Holiday Preparations: Wooden Ornaments

Alas, it has been months since I've penned this blog last and for that, and for my overbooked schedule, I apologize.  Life is keeping us very busy and I don't have much time for elaborate, well planned posts.  But, what I love about December is that as part of our homeschooling year, I block out much of the month to focus on all of the wonderful festivals, baking, and traditions; and it's a time when we slow down, stray from more formal lessons, and focus more on creating memories by living in the moment.  So, I am hoping to write many posts over the month of December and would love to start by sharing some warm fuzzies that we treasure in our home. 

Like many of you, I prefer anything handmade.  It is hard to find natural, handmade in the local shops, so I often head over to etsy or track down obscure shops online where I can find those heartfelt goodies that make us feel cozy inside.  I was thrilled to find these handmade wooden ornaments from Germany at a local shop near our home last year.  There were so many cute ones that we had to narrow it down over and over again and I hope that we can snag a few more this year - adding to our little collection through the years.

The girls begged me to get out the old Christmas bins from the garage (no basements where I live) so they could begin decorating the tree and these were some of the first ornaments to go up...

Flying Santa

 



The Baker

 



Santa with his Walking Stick

 



Our Russian Soldier

 



Of course, the girls found the mini village my father had surprised us with the year I got married and the twins got sidetracked, but hey - any creative play is great by me!  December is a time to slow down, turn inward, and recharge the soul.  Kids definitely recharge through freeplay while we adults often recharge by ignoring the phone, dishes, and laundry and enjoy watching those little ones around us in all of their innocent, joyful splendor.  Childhood is a wonder to behold!

We are preparing our special holiday table, our Advent spiral, Advent wreath, and of course - we are excited about our first festival in Dec - Bishop Nicholas' Day!  This special tradition was made even more fun thanks to the amazingly beautiful and talented Christine Natale and her St. Nick stories - read one a day, beginning Dec 1st and get your kiddos into the spirit of giving and sharing... I have referenced Christine many times in my blog and there is a big reason why - she truly encompasses the Waldorf heart through her love of children and her foundational training and understanding.  I wanted to post the link to her stories now for anyone who plans to begin them December 1st!

You can read more about St. Nicholas here.  And I will be back with more photos as we prepare for this most wonderful time of year! 

Also, I have several comments that I've not answered yet - I hope to eventually get to them.  And I just saw that I have reached a wonderful milestone of 300 followers :) So in honor of that, yup...you guessed it...I am planning a special giveaway - so stay tuned!  Hugs to all of you!

Wishing You All Peace, Blessings & Love...

Rembrandt - 1646

Die Anbetung der Hirten

The Adoration of the Shepherds

Advent Spirals

Joseph was my very first needle felting attempt of a person. His hands are thick and chunky, but I love the simplicity about this pair. On our Advent table, we have Mary on her donkey, being led by Joseph as they make their way around the Advent spiral...and when they land on the final star, they will be placed in the stable where the manger awaits the babe...

This is our scene and I have a cotton cloth underneath my silk. The stars are cut from wool felt and branches from our trees form the spiral. However...we've already had one bump from one of the girls chasing a dog around the house that resulted in the silk sliding and the stars falling all over the place. It was a mess...


So next year, I am going to try this WONDERFUL tutorial from a blog I really enjoy called, "In These Hills". Please check out this Vermont mama's Advent Spiral tutorial found here.

No more stars flying all over the place - they will stay put and look lovely, to boot! :D

Don't Forget to Leave Your Shoes Out for St. Nick!

Tonight is a special night for the families who follow this European tradition of leaving their shoes out on the night before December 6th to celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas.

We celebrated this tradition as a child and I have so many fond memories of this special day leading up to Christmas. It was always a favorite with lots of anticipation and glee and I am so happy to share it now with my children. One of my mom's favorite Saint's Days - to this day, she still reminds me to leave my shoes outside my bedroom door on the eve of December 5th!

Now in my own tradition, in the days leading up to this event, starting on December 1st, we read a story a day written by the talented author and Waldorf teacher, Christine Natale. Her Bishop Nicholas stories are found free here. They are short, so you could even start them today and space them out to read them all before the big day tomorrow :)

We are also enjoying this out of print book by Jakob Streit called, Saint Nicholas. With the help of Cindy from Whole Spirit Press, we were able to track down a few remaining copies, the link of which has been listed on my blog. I'm not sure if they have all sold out, but you may contact them as listed. See the post here.

Last year, I did a post documenting our celebration which can be found here. We'll see what Old St. Nick decides to leave the girls tonight :) And I hope to share shots of our Advent celebrations and winter preparations over the next several days.

