look what the solstice faeries left!!!

Our Newest Additions!!

This year the solstice faeries left DOLLS! The boys love them & have been taking care of them nicely!! I need to get some better pictures of them, but here they are! I plan on posting more about our winter solstice activities, but for now I just wanted to share these sweet dolls!

I custom ordered them from Duck Duck Goose Toys, check out her little shop on etsy! They are perfect and she went way out of her way to get them to me by the Solstice!!!

Now I need to get busy making some doll clothes!!!

O Christmas Tree

Oh, HI!! I haven't posted in a while! I really miss blogging, I take so many more picture when I do and I love looking back at what we did in previous years. So I need to catch up a little!

We went to Johnson Tree Farm, a beautiful local tree farm. We could have spent the day there (or moved in)! We hiked around and cut down our tree, played on the slide, playhouse, and vintage tractors, bought things from their wonderful gift shop, checked out the goats and chickens, and the owner was super nice! I didn't take many pictures, but there are a few-

Johnson Tree Farm will definitely be a yearly tradition for us:)

so much to do, so little time:)

I have been busy and our schedule has shuffled quite a bit lately. I have been watching other children on and off since Kylan was a year old to try and make a little money from home. I haven't had much regular work for a while. Now I watch a 3yo girl 2 mornings a week, I have several 'on call' families and more often do 'nights out' for parents. Starting next month I will be watching 2 children 3-5 days a week as well.

In addition I have started cleaning houses and have 2 accounts:) I don't mind cleaning and it's always funner to clean other peoples houses! I even get to help one family de-clutter and re-organize which I LOVE! and best of all I get paid for it!!!!

I finally have a very clear picture of our monthly budget and track everything. I am very motivated to get some necessary stuff done on our house which we could not afford if I were not making money. So, I'm feeling very optimistic, but also hoping the job I start next month works out.

Meanwhile, I also am trying to do the normal cook, clean, crafts at my own house. In some ways I feel more motivated the busier I am. I'm hoping to find time to blog a little later this week.

Tomorrow is the first day of Autumn! We made apple gingerbread this morning and read autumn books. I have a couple things planned for tomorrow to celebrate. Did I mention I want another baby? now. But we need to wait a year for logical, practical reasons...but I don't wannna, waaa. But I know I need to. Ok, I'm off, many blessings to everyone and have a happy first day of fall!!!!

quick picnic

The other day our plans fell through at the last minute and Kylan really wanted to go somewhere (he always does), so we went for a very last minute picnic at a beautiful park about 10 minutes away from us. I think we will be doing this more often;)

Hope you are enjoying the last week of summer!

*many blessings*

1st day of homeschool

Our first day of pre-k 'home school'!! (Waldorf is non-academic before 1st grade, so it's more like a loosely organized preschool plan) I changed my mind on this weeks theme at the last minute. Since we are going to the Ohlone Day festival this weekend, I thought it would be fun to do some native American tales. I found a book with 3 animal tales from the Indian of this area that were very age appropriate for him and not too long. Kylan loved the first one we read! We did our first circle time (more on that later) and read one tale, then drew from the story. Kylan was so eager and really liked the tale. He will love the festival, can't wait to go!

In the background is my first try at chalk board drawing. I will change it every week or two to go along with our theme or the season. I really can't draw at this point, but I'm eager to learn too!

Don't know why, but these would only load sideways!? We both drew from the story (birds on a tiny mountain top during a flood) The top one is mine, it was so cute that he tried to draw the same, I was a little surprised! His is so cute:)

Geoff made 3 chalkboards with large frames we had in storage. We put one down low in our living room so the boys could draw on it:)

Tomorrow we will read the second story and bake cornbread and maybe '3 sisters harvest stew':)

messy garden goodness

The garden is doing well. It's hard to photo since I planted everything mixed up and way too close together. Now I know why farmers plant in rows! It's just a mess and some areas are hard to get too. Still, I had to get all my starts in the ground, so here they are! I'm glad we've had some warmer day, the tomatoes have finally ripened:)

I started these little pansies from seed and they make me so happy every time I see them:)

Blackberries are still here! Usually they are done by the 3rd week of August, but I guess the mild summer has kept them going. We've picked about 30lbs just from our yard! Yum!

I recently planted some fall/winter veggies, but have much more garden work to do!

How does your garden grow?

planning

So I've been planning for our first year homeschooling. Kylan will have kindergarten this year and next year, so this is kind of a test run. He will be 5 in November. Waldorf education does not start academics until 1st grade, so it will be somewhat like a preschool. Circle time, crafts, art, lots of seasonal activities.

Basically we will have a weekly theme (or book) and 3 days of planned activities around that theme, for instance one week next month will be about apples.

Day 1- read books about apples/fall, paint apples

Day 2- visit a u-pick apple orchard

Day 3- Bake with apples and make apple butter

So here are our themes for the fall-

Sept.

week 1 Harvest

week 2 apples

week 3 autumn

week 4 autumn equinox

Oct

week 1 monarch butterflies

week 2 pumpkins

week3 leaves

week 4 Halloween

Nov

week 1 Lono and Cocoa Boata

week 2 cont.

week 3 light (candles)

week 4 Thanksgiving

Dec.

week 1 trees

week2 rain

week 3 winter solstice

week4 Christmas

week 5 off

I am planning on writing a more detailed schedule monthly, but this is the basic plan.

