Our Advent...

 

I have felt a little crazed this Advent season.  My etsy shop, MamaWestWind, has been buzzing and I have been crafting away, staying up too late & pushing myself perhaps a little too hard.  Ah, but every evening our bed time routine brings me back to peace.  This year we've added a few things to our Advent traditions.  The above paper advent calendar from, A Child's Dream is just beautiful. 

Every evening the boys take turns opening a window.  The drawings are just exquisite.  The boys ooh and ahh over the delicate little pictures.  

The angel descends her star ladder one star every night as we count down the days until Christmas.  

The stable awaits Mary & Joesph. Our little blue advent candle will be lit on Christmas eve.  This year we are reading, "Mary's Little Donkey and the Escape to Egypt", by Gunhild Sehlin.  It's such a beautiful book about Mary & Joesph and their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and their escape to Egypt.  This book is truly bringing the story alive for us.  It's told so sweetly from the perspective of Mary's donkey and the animals around them.  Each night both the boys listen intently to one chapter.  For Owen this is a major deal as he usually walks around and leaves to play while we're reading anything long or with few pictures.

 

Mary and Joseph are traveling from our kitchen towards the stable.  Each night they move a little closer.

We made this beeswax nativity last year after seeing it on Small Things blog.  I love, love, love this nativity.  So beautiful and smells so wonderful.  It resides on the nature table.

So what are your favorite Advent traditions?  I would love to hear about them.  

Until next time...

Homefire Retreat Getaway

Lately, I've been hard at work preparing for my upcoming toy making workshop. We will be making these leaf sprite bendy dolls.  The work shop will be held this Sunday at the Homefire Retreat, given by Radical Homemakers of New Mexico in Santa Fe.  I'm so happy to be presenting but even more thrilled to be attending the other workshops. Workshops such as The Garden in Winter, Autumn in the Kitchen, & Celebrating the Light with Story, Song, and Verse.  

My husband and I honeymooned in Santa Fe, so we decided to make it a weekend getaway.  The kids will be staying with our good friends and we will have ourselves a weekend away!  We'll have 2 nights, and a day together to explore Santa Fe.  Then while I'm at the retreat my husband will be checking out the famous Canyon Road galleries.  We haven't done anything like this since Michael was born (almost 9 years ago) so we're pretty excited!  The boys are excited too, they have been counting the days until their weekend sleepover.

I can't wait to share toy making with this group and learn more about Radical Homemaking.

Until next time...

Pumpkins, pumpkins on the vine...

"Pumpkins, pumpkins on the vine.  Growing big, taking their time..." This is a line form one of our favorite Autumn poems.  Autumn circle time is my favorite of the year, perhaps because Autumn is my favorite season. 

This year was the first year we've grown pumpkins. 



We planted Sugar Pie pumpkins and so far we have three pumpkins to make in to something yummy!  Now the vines are looking really spent so we may not have too many more to harvest.

We recently found this book and are loving it.  It's a factual book about the life cycle of pumpkins.  I've been busy collecting some yummy, Vegan, pumpkin related recipes on Pinterest.  What to try first?

How are you celebrating the season? 

Easter Morning...

 

 

We had a fun Easter morn, well after a while.  Michael woke up at about five in the morning trying to see if the Easter bunny had come yet.  Since it was still dark I told him to go back to bed!  By some miracle he actually did.  Then later he woke me up crying to say that the Easter bunny had forgotten him. You see the Easter bunny decided that since Michael is 8 he could look a little harder for his basket this year.  The Easter bunny put Owen's basket on his dining room chair and Michael's inside the dining room cabinet with the door ajar.  When Michael didn't find his he assumed the worst!  I told him we should make a thorough search before assuming such a thing.  All was well after he found it!

It's our tradition to have a foiled chocolate Easter egg hunt and so as soon as they woke up they started snitching them.  Especially Owen who was just beyond thrilled!  We laughed over the funny places the Easter bunny had chosen.  All day long they were spying eggs that they had not found earlier.

In addition to chocolate and a couple small toys they each found a special book beneath their basket, The Story of the Rabbit Children and The Story of King Lion both by Sibylle von Olfers.  Owen has gotten quite a kick out of all the interesting foods that the animals bring King Lion. They also found a fun new toy, the beautiful bunny play set featured above.  I've been eying Eve's Little Earthlings etsy shop for awhile now and was thrilled to win this set in a giveaway!  Her work does not disappoint,  this toy is made so beautifully. Little bunny is stuffed so solidly that it has a pleasing weight to it.  And her sewing is so artful and detailed right down to the leaves and moss that decorates the bag.  Both the boys were thrilled and added the two felt bunnies we made last year to make a family. 

