts from the girls, mostly pretty little pictures on little squares of paper from Chessa, beautiful needle felted pictures for both Jason and I from Chloe (which I am only just now realizing I don't have pictures of yet).

New skirts for the girls. I have always made the girls new dresses for winter solstice, this is the first year that for some reason I felt like I wanted to include them at Christmas. And skirts, not dresses. Only because I was so incredibly indecisive as to what I wanted to make for them, and having not too many fabric options. (So much fabric, not so many big enough pieces to make dresses for my getting so big girls..) It may look like Chessa got the fancier skirt, but Chloe got the super special vintage fabric. (More pictures of the skirts in a moment, and you will see that they soon have them on, and they have also worn them just about every day since then.)

Their other handmade gift from me was little wool babies, to go along with the dolls that I made them last year for Christmas. And oh I just love the look on Chessa's face in this picture!

There were lots of big smiles as they opened their handmade gifts from daddy too.

Jason is not always able to spend as much time on handmade gifts. Though a few years ago he did make them their beautiful playstands. This year he made them all kinds of neat pieces to add to their tree block sets.

The girls loved it all, but most exciting for them and Jason are the fence pieces he made for them. Cause the horses, and chickens and sheep and cows, need good fenced pasture of course.

The only gifts the girls received from Jason and I that weren't handmade were books, as usual. Some special ones that had been slowly collected over the past year, mostly second hand, a couple really wonderful vintage ones! I could not resist this beautiful copy of Snow White and Rose Red, a favorite story of ours.

And for Chloe to open (though the books are to be shared with the family) a beautiful old copy of The Five Little Peppers Midway, which is of course the second book to one of our most favorites ever, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. It was especially exciting because until last year I never even knew that there was a second book, and actually there are 5 altogether! So this one has been hiding secretly in the closet for about 6 months now, waiting to delight Chloe with the continuing story of their dear little family.

The girls also got wool socks and wool coats, gifts from grandparents. Playsilks and books from my sister. It felt like a lot but also simple at the same time.

Really, the girls have worn these every day! I'm sure I will be making a lot more of these skirts, I think I have the pattern just right now, and of course I so love love all the pleats! Chloe's also has horizontal tucks near the bottom.

Chessa's has pretty pink vintage bias tape at the bottom above her stripes, with this orange fabric I have been treasuring, saving, for a long time!

The girls wasted no time at all getting those fences and farm people to work.

This has been their play for many, many days already.

We took our tree down on Thursday. Actually, Jason took our tree out just this morning.. but we undecorated the tree on Thursday, along with the rest of the holiday decorations in the house. Handmade ornaments from my childhood, tucked away into a box.

We have always celebrated our holidays in a handmade way, the girls so look forward to their handmade gifts each year. It was so nice this year to be joined by so many others creating for their families also!

Now, has your making list suddenly become much longer? There is everything from early December's list that never even got started. I love how the creating just goes on and on and on...

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this moment ~ sweetness with daddy

2011-01-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

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~inspired by the wonderful Soules

(What they are actually doing is daydreaming about future dollhouse building plans, a project that has been ongoing in the girls minds for about a year now...)

And by the way... Happy New Year to all!!!

I am feeling a bit out of touch, and really missing all of my sweet blog friends! I even still owe that handmade holiday post, but it gets tricky cause we really greatly limit computer time during the holidays.

Except for this year, the week after Christmas, I became oddly motivated (crazy) and undertook a very, very, (very!!) large project. I will have the results of that to share soon also!

I hope you have all had a wonderful beginning to this new year. I am feeling hopeful about so many things. Blessings to all!!!

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and just like that...

2010-12-30T20:53:00.000-08:00

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It sure wasn't looking all that wintery around here.

And then the very next day...

So much snow it's a bit astonishing!

Requires contemplation..

Probably tastes good?

Meant to be played in..

Making us all very happy!

I do hope everyone has been enjoying a wonderful holiday season. Thanks so much for all the sweet birthday wishes and emails! I will be catching up with belated Christmas post soon.

And now we're off into the New Year! Wishing you all a very happy one!!!

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Advent, Mary, Solstice, Snow, Rain??

2010-12-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

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First it snowed. And snowed and snowed. And then it rained. Craziness. Pouring pouring rain. Our seasons seem to be a bit confused this year. It sure is plenty cold though, so really it may as well snow, tomorrow is the first day of winter after all...

I have been quite busy with gift making, though it is likely I have spent way too much time on this advent calendar. I have already asked the family to please realize that the calendar is a big part of their Christmas present this year. I think they are pleased.

Mary brought big smiles when the girls saw her Sunday morning.

(Sorry, poor pictures, I didn't even get a chance to take these photos until past dark tonight, but still wanted to share..)

Our little angel even found a nice spot to hover above everyone, guiding all with her shining star of course.