I have been finding crafts and books with the fall theme and it's made me think about planning for fall in other areas of our lives. We tend to do everything last minute...like buy firewood during the first big storm and have to run out and get a new tarp, etc. So writing a basic yearly schedule for our household is another thing on the agenda. I do love writing list. Not always so good at getting things done, but G is!

We are currently decluttering and deep cleaning, it's just that time of year isn't it!? I think another little juice fast is in order as well. Clean it out!

Are you (or someone you know of) planning on blogging about kindergarten homeschooling? Please let me know if you are so I can follow your blog, thanks!!

my birthday

A few pictures from my birthday weekend (in July). We went camping in Big Sur and spent my birthday on my favorite beach...

32!


My boys in one of the many driftwood structures on the beach:)

Everest started yelling "a snake, a snake", I thought he was being silly, but finally saw this centipede (or millipede, idk) in the sand. Not exactly a snake. Although we did see a big snake on the 1 mile hike back to our car, G almost stepped on it, but I didn't get a picture...

*good times*

lately

Well, I can't get any pictures to load! I haven't posted in a while, the summer feels so busy, but in a good way! So, what have we been up to lately?

The garden- Our black hollyhock finally bloomed! Kylan started it from seed 2 summers ago, it's 'his' hollyhock, and we were both so excited, I'll post a picture once I can. It's really more dark purple, but it's so pretty! Harvested lots of zucchini, cucumbers, cabbage, garlic, onion, lettuce, chard, peas, bean, strawberries, blackberries. We harvested our first little batch of corn. Our winter squash is doing great!! We planted sugar pie pumpkins, spaghetti squash and kuri (sp?) squash. Lots of green tomatoes, but still impatiently waiting:)

The chickens- Well Sukey ended up being a rooster:( I wish we could have kept him, but Geoff dropped him off at a small farm this morning. So we have 4 hens, their coop and yard is built, but needs some finishing work, I'll post pictures later.

The Kids- Kylan got his own room. Basically. Its a small 7' by 9' room that was their playroom. He loves it and spends a lot of time in there although he still sleeps with us, which is fine, but when he's ready he has his own little space:) Evie would be doing great if he would just quit falling and bumping his head!

In the kitchen-I've been cooking like crazy! I did a 10 day juice fast last month, I was hoping to do it longer, but after a few unexpected expenses came up our budget it super tight. When ever we are this short on money I go into a cooking cooking frenzy. I just want to have plenty of food made so we won't spend money out!! So I've been baking our bread, making tortillas, homemade granola, black bean veggie burgers...I've had no problem using up all our zucchini...souffles, egg bakes, grated in sauces, grated in bean tacos, blackberry zucchini muffins, chocolate chip zucchini muffins... with cucumbers I make 'quick pickles' and yogurt cucumber dip. I made my first batch of kimchi, coleslaw, sauerkraut, cabbage pockets. Yay for garden veggies.
We also have been picking lots of blackberries...we picked 6lbs this morning in our yard! yay for free wild food, now I just need to learn how to mushroom hunt!

Canning- I made melon marmalade a couple weeks ago with...crazy good! I used cantaloupe , oranges, and lemons. Today, it was sooo cool in the morning all I wanted to do is can and bake, so I made blackberry jam and tropical marmalade (pineapple, orange, lemon). That's all I've canned so far, but my stash of empty canning jars is motivating me to take advantage of these cooler days and fill 'em up!

Crafts- Yeah, not so much these days. I'm trying to knit a baby blanket here and there. Want to do more!


This is a lot of text with no pictures. Other news, I've been thinking a lot about planning Kylans first year of home school kindergarten, I plan on starting next month. More about that later...

Beautiful blessings to you all! Enjoy the day!

berry season

Ahhhh, berry season, my favorite! I'm just waiting for the wild blackberries around our property to ripen...yum! We recently went berry picking with a playgroup at Swanton Berry Farm . If you are ever on the coast north of Santa Cruz, please go there. I didn't get pictures of there farm stand, but we go there often. Its a sweet set-up. Lots of homemade treats and coffee, tables, chairs, couches, wooden toys, old school wooden games and books. Outside of the farm stand they usually have some kind of play area with hay bales set up. The staff is great and I recently bought 3 jam flats of berries for cheap:) Organic of coarse! We LOVE it there.

We had never picked there before, but we picked strawberries and olallieberries. It was so beautiful, a perfect cool coastal farm. The boys had so much fun! Sorry the pictures arn't too great. It seems that if I take less then 500 pictures of the same thing I don't get great ones:)

serious berry picker

strawberry fields

now that's how to plant strawberries!

Bugs keep eating mine, I think we will have to make some raised rows and transplant ours!

I do wish I could find a blueberry farm around here:( No wonder they cost so much!

I made a small batch of strawberry jam last week. I have been freezing them as I get them, so I'm hoping to get them all canned up in the next week or so:)

Happy berrying!