Also, get ready for a special giveaway that I will be hosting, so stay tuned! Lots of fun and festivity coming down the pipeline!

Babci's Aprons & Snickerdoodles

The girls wearing two of Babci's aprons my momma sent to me.

It is almost the one year anniversary since my Granny passed away just about a month short of her 92nd birthday. Because my mom is called Gramy by her grandchildren, my twins would call their great Granny "Babci" which is Polish for "Grandmother". With a little adjustment to the necks, the girls chose a beloved apron that still smells like Babci's house to wear as we begin to make our dozen batches of Christmas cookies for a dog rescue fundraiser in December. The first batch are Snickerdoodles...

We are in the middle of our 2nd math block and have been practicing our four processes when baking by doubling the recipe and then halving so they each can do equal amounts...


After the dough chilled, the girls rolled and dipped the cookies into the sugar mixture to bake.

And a tidbit: my blog was named after this hearth that is still under construction in our kitchen (DH is putting the stones on it)...our kitchen has been under construction for over 2 years now...will have to do a before and after shot when it's finally done!

I'm not quite sure if my mom really knows how very special the aprons she gave me from Granny are. She gave us aprons and handkerchiefs that my great grandmother crocheted the edges on. I will post pictures soon.

Grandma's Apron
~ by C J Heck

Gramma's gone, but not forgotten,
that's her apron hanging there.
It still hangs in Grampa's kitchen.
Sometimes he looks at it and stares.
When Gramma wore her apron
it was magical to see.
The pockets held such treasures
for the grandkids just like me.
Saw it shine up Grampa's fender once
just as pretty as you please,
and it wiped my brother's cheek off
one time when he sneezed.
It took cookies from the oven,
it rushed to wipe a tear,
got a grain of sand out of your eye,
made a lap for the stories we'd hear.
It wiped spills up from the counter top
when she was baking pies,
a symbol of her love and care
and it showed, too, in her eyes.
Sometimes I'm sad to look at it
when I see my Grampa stare.
Gramma's gone, but not forgotten.
That's her apron hanging there.

And now her aprons hang upon the necks of her great grandtwins :)

Happy St. John's Day! Midsummer's Day!

St. John, oh happy festival,

Thou festival of light,

With songs and happy melodies

Our souls may grow so wide.

For all the beauty of the world

Which loving spirits have unfurled,

Oh come! Oh come ye spirits gay

And dance with us on Saint John's Day.

~Wynstone's "Summer"

Today is Midsummer's Day and marks the half way point of the year -today being the day we celebrate the birth of St. John, which is placed exactly six months before we celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve.

Midsummer traditionally is the season for fire rituals indicative of purification and transformation. The heat of the rising sun is at its peak. Sunflowers grow in the sun...yellow bumble bees buzz from flower to flower, dancing under the golden sun, children flit about like butterflies in the summer breeze.

We are heading to a friends house to swim today and tonight, I will read the girls a wonderful story for Midsummer by the amazing Christine Natale (who is hard at work on her Fairy Tales book) entitled "The Return of the Sun King". Christine was kind enough to share it on my blog a few months ago and I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do! Reading this story on St. Johnstide is our new annual tradition, along with making some sun stars to grace our windows! (pictures to come soon)!

Hope you all enjoy this marvelous day and celebrate the arrival of summer! Christine has published stories about St. Nicholas here. And she began a blog several months ago which can be found here. She has been very busy lately with her new waldorf school, but loves to hear how her stories have touched our children, so feel free to leave her a comment on her blog!

Happy Easter!

Easter Day

Christ the Lord is risen today!
Angels rolled the stone away
From the tomb wherein He lay!

Little children, come and sing,
"Glory, glory to the King,
Christ the Lord of everything!"

~by Evaleen Stein

This past week (since Tuesday), my poor Charley has been quite ill - sore throat, fever, vomiting, exhaustion, tears over not feeling well...to conjunctivitis...


We've been treating her homeopathically and her eyes look so much better this morning. This picture was of her last night...she had so much yellowish/greenish goop in her eyes and they both got really red by the end of the night...


The illness threw a bit of a wrench in my Easter plans, but we still managed to participate in our main traditions...


We boiled lots of eggs to dye...


We made our Easter Egg Ring Bread - I love the endless circle of this bread for Easter as it represents the eternity of life. I found it in All Year Round, but you can basically take any basic dough recipe and then braid it and bake it with stones wrapped in foil which will make holes in the dough.


And then you can place your dyed eggs in the holes...


We made some hot crossed buns to have for breakfast Easter morning.


And we dyed eggs. We used this tutorial and they came out beautifully!