For breakfast we had boiled eggs and ham of course, along with some yummy half wheat cinnamon rolls.  I have a large roll recipe and so I make dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls out of the same bread batter.  For our dinner rolls I thought it would be fun to make these bunny shaped rolls.  Well, pulling them out of the oven after baking I thought hmmm, what a transformation!  My cute bunny rolls had turned into little half Venus of Willendorfs.  She had "risen"! Wouldn't these be great rolls to make for a blessing way?!  My boys didn't notice but me and my husband thought it was pretty funny!  I'm thinking if I want to try bunny rolls next year I'll use a much softer dough.  Well, that was our Easter.  Did you celebrate Easter?  How was it?  

Until next time...

The book, Making Peg Dolls, & GIVEAWAY!

A few months ago I found a lovely book in my mailbox! Making Peg Dolls by Margaret Bloom, is such a beautiful and comprehensive book.  There are 192 pages and patterns for over 60 different dolls all with step by step instructions. The dolls and instructions are simple and fun for children and adults alike. 

Michael was super excited about the book!  We all loved the doodle page where you can draw your peg designs. 

Of course we had to make the Valentine dolls!  We decided to add some little paper & fabric collage items we have on hand as well. 

We glued a note to one that says, "best buddy" for Michael's good friend.  I really love Owen's solid red peg doll.  He wanted no eyes, no face, no heart, nothing on it!  Cuteness.  Michael was very proud of his girl with a hat.  The hat is a covered buttonhole from a felted sweater. Michael wanted me to draw the eyes. 

And here's my little Valentine peg. I added a beeswax finish to her.

This book is now available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Waldorf books, etc. In my humble opinion it's a must have and yay, I have a book to give away!!!  Please simply leave a comment to enter & make sure I have a way to reach you.  The giveaway will be open until next Tuesday the 19th of February, 2013.  Comments are closed.


Don't forget to "like" Making Peg Dolls on facebook.

(Pictures of Making Peg Dolls cover and dolls used with permission.)

Also, if you don't already know Margaret Bloom's lovely blog, We Bloom Here, go visit her as well. She is having a giveaway of some of her original peg dolls, these adorable little Love Bugs featured above.  You have only until noon today to enter that one!  Don't miss out!

There are still a few more stops on the Making Peg Dolls blog tour.  Be sure to follow!

February 4th:  The Crafty Crow
February 5th:  The Magic Onions
February 6th:  The Toymaker
February 7th:  Clean
February 8th:  Anna Branford
February 11th:  Red Bird Crafts
February 12th:  Art is a Way
February 13th:  Softearth's World
February 14th:  Chocolate Eyes
February 15th:  Rhythm and Rhyme
February 18th:  Wild Faerie Caps
February 19th:  Sacred Dirt

And finally, if you haven't seen the book trailer, check this out.  Peg doll cuteness, I can hardly stand it, how about you?

Until next time...

The Winter Book Basket

Our Winter book basket has come out of hiding.  I love putting away seasonal books because when we get them out, it becomes so exciting to see and read them all over again. Here are some of our favorites and even one I don't recommend. 

 

Peter and Lotta's Christmas by Elsa Beskow is a favorite.  I found this last year in our local used book store. I nearly did a flip and screamed out loud when I found it.  We do not live in a Waldorf community. Few that I've met have even heard of Waldorf so I was quite surprised to find this book. Nor have I found an Elsa Beskow book since, and you know I'm looking!  Christmas in Noisy Village is a new favorite of ours though this book is very old.  We found it at a local book swap for free and love it!

The Story of the Snow Children is one of Owen's favorites.  He seems to especially love the Sibylle Von Olfers books we have.  We love the quiet beauty and rhythm of The Tomten & The Tomten and the Fox books.  In my opinion they are must haves! 

The above smaller two books, The Night Before Christmas & The Gingerbread Man are classics and were mine and my brother's books when we were kids. My boys love them as much as I did.  Country Christmas is a book I don't recommend.  Though I love it!  Why you ask? 

Because it's horribly written and the illustrations are bad too but it's a scratch and sniff book!  Remember those!  And it still smells!  My Mom found it for 25 cents.  I love it because I'm quirky that way and how could Christmas be Christmas without a scratch and sniff ham I ask you?  My boys will take it or leave it.