There is still lots of sewing to do, a bit of knitting, Jason has a woodworking project going on, and the girls have been busy little elves. I guess I will have to fill you in on all the handmade holiday gifts after Christmas.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Winter Solstice and start our holiday baking by making Snowdrop Cookies. We plan to do much more baking on Christmas Eve day, finally putting this vintage cookie press we have to good use. Fun! And the day before Christmas Eve is my birthday. Quite eventful around here! (For us at least...)

Wishing you all wonderful happy beautiful cozy holiday celebrations with your families!
Blessings and love to all!!!

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Advent Sunday and St. Lucia

2010-12-13T15:13:00.000-08:00

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We sure have been enjoying our simple advent days.

This Sunday the animals gathered around our spiral. I did actually make one needle felted sheep, but it was barely finished late the night before and I decided it was probably best to stick with my plan of making the animals next year. So for now we added as many of our wooden animals as we could fit and I really like the look of it, quite festive!

Much of our Sunday was occupied by St. Lucia preparations. Chloe made the Lucia buns all by herself. I should have taken a picture of them, so pretty with their nice "S" shape.

A sweet moment while Chloe was trying on her Lucia gown.

And the beautiful Lucia child who greeted us this morning. Thankfully not quite as early as last year...

We made the St. Lucia crown last year. This year I thought I might make Chessa a little star crown or wand, so she could be a Star Child accompanying Lucia. But Chloe really wanted the morning to be a surprise for everyone so she convinced Chessa to stay in bed with us while she made tea and set the table with the buns. (She cleaned the kitchen counters too, she knows that is always the first morning chore...) I guess I didn't really have the time to make a star crown anyhow, definitely next year though.

I would love to hear about any of the holiday festivities happening in your home these days??

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this moment ~ christmas past

2010-12-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

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~ Inspired by the lovely Amanda Soule

2004 ~ Our last Christmas with Grandpa George

He liked trains. And other neat old stuff.

We miss him.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend with your loved ones!

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Advent and St. Nicholas

2010-12-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

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This past week I worked on the trees that would be added to our Advent calendar. I loved creating each one of these, I made a forest!

And our angel happily journeys along the starry path.

For this week I should be working on some little animals. But... I need to be making actual Christmas gifts too, so I am thinking we may have to add a few wooden animals for this Sunday and next year I can make some little wool sheep and a donkey. Of course Mary cannot wait, I better get started on her soon!

So we had our nice quiet Advent Sunday. This week we baked gingersnaps, a beginning to our holiday cookie baking. And the girls left some out for St. Nicholas, even though they know his horse would probably have preferred a carrot.

We have read St. Nicholas stories for the past few years but we never did much to actually celebrate the day, the girls never left out their shoes and we never did any gifts on this day. This year though the girls really wanted to leave out their shoes to see if St. Nicholas might pay a visit.

I wasn't sure what kind of ideas Chloe had in her head about this. At ten years old was she really going to just suddenly believe that St. Nicholas made an appearance? We actually thought it would be obvious that he did not.

We got a couple oranges from the store and tiny pieces of sesame candy for St. Nicholas to leave in their shoes. But we also had a bigger surprise...My mom got the girls new boots for Christmas, but we decided since it is already so cold and snowy that it would be nice for them to have them sooner. It seemed like a perfect St. Nicholas gift.

So the girls left out their old shoes and found new boots in the morning! We were not trying to trick them into thinking St. Nicholas left the boots, we told them that Grandma was St. Nicholas' helper. They accepted that, and did not even question who left the orange and the candy. Those were obviously from St. Nicholas. He ate his cookies too.

I love how simply and joyfully our children accepted this bit of magic into their day!

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Yarn Along ~ Favorite Winter Waldorf Books

2010-12-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

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We have now brought out some of our winter books, here are a few of our favorites...

Winter is a most beautiful picture book. Christmas Stories Together has many very sweet stories that we will be reading all month long.

Oh that little Tomten, wandering about in dark winter night, watching over the sleeping farm.

Wonderful Elsa Beskow. I was happy to discover that our nearby library has Peter and Lotta's Christmas, we have never read that one before, I will surprise the girls with it soon.

Yes, most of my reading lately has been children's books.

Because if I am actually sitting I am much more likely to be knitting than reading. Now on to Chloe's legwarmers, the pink ones are finished for Chessa. I am happy to be knitting something that will keep the girls nice and warm.

Because it has been so very cold. Snowy and beautiful, but temperatures have even gone below zero, and 30'ish is probably an average high. Sigh...

Thank goodness December is full of so much holiday magic and happiness!

Happy beautiful winter season to all!

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Advent Angel

2010-11-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

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I decided it should be a special little angel who would guide us along the spiral path.

She greeted the girls this morning. Chessa as the youngest got to place her on the first star. Chloe is so looking forward to her turn tomorrow.

We had a simple dinner of stew and fresh baked bread. Afterward we gathered in the candlelight and read our first Advent story. Tiptoes Lightly of course, the Festival of Stones. I had a wooden bowl with some crystals in it and after the story we each chose a crystal and placed it around the Advent Spiral.

And the loveliest soft snow fell all day long.

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