I made my annual Pascal Lamb Cake, a Polish tradition handed down through the generations on my mother's side. Here is a picture of last year's cake - this year's cake didn't hold together well and the head fell off to the point where I couldn't secure it back on (drat!), but we ate it anyway :D


And here is what the Easter Bunny left for the girls...(bunnies, chickens, chicks in eggs...)


The tomb was open and our angel hovered above (one of the first things I needle felted - very primitive, but I love it because of that!)


Two baby lambs tucked inside a wet felted egg...(don't Charley's eyes look so much better now...)


Discovering the goodies...


Our Syrendell Sprites were holding painted eggs!


Our Lenten Garden was overflowing with life! Needle-felted eggs hanging from the branches, butterflies, bunnies...


Needle felted twin chickies in a single basket (one of my favorite representations as a momma of twins) :D


Another view of the dish garden...


And what has now become my most treasured Easter possession...a vintage bunny that my mom sent to me last year from my dear Granny's home. My Gran passed just before Thanksgiving and it's amazing how the things that were hers have taken on an unexplainable priceless value to me. I am going to have a post on some of her vintage treasures that I have down the line...


And an egg tree that I made for my shop...(shop announcement and a fun giveaway will be happening this week to celebrate)!


Well, I hope you all had a marvelous holiday weekend and are ready to hit Spring head on now! Happy, Happy Easter!

Celebrating the Spring Equinox

The Magic Piper

There piped a piper in the wood
Strange music -- soft and sweet --
And all the little wild things
Came hurrying to his feet.

They sat around him on the grass,
Enchanted, unafraid,
And listened, as with shining eyes
Sweet melodies he made.

The wood grew green, and flowers sprang up,
The birds began to sing;
For the music it was magic,
And the piper's name was -- Spring!

~by E.L. Marsh

Today, we celebrate the Vernal Equinox as we welcome the spring. We started a tradition last year of planting our Lenten dish garden on the first day of spring.

This past week was not a fun one. Elena got a nasty stomach flu that lasted 50 hours so we're a bit behind, but will catch up this week.

All those eggs that Tony so painstakingly blew out were finally put to good use today!

In anticipation of Easter, we decided to paint some eggs with acrylic paints. We wanted to be able to keep these (and even hang them from a tree), so they were blown out first and then painted.


Some of them, we layed a base color on first and allowed it to dry. Other eggs were just painted in one sitting.


They dried in the sun and were ready for a second coat.


We just let them dry and will later thread them with yarn to hang from an egg tree. They can be sprayed with a light coat of hairspray to give them a shine and seal the paint for longer preservation or just left as is...


A happy birthday (on St. Patty's Day) to our now 12 year old corgimix, Farley! Doesn't he look so handsome!

And then we planted our Lenten Dish Garden...

We like to place a blooming branch in the dish. Last year, I ended up using some modeling clay to hold it in place. This year, I tried a piece of floral foam, held in with a bit of tacky glue. I think the clay worked a bit better so I'd recommend that if you have some available. Stick your branch in...

Layer your dirt and then some grass seeds. We like to put in a shell to serve as a little pond, so we place that down over the area it will rest so we don't grow grass underneath it...

One more layer of dirt...

Then give it a little soaking of water and be sure to mist it daily. The seeds should sprout within 5-7 days. We'll be adding to it as the days unfold...

To celebrate Lent and Easter, we placed ours on a purple silk (purple being the color of Lent) and with rocks, we built a *cave* to symbolize the tomb of Jesus. It will sit until Good Friday when we will place a rock over the front of it until Easter morning...

The Resurrection story is a bit too intense still at this tender age, but we like to bring some concrete elements of this most important Christian holiday to the forefront this way.

There are a few books I recommend for Christians celebrating this season with their children:

~ One is called, "Stories for the Festivals of the Year: Told for Children" by Irene Johanson. It contains stories for Easter, Ascension & Whitsun, St. Johnstide, Michaelmas, Christmas, the Epiphany, and Holy Week.

~ The second is "The Easter Story Book" collected by Ineke Verschuren. The nice thing about this book, as with Vershuren's other book, "The Christmas Story Book", is that the stories are marked for the appropriate age. Some of the tales are appropriate for children as young as 5 years old. It covers Holy Week, Easter, From Easter to Pentecost, Midsummer/Feast of St. John.

~ Finally, we've enjoyed "The Emperor's Vision and Other Christ Legends" by Selma Lagerlöf. This one can be used for Christmas, as well. It can also be found at Bob & Nancy's here.

Happy Spring to you all and enjoy the return of the light in the Northern Hemisphere!!!!