Fall

How can I capture such a perfect day on this blog?  How can I photograph my new curtains blowing so gently in our first Autumn breeze?  How can I show you every door in our house open to the fresh air....finally blowing Summer out of all the dusty corners?  I could never figure out how to capture the joy of having enough energy to work along side my kids in our Summer deserted backyard where dog poop was scooped, leaves were raked, play areas were cleaned, and excitement was then had for hours.  I can not take a picture of my swelling heart when I watch my hungry kids pick an apple off our tree for a snack instead of coming inside.  And of course, there's no way to capture the smell of Fall.  The smell of the "rabbit weed" floating in the breeze and through the house.  So, you'll just have to take my word for it.  Today was beautifully perfect.  I wish I could bottle it up, and the euphoria that came with it, and stock pile it for next Summer when I'll need a break from that harsh season.

I did take a few pictures today of a couple of things......... 

 

Now that it finally felt like Fall, I brought out some Fall decor.  The garland was cut on the porch two years ago by Logan and I.  Our nature table, often neglected, at least now has a start.  When the kids came in from playing outside and saw the Fall stuff up they exclaimed, "Mama!  Its Fall?!"  Yes, I'm horrible and hadn't told them.  It was 100+ degrees as of a few days ago!!!  Felicity instantly asked to go change into long sleeves, tights, and her jacket.  She also voiced concern because the leaves weren't changing color yet.  Patience, Sissy Girl, its still in the 80s here.  Soon.  I TOTALLY get her on this matter!

 

Felicity picked me a bouquet from the yard, and Logan put it in a jar for her.  It sits on the front porch next to the bucket of Sunflower seeds Kian, Lissy, and I harvested yesterday afternoon.

 

 I finally got a few pictures of the henna stain.  Its been on for over a week now and is starting to fade, especially since I've been scratching my itchy belly a lot lately.  :)  Its hard to photograph the henna stain but I'm glad to have gotten a few pictures for Arrow's baby book.  This is my nearly 39 week belly.

 



 

I packaged up this little gift to mail to Arrow's twin cousin, who has also not arrived yet.

 

 

And best yet, this little guy is now done!!!!

I did most of the work on him, by hand, while on bed rest.  Once I was off bed rest, this poor guy sat finished, but naked, on my sewing shelf.  When I woke up this morning feeling better than I have in days (I've been having lots of "baby action" which leaves me tired and sore), I told myself today was the day he'd get done.  I used the kids' rest time to sew up his pants, shirt, and hat, and then placed him in Logan's hands.

He now has a name.

 Red.

And Logan is a very happy kid.

He'd asked me for a Waldorf doll a year ago.  He saw that his brother and sister had one, and that they loved their dolls dearly.  And knowing my boy, I knew he saw it as a sign of Mama's love.  Some would say he's too old for a doll.  Maybe.  But he's certainly not too old to be reassured of his Mama's love for him.

33 Weeks! (and a few days)

Another week down.  Yay uterus!

So what did week 32 hold for us?.............

This last week started off eventful with another trip to the hospital late at night.  The contractions I was having were stronger than the ones that sent me to the hospital the first time, and they were consistently rolling at only three minutes apart.  Needless to say, I was pretty nervous.  My body was shaking and I couldn't tell if that was from anxiety, or my body reacting to labor (I've gotten the shakes in labor with all 3 kids).  Those contractions rolled for almost two hours and just as we were walking out the door, they stopped very abruptly.  ????    My midwife still wanted me to come in, so we made the hour drive to the hospital, late at night, dropping off sleeping kids along the way.  Thankfully that visit was much less eventful than the first visit.  Contractions still showed up on the monitor, but they were inconsistent and no meds were needed. 

Thankfully, the rest of the week was very uneventful!  However, I kinda feel like a ticking time bomb. 

I hand sew a lot in bed so here's some of my views from the last week in bed.......

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I haven't blogged in 2 weeks......

......and my sister pointed it out to me.

I know, I know.

She wanted to know why and I really couldn't tell her.  I think its a mix of a few things.  One, we've been very busy as one of those weeks the kids attended VBS.  Two, my energy level is slowing down now that I'm in the third trimester.  There's so many times I just have nothing left at the end of the day.  And Three, we've just been plugging away.  Same old, same old..........and I forget to blog.  I really want to get back at it though.  In the mean time, here's a few pictures of what we've been up to over the last 2 weeks.