Evie turned 2!

My sweet little Everest turned two years old on June 7th.
Your life started with a beautiful and quick home birth in a birthing tub.

You were an easy, mellow, agreeable baby.

Learned to keep up with your brother quickly.
An early riser, you seem to love 5am, and as tired and worn out as I may feel,

your face is always like a beaming ray of sunlight,

bright and beautiful,

ready to meet the day.

Through sleepy eyes I always smile and am lifted by your brightness.

Much stronger willed these days, I will never forget the fit the you threw because you

"want to ride a dolphin"

Beautiful boy, thank you for choosing me as your mommy.

in the garden...

planted a bit of everything...

*foxglove*
started by seed 3 years ago! I LOVE foxglove!!

*blackberries flowering*

They are native and grow all over the place here!


*cherries*
We have 5 little cherry trees that we've planted in the past couple years, three of them are fruiting, probably enough for a pie:)

*strawberries*

The kids just love to pick them!

(a little too much)

-

*happy weekend!*

chickens!

We have been wanting chickens (for eggs) for a long time and we finally got them! They are playing outside in there 'chicken yard'. My sweet husband is working on a coop, but it will be a couple weeks before it is done. The boys love watching them! Their names are Bella, Hazel, Sukey, Pixie, and Bramble:) Yay!

'disposable'

Have you read about the Pacific garbage patch, or the wonders of BPA, the estrogen mimicking plastic additive found is 93% of Americans ?

After reading Farmamas Blog about how she stopped using and buying plastic items “cold turkey” it really got me thinking. I find it fascinating, but as I look around I wonder *how*? We rarely fill our small trash can but pretty much always fill our large ‘recycling” can. So much of what we buy comes in containers we throw away. These “disposable” containers took energy, resources, markets... they were transported to the warehouse where they were filled so they could be transported again to a distributor, then to the market, then to me…

It’s much easier to not think of these things and comfortably go on with life. I am finding more and more that everything has it’s price and it’s not often reflected on the price tag. Convenience especially has a price and it really is something that should be weighed. There are some wonderful convinces that I do not want to live without, that I am grateful for…like a refrigerator!

I am noticing all the almond/rice milk containers, hummus and yogurt tubs, coffee containers, plastic wrap, cardboard, etc that fills our recycling can & it makes me wonder if its worth it. What a complete waste. There are things I can and should make myself….almond milk, crackers, granola to name a few. I found a local woman who has milk goats (for 4-H) and in July I am going to get fresh goat milk a try, mainly to make yogurt and cheese for my children. But what about everything else??

All I know is I am going to make baby steps in the right direction. There is a better way, a path I can see and I am ready to start hiking!!! So let me come clean... I used cloth diapers the first year with Everest and then switched to disposable, no, not even the "eco" disposable, but the crap from Costco. That's right!?! Trying to live within our budget, I have done a few things I am not happy about and it stops now. I have bought my last box of Huggies (sorry Huggies, even though I won a $250 gift card from you), so I need to figure out the best options in many areas of life. It's hard to find a balance at times!

I love this quote-
"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself....to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon the creator.....contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste."

Chief Seattle, 1854, responding to a U.S. government offer to buy "Indian" land.
　
I also have enjoyed reading heirloom seasons blog and the changes she has made, as well as the other participants of the ‘one small step project’.

*blessings*

WIP Wednesday!!

It's been a while since I've posted on WIP (work-in-progress) Wednesday!

*

I don't know why this picture would only load sideways?? It a super soft blanket for a friend who is due with a baby boy in about a month! I made it with this inexpensive cotton boucle yarn from Knit Picks, called Crayon, and I LOVE it! I was a little apprehensive about ordering cheap yarn without seeing and feeling it first, but it's what the original pattern called for. I love working with the yarn and I'm going to be ordering more!

Kylan told me he wanted to give Everest a knit snake for his 2nd birthday (in June). The finished snake I knit a couple years ago for Kylan:)

I finished Kylans sweater vest, he loves it! He wore it today and kept telling people 'look at my sweater vest, my mommy made it" it was too cute!!!

So that's it for now. I've been dreaming of getting my sewing machine out, but I don't have a great place to set it up & that makes it easy to keep dreaming about...

muddy days

The weather has been perfect...sunny for a few days, rainy for a few days, more sun, more rain...the garden is very happy and most my seedlings want to go in the ground! If all goes well we should have a few more garden beds built this week! Our yard has been quite muddy! Fun, messy, lots of laundry, but fun:)

One of the new beds, really just an effort to make a flat contained area. The metal and wood are all reused from structures we took down on our property. I transplanted some starts and started some areas by seed. It's been up for a few weeks so it looks different now.

G's been working on a little fort with a slide:) I'll get some better pictures when he's done...

We had a few days in the 80's and I could feel summer in the air! We even had our first veggie BBQ for the year and dinned outside. It feels like we have so much going on and I have too many thoughts and to-do list in my head! I am trying again to get into the habit of stretching and meditating at night before bed! So one more post & off I go-

*Blessings*

Happy Easter/Ostara...

Hope you had a beautiful holiday!

*blessings*