.: Catch Up :.

Has is really been one month since I last joined you here?  Yikes!  My only excuse is that these days we've got a roaring fire in our wood stove most nights and blogging by the fire is just not nearly as enticing as knitting by the fire.  It's been a month of transitioning out of those glorious autumn days into the long winter nights, celebrating with family, working and playing at our "school", and busily preparing for the holiday season.  

We made our annual trek to Ohio over Thanksgiving to be with Robb's family.  Neva and Frances had a fantastic time with their cousins...

Now we find ourselves in the heart of the Advent:

This past Friday we celebrated St. Nicholas day...a sweet and simple celebration I really enjoy and endorse! In keeping with tradition, the girls set out their shoes the night before with some carrots for St. Nicholas' donkey.  

 (Frances looks just thrilled, right?)

In the morning the girls found their shoes packed with a few little treasures...stickers, clementines, a small chocolate and two books (that we already owned but hadn't read in a while)  Talk about keeping it simple!  They also each received a pair of new mittens (Neva pondered, "I guess St. Nicholas knits too, Mama!")  I guess I'll let him take the credit for the sake of a little magic.  Happy Advent!

w e e k e n d i n g

 

Our Frances

 

Our sweet girl, our wild one, who spent the majority of September and October with an enormous bruise on her forehead.  Oh how we love you.

Going on.

Autumn is in all it's glory here in Philadelphia which means for us lots of playing outside, working on our "playschool", knitting, growing, laughing, and savoring. It also means not a lot of blogging.

 (visiting Robb at work at the Morris Arboretum)

 (Sunday afternoon in the backyard...knitting, snacking, squeezing sweet baby feet)

(my little readers!!!)

Since you don't have much to read on this blog lately, why not read this fascinating and important study conducted by the Alliance for Childhood regarding children, education, and play (link below). I'd highly recommend it to anyone with small children or educators. I found it very encouraging! Enjoy!

Crisis in the Kindergarten

Squeeeeeak!

Robb went to town with some WD-40 after dinner tonight...no more squeak!

We've been

It's been a while my friends!  Much working, playing, thinking, eating, learning, reading, digging, discovering, running, jumping, twirling, and loving....just not so much blogging.  Which I think is probably a good thing. So, here's what we've been up to:

  

.: soaking up every last bit of summer we can 

.: cheering Neva on as she is starting to finally get the hang of her tricycle! (She is quite taken with this new sense of freedom.  She likes to direct me, "Mama, you just stay there and I'm going to ride far away from you.)

.: listening with joy at Frances' almost constant "chatter", every now and then we actually recognize a word!

.: making a day trip to the beach last weekend (we saw dolphins are the Jersey Shore y'all! Crazy)

.: taking down every last bit of bamboo on our property (that's really more of a "Robb's been...."  I've been looking at the now empty spot of thinking: chickens) 

.: happily adjusting to our new rhythm of "playschool" twice a week (hopefully I will have a chance to tell   about it some time this week!)

 

.: enduring the tumbles that come with a very adventurous toddler (see second picture below)

.: smelling, hearing, and watching autumn makes its entrance

my "students" Liem, Frances, Neva, and Jubilee.  A pretty sweet bunch.

Sandbox (and the 100th post!)

One of the other highlights of this summer has been our sandbox!  I found the pattern here and thought it was such a sweet and practical design. As you can see in the picture, the cover opens up to form seats, creating a really cozy and happy spot to sit together.  I showed to it my father and, naturally, it arrived about a week later!  He never ceases to amaze me.

We've already had so much fun with it, playing there many times each day.  Thank you so much Popeye!

 

As a side note, perhaps some of you know that we've begun a new rhythm this week in hosting a small Waldorf inspired group here with our dear little friends Jubilee, Liem, and my friend Kristen.  It's a new adventure for us all!  If you're interested, I'll be sharing occasionally here what we're up to!  If you want to read a bit more about Waldorf homeschooling, I recently read this article by Donna Simmons that I thought was a good introduction.