 Just when I think Libby has fully settled in to our family, she seems to get even more comfortable.  Zac and I are happy that it seems she's finally learned to sleep on the kids' beds, instead of ours, and we often find her snuggled up with one of the kids like this.  :)

 For the first time ever, we have hired work done on our house.  It is pretty exciting!  Karl has been building a new front deck for us for weeks, while being very patient with our kids' constant vigilance, and many questions.

 Lots of outdoor Summer play.

 Joshua and the story of Jericho has been on the Bible Table.  Here Kian is having his "Bible Guys" carry the ark of the covenant.  Then I think it turned into a car.  Well, hey, glad to see the story was sticking with him before his imagination took over.  :)

 I started another Waldorf doll, with Felicity's help.  Apparently I didn't think it was crazy enough to be working on four quilts, baby pants, and burp cloths.  Gotta add in a Waldorf doll to round out the crazy.  :)

 Zac saw a picture of an adirondack chair made out of wine barrel staves.  I woke up one Saturday morning (after sleeping in) to find him just winging it.  And it looks beautiful!

And of course, school.  We're still plugging away at our Solar System unit.  Schooling in the Summer has been harder than I thought.  There's been so many opportunities to go to the lake with friends, invitations to play, and of course, a full week of VBS.  But we're sticking to it whenever I have the energy.  So far, the unit study approach is working for us pretty good.  But, a lot of stuff has worked pretty good for the first 5 weeks.  So I'm not sold completely yet.  But I'm loving that its OUR schedule and we're going in OUR direction.  Its fun to plug in whatever we want, whenever we want.  Lissy's enthusiasm for school has mellowed a bit lately, and she gets a bit sleepy at the table.  Today I learned that if she has manipulatives, she perks up. 

Note to self!!! 

 We're ALL constantly learning on this journey.  I read a quote from a long time homeschooling mom that said, "If you CONSTANTLY question your approach, your curriculum, your manner of teaching, and your pace, you're a great homeschooling mom.  A good homeschooling mom will never stop questioning."

Good to know!

Guess I'm on the right track then.  Ha!

Waldorf Meets Montessori Sensory Tub

I like a lot of Montessori stuff, but I LOVE Waldorf.  So we tend to lean towards Waldorf stuff, most of the time.  Why?  I love the all natural, nature based feel of Waldorf. 

It came to my attention (hello permanent marker scribbles on the table) that one of my main needs for home school, was a way to keep Kian and Felicity busy while Logan and I worked on his lessons.  I've always done sensory play with the kids, but wanted to kick it up a notch.  I decided to make the two littles some Montessori inspired sensory tubs.  My one hang up was all the plastic stuff people usually put in them.  I know....I'm a freak.  But a box full of plastic trinkets and rice just doesn't thrill me.  Plus, I've really been working on de-plasticising our house for a year now, so I'd honestly have to go out and BUY those plastic trinkets.  No thanks.  So I decided to Waldorf it up.

First, in true Waldorf form, I involved the kids.  We've been studying Fall, especially with Lissy for preschool.  So I asked the kids to review the colors of Fall to me.  We wrote them down and then each child chose a color they wanted to dye their rice.  Logan chose orange, Kian chose yellow, and Felicity chose purple.  Then they dyed their rice (in a not so Waldorf manner, baby steps).

Here's Kian rolling his jar of rice on the carpet, to evenly spread the color.

After the rice dried, I put it in broiling pans I'd bought for Kian and Lissy.  I'd like to have nicer boxes, but I'm just glad they're not plastic.  :)

Then came the fun part.  I threw in a few handfuls of acorns and acorn caps the kids had gathered that day on our nature walk. I also added dried corn kernels we harvested from our yard.  I sent Lissy out to the backyard to find Fall leaves, and those were added too.  I had bought some Indian corn at the store the other day, so I put one in each box.  A spoon, a small cup, and a clothes pin and the boxes were done!

Our Fall sensory box!

