Summer Solstice

Summer sun, summer sun we watch as you set Sending your long arms of light to the west Summer sun, summer sun you shine so bright As you begin your return to the night
-from Circle Round

We began the day with a sunrise on the beach. It was so magical and we saw 2 loggerhead turtle nests!


When we came back home we baked sun cupcakes with a sprinkle of darkness (chocolate chips) I got a great idea from the Circle Round book. The girls made time capsules with items like a letter to themselves, the top 10 things they love, pictures etc. to be opened next summer solstice. They loved this! They spent all afternoon working on it and even decorated the shoe boxes with suns. We also planted sunflower seeds saved from our sunflowers from last year.

Our day ended with a bonfire using our winter solstice Christmas tree. We did the turning dance around the fire and let go of any things we wanted to release (for hubby and me).
Magical day.

Spring Celebrations

We had a wonderful 1st Day of Spring. The weather was wonderful and we were able to
enjoy the day. We started with a Spring Poem.

Last year we saved pepper seeds from our garden, so we planted them today in our eco-pots. Still a bit cold here, we can bring them in if the nights get below 40.


Then, we picked our young lettuce from the garden for a spring salad. The girls went searching throughout the yard for other 'edibles' they could add... dandelions, mint, herbs, and viola flowers were selected.
Lily even went a step further and made her own salad dressing from water and herbs!

Lovely Day :)

Candlemas

We had a lovely time making our own candles this year. As we had just finished talking about time, seasons and calendars, it was perfect for discussing Ground Hog day, coming of spring and how people in pasttimes used candles in their lives.


A few notes on candlemaking* get all supplies ahead of time and read instructions carefully. I found a nice library book called "Basic Candle Making" that was very helpful and had a lot of pictures. This is a long process that cannot be rushed and you can't stop in the middle. Give 3 hours or more.

Here we heated the beeswax until it melted in our make-shift double boiler.

 I stared the candle by dipping each wick for 1 minute in the hot wax. It made the wick stiff when it cooled. Then it was an "assembly-line" production. The girls each dipped and I would get the kinks out by running my finger down each candle to straighten it.

After about 10 dips they began to look a bit like candles. We made our own drying rack out of 2 chairs, a broom handle and a garden stake! The tiny ones on the garden stake became our birthday candles. So cute!

We ended up really needing more wax, because when they got to this point the wax was too low in our dipping can, that it made fat candles on the bottom and thin on top. But, we love them!  We finished by rubbing them slightly on some waxed paper and trimming the bottoms.

We are wrapping and giving them as Valentine's Day presents..
*note* we used a large Bushs Baked bean can to melt our wax in and it worked great. The only expense was for the beeswax blocks (much cheaper than the pellets and can be cut with a sharp knife) and the wicks.

Three Kings Day

We had such a wonderful day last week, I wanted to share.

I started by reading the story of Babushka from Family, Food & Friends. Then we made our Three Kings cake (gingerbread this year!) I strung up the 12 stars to represent the 12 Days of Christmas, as this is the 12th Day.  We sang the song of Babushka (Sing a Song of the Seasons) and I cut the cake into 4 yummy slices. Each of us chose a slice and Lily got the coin!









She is King for the Day.






On Saturday, we celebrated a Family Day by going to a quaint cafe and having a hot chocolate with  roasted marshmallows (toasted in front of us!) and then we went bowling!

Holiday Memories

I have been so busy this holiday season with normal busy stuff and also planning our my business for 2011, so I thought I would just put up 1 post that will "catch up" the past month!
I am dedicated to more frequent posts next year ;)

Hope you all had a wonderful season and are looking to the new year for joy and inspiration for all your dreams!

 Thanksgiving at grandmas


Celebrating Advent

 The Tree

 Making homespun gifts, the girls really did well sewing on my machine.

 Lily snapped this one of me knitting a cowl (while working at my desk)

 Here was the finished product. My first attempt at circular needle knitting. I am making more!

 The Family Holiday card

 Night of a Thousand Candles at Brookgreen Gardens

 Brooke lighting a candle at our Winter Solstice Festival

 Baking Day with Grandma

 Winter Solstice Table

 Snow!!

Winter Festivals

Did you know that Advent starts this Sunday? The winter festival season will be in full swing in just days. Are you prepared?  Thinking back over the past few years, I have learned so much about the true meaning of this "season". This is what I love about Waldorf, it has turned out 1-day big-bang into 6 weeks of gentle, thoughtful giving, celebrating and creating.

We start by making our Advent wreath. I use the same grapevine wreath each yr and we add greenery from around the yard. I found a 5-candle holder in black iron that we will slip into the center and add candles. Each week we add the corresponding mineral, plant, animal, etc.. and lit the 1st, 2nd, third candle counting down to Christmas Eve.

My favorite part of this breathing in season, is the Winter Solstice. We do our spiral on that night complete with greenery, apples and candles. We have dinner by candlelight and the kids adore it! They talk about it all year..
To hear more about these wonderful festivals and to get stories, ideas, verses and more check out my newly released workshop & guide- "Winter Festivals Made Easy"
It includes history and ideas about:  Advent, St. Nicholas, St. Lucia, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice and Christmas. Waldorf teacher Anne Cleveland from the Santa Cruz Waldorf School is gracious enough to share her wonderful experiences with us!  If you are unsure of what to do or how to do it, she will ease your mind and give you the best tip- creating an inner experience for you and your family.

Blessings to all!

Toothless!

My "baby" finally lost that big front tooth this weekend. I say "baby", but as you know I have twins, so that is impossible. But, she is my smaller less-tooth-loosing sweetie. In fact, her sister lost her front tooth almost 1 1/2 yrs ago!
But, here we are and it was nice to have that time in between, so this seemed like a big deal again.

We had a very busy weekend with visits from the ToothFairy and the Sugar Sprites (did you leave out your candy??) As well as Halloween activities and it is also mu husbands Birthday!  Yikes!

A Fortune Teller and a Fairy set out on the candy hunt.

"Mrs. Applebee"  made an appearance and went trick-or-treating last night at the girls requests. She brought her pencil and ruler and used her "school marm" charm to keep the kids in line. LOL


 Happy Birthday sweetie!

Michaelmas

Our festival this year was extended due to 5 days of rain.  We spent a rainy day telling a lovely story by Christine Natale from her "Fairy Tales" book called "The Strong Boy".

 While I told the story, we warmed our beeswax.  Then we each made part of the dragon and fastened him to the candle (by using a hair dryer on low). He came out amazing and honestly,they did most of it.

See the fire coming out of his mouth?  We did add his 4th leg before he went on the candle.

The next day, I told the story of St.George and the Dragon and we made the dragon bread.

Here he is before we baked...

The girls enjoyed decorating his body using raisins for scales and sunflower seeds for teeth and spines.  Last night we had a bonfire, lit our candle and slayed our dragon. He was tasty!

I found a Form Drawing that looked like an eye and we drew our "Dragon Eye" in our main lesson books. What fun!