These are some lovely books that tell the Christmas story.  Who is Coming to Our House is told from the point of view of the animals in the stable.  It's a sweet book and perfect for toddlers.  Santa's favorite Story is about Santa telling the woodland animals all about the first Christmas. My favorite line from this book is, "No, no, no" said Santa in a kindly voice, "Christmas hasn't got anything to do with me." Another favorite is This is the Stable.  The words have a beautiful rhythm and the illustrations are so magical.

I love the ethereal wings that just seem to hug the stable. 

There are many other favorites including all of the Jan Brett winter books, especially those about trolls!  We usually find a few Winter books under the tree on Christmas morning.  I hope to find Ollie's Ski Trip by Elsa Beskow and Winter by Gerda Muller.

What are your family's favorite winter books? 

Martinmas Lanterns

Martinmas has become very dear to me.  I love the act of kindness at the heart of this festival.  This year in addition to telling the story of Saint Martin I also told another story after circle time for both boys but especially for my littlest one. We also had a guest yesterday, a friend of ours who is four years old.  Last time he was with us he LOVED circle time, so even though it was Friday and we normally don't do any school activities, we did circle time and story time for him.  Circle time always seems to be a bit more magical when he joins us, we like the larger group dynamic & sharing the magic of Waldorf with him.  The story I told is from this post at Joyful Toddlers, called "A Story of Autumn Light".  Such a sweet story for little ones and a beautiful & simple way to explain the darkness this time of year.  My favorite line in the story is "...we can keep ourselves and others warm by doing acts of kindness, to warm our hearts.” 

We also made horseshoe Martinmas cookies from the recipe at Raising Little Shoots.  The boys loved them, although they invoked the same sugar cookie cut out frustration for me, lol! (You can read about my history with cut out cookies here.)

We made our lanterns from the instructions in All Year Round. Out of all my Waldorf books, I think this one is my favorite. It has instructions for every Waldorf craft I can think of.  I often wonder why I even bother with Pinterest when I have all the instructions to these projects sitting on my bookshelf!  We made the lovely circular lanterns from stiff watercolor paintings they painted just for Martinmas.  Then I cut out stars and moons and suns and we glued kite paper onto the cut out shapes.  I couldn't help making the 5 sided lantern as well.  I chose a gnome picture (pg 264)  at the back of the book to decorate it with.  I enlarged the image to 120% and then cut through the copy and watercolor paper with an exacto knife.  If you do this make sure you have very sharp exacto blades, mine could have been sharper.  I love how it came out though.  We glued the blue cut out gnome to Michael's lantern and he's thrilled he has a gnome too. 

I love how the lanterns brighten up our dark evenings this time of year.  Tomorrow we will head out at dark for our lantern walk and hopefully be joined by our friends as well.

How will you be celebrating Martinmas? 

Until next time...

a quiz for you...

What book did this piece of wood remind my son of?  If you love a certain children's book author you may know.

Check out my book review of one of our newest favorites at Natural Kids Blog.  Oh and leave a comment with your guess here. 

Until next time...

Tiptoes Tales & House...

We LOVE the Tiptoes Lightly series of books by Reg Down.  Last year was our first year reading them beginning with The Festival of Stones.  We loved following Tiptoes, the fairy, & Pine Cone & Pepper Pot, the gnomes, through all the fall & winter festivals.  Michael was so thrilled to be clebrating the same festivals as our favorite charachters in the book.  

We still have a couple of Tiptoes books to collect, that's why I was super excited to win a Tiptoes book of our choice from Reg Down himself at Life as a Schoolhouse blog!

We chose The Magic Knot & Other Tangles & were thrilled to see he had signed and drew a picture of the gnomes Pine Cone & Pepper Pot.  This book is indeed a comedy, we laughed out loud throughout. Michael's favorite part was when the gnomes were trying to get Tiptoes' birthday present into her acorn house at the top of the oak tree.  Owen, who often runs around & plays during our evening story became very interested when a certain character thought a snake was invading his home.  Now Owen is excited about Tiptoes as well and he loves her house.

My dear friend Mari gave us this fun idea.  We found a wooden acorn ornament at our hobby store.

And I wood-burned Tiptoes' door and two windows onto it.  It now hangs over our nature table with a felt oak leaf. Simple & fun.

Thank you so much to Reg Down for our book and to Lacey at Life as a Schoolhouse blog for hosting the giveaway! 

Until next time...