Felicity and Kian had so much fun and this kept them busy long enough for Logan and I to really get some work done.  Then after this seat work, they were ready to go outside and swing awhile, again allowing us more work time.  These two have been bickering a lot lately, so this was a VERY wonderful addition to our homeschooling day, especially since the kids helped with every step of the creative process.

Felicity wanted to add her beloved "Bible Men" to her sensory tub.  In sticking with the Fall theme, I asked her to just add the Bible Men who were dressed in Fall colors.

She was a bit sad that the Pink family were not included.

They'll get their chance in the Spring.  :)

Meet Twoey

Kian's new buddy.

"Baby Twoey" got his name because we were teaching Kian to answer "two" when asked how old he is.  When I asked him what his baby's name was, he responded "two"!  :)  "Two" turned into "Twoey", making it a little less confusing.  And so, here's Baby Twoey.

His hair is a bit out of control.  There's a lot of yarn on that little head.  It looks great here, but Kian has a tendency of carrying Twoey around by his hair which pulls that mop straight up, where it stays in a large poof.  Poor Twoey looks electrocuted half the time.  I'm trying to fix this, but my attempts have  been futile.  I think I'll just accept that its just part of what makes Twoey, Twoey.

Here's Twoey's fancy upcycled pants.  They're made from pants which used to be my Nana's.

And a matching pair for Kian.  They look a bit weird on him with his cloth diaper.  I think the problem is the bulge of the cloth plus the straight long pockets.  The cloth diaper puffs those nice, long, straight pockets out in a funny way.  BUT...that may be remedied soon.  Potty training begins next week.  Wish me luck.  He's beyond ready.

Birthday Party Day

We have pretty simple parties for our kids.  We don't rent a bounce house, or hire a caterer, or have pony rides.  But we DO celebrate!  Each child usually has two small parties as we've learned it just works better for us to have a buddy party separate from the extended family party.  And then, our favorite part of birthdays, is that we take off, just the 5 of us, and go camping for a weekend in honor of that child's birthday.  Our kids have come to associate birthdays with camping and I think they look forward to it maybe even more than the gifts......maybe.  :) 

So today was my sweet Lissy's friend party.  I have two amazing friends who are sent from God alone, I'm quite sure.  They have blessed my life in ways words would never explain.  We have walked this mothering road together nearly from day one.  We each have 3 kids and they're all quite the little gang.  I think they know nothing different than having each other around for important occasions.  I love celebrating with them because I know these friends of mine truly DO celebrate my child.   They love my kids deeply and love celebrating their life along side me.  What a blessing.  So here's some pics from our day celebrating with true friends.

We had lunch, opened some special gifts, the kids decorated their own cupcakes, and of course there was lots of playing...and yelling...and running....and chasing....and wrestling....and somersaulting...and squealing....and jumping....just as there should be.

I never decorate much for parties, but this time I decided to go through all the pictures that i have shoved in drawers, and pull out my favorites of Felicity.  I hung them by ribbon all over and it was so fun to SEE these pictures that I never seem to look back on.  And it was so neat to sit at the table with my two friends, looking up at all the pictures hanging from our light, recalling where we were and what was going on in each one.  And you know what?  A lot of the pictures were taken on outings with those two friends and their kids.  And I realized again how blessed I was to have friends who can look at pictures of my baby girl and smile and say, "remember when?!".

I don't want to focus on the gifts materialistically, but I CAN'T help but show you what my dear friends made for Lissy, just because of all the handmade love poured into them.  E, the only "in the flesh" Waldorf Mama friend I have, made her this rainbow basket!!!

Inside were rainbow number bean bags for school, all with a little matching fairy!

We've misplaced the pink one.

Lissy likes to turn the bean bags over and put all her little fairies down for naps.

Also in the basket were these two clothes pin dolls! 

And a sweet bed for them to share, just like Mary and Laura.

C, my bunting extraordinaire friend, made Lissy this sweet little pouch.

And what was in it?

Dress up jewelry!

  Oh, and there's misplaced pink fairy.  :)

My friends sure know my girl well!

And yes, Felicity DID wear her birthday jumper, and was excited about it, but as soon as that jewelry came out, a fancier dress was deemed needed to go along with the fancy "marry" jewelry.  :)

We had a great day celebrating Felicity!