December's Countdown 2019

 

Every year, we do a countdown from December 1 through January 1. (In a row of little infant socks we clip to a string of twinkly lights.) This year, as with all things recently, felt a little different. Both kids wanted to do the countdown, but we didn't do some things we usually do (that were not missed) and did do some special things outside the countdown socks, which I was told were special enough that maybe they should be a countdown again next year.  This was a year of change and growth, but also unexpected occurrences that effected the holidays, so I have made some notes and am curious to see what next year brings.

 

Countdown:

        December

1. Sparkle Stories Advent stories begin!
2. Change the nature table for winter
3. Pull out holiday books
4. Visit the toy store and choose a toy each for a child in need.
5. Think of others today. What can you say to or do for someone that would be especially kind?
6. Do a little holiday shopping. Happy St. Nicholas’ Day! 
7. Pull out Christmas decorations.
8. Build a gingerbread house
9. Treasure hunt! (Find little trees to decorate for your rooms.)
10. Make a card or gift.
11. Decorate wreaths to leave as a surprise for grandparent.
12. Make paper snowflakes 
13. Go to the homeschool make and take fair (We opted not to go so made art at home.)
14. Go see holiday light displays.
15. Get a Christmas tree
16. Treasure hunt! 
17. Choose at least one book to donate, then visit the library book store to choose a book as a gift.
18. Do some holiday baking today.
19. Go to the reuse store and see what you can find to make a gift.
20. Make blessing bags for homeless.
21. Enjoy hot cocoa with a fire in the fireplace. (After seeing a holiday play with Grandma and Nonno.)
22. Hanukkah begins, light the menorah.
23. Make space for new goodies.
24. Neighborhood day; deliver homemade gifts, pick-up trash, and add a book to the little library.
25. Merry Christmas!
26. Choose a candy cane from the tree.
27. Play dreidel.
28. Make latkes and applesauce.
29. Today is to take care of and watch the birds. 
30. Thank you notes!
31. Make a collage with your dreams for the coming year.
    
    January

1. Light a candle tonight and make a wish or set an intention for the New Year.

Holiday Countdown 2018

Each year, we countdown during the holidays. I know I am a little late in posting this, but the reality for us is that we didn't feel all that Christmasy until it was all over. We had a little get-away after the new year and came home feeling a little more in the spirit, so I am finally posting on 12th night.

This is our December countdown for 2018. It took us through December, through January 1, 2019. I change it to adjust to my growing kids, who still love and ask for this tradition each year. This year, I noticed that perhaps we don't need the countdown after Christmas quite so much. I have always included this to ease some of the post-holiday let-down. Next year, the kids will let me know what they want and need. I love this tradition, too.

1. Sparkle Stories Advent stories begin!
2. Special holiday event with friends.
3. Light the Menorah. (The kids were given a new build-your-own Menoroah.)
4. Make latkes
5. Make a holiday decoration for Grannie (They decorated a wreath, which we hung on her front door.)
6. Happy St. Nicholas and Play dreidel (The kids were given a dreidel decorating kit.)
7. Pull out the holiday books!
8. Pull out Christmas decorations and start to decorate.
9. Get a Christmas tree!
10. Decorate the Christmas tree and watch Yogi’s first Christmas (a tradition)
11. Treasure Hunt!  (The kids found a mini tree to decorate for their room, their dolls and stuffed animals.)
12. Make a card or gift.
13. Pull out instruments or sing. Practice a Christmas song. (We had such a fun jam session!)
14. Take care of the birds.
15. See the hillside nativity scene.
16. Attend a holiday concert.
17. Choose a candy cane from the tree.
18. Treasure Hunt! (Each kid found a new article of clothing.)
19. Bunny day! Take extra care of our rabbit.
20. Neighborhood day! Pick up garbage, deliver toffee and cards.
21. Winter Solstice! Visit the library book store and choose a book for yourself and one as a gift.
22. Get out in nature! Super high tide today What unusual shore birds can you spot?
23. Bake cookies. Celebrate Christmas with family.
24. Take a rain walk and get a kettle corn treat.
25. Merry Christmas! Celebrate Christmas with family.
26. Make paper snowflakes.
27. Have a play date with friends at the park.
28. Write thank you notes
29. Take a hike.  See the ladybugs.
30. Go see Mary Poppins Returns with friends and perform and act of service for neighbor, family, or friend
31. Winter Spiral
32. (January 1): Make a ‘dream garden’ collage for 2019
    
    

     

    

    
    

    

    
    

    
    

gifts by the kids

I have not been sharing much about the creative part of this blog, Creative. Light. Less. Actually, I haven't written much about the light or less part of it lately, either! The creative part has been in full gear, full steam all of this time, but I haven't taken the time to edit or share photos. Mike's and my creativity and DIY spirit has definitely passed on to our children, because these days, I don't have much of my own to share, and instead want to share the amazing talents of my kiddos.

Here is a sampling of what the kids made and gave for Christmas 2017.

 

Lala Bug gave her Nonno some of his favorite things for his morning time; sudoku, coffee, and chocolate, but she wrapped multiples of them all nestled in layers of crepe paper. You can see a puzzle being revealed in his hands below. There were also instant Starbucks Via packets, small packets of sugar for the coffee, mini Kit Kats, and in the center, a plastic Easter egg (to give it its initial shape) full of Hershey Kisses that said Ho Ho Ho. It was very clever and cute. She got the idea from a ballet classmate a year ago, who gave each girl a gift wrapped like this after their performance.

Brown Mouse carved wooden butter knives for his Nonno and Grandma and for his Uncle S. He made his first independent one (which we use daily) in his outdoor summer camp.

Lala Bug embroidered this sweet collection of images (from Doodle Stitching) and then, using a pretty bird fabric for the back, made a pillow for her Grandma.

Lala Bug made "shakes" (herbal blends for fish, pizza, popcorn, etc.) with a variety of herbs and spices. She made her on unique blend first at her herbal medicine summer camp.

Both kids worked together to make a tea wreath each for Grannie, Uncle S, and their great aunt and uncle who often come for Christmas.

After we had so much success with our backyard bird feeders a few weeks before Christmas, the kids decided to make feeders as gifts, too. They made these for their great aunt and uncle.


And toffee. A holiday favorite. Lala Bugs helps make (and eat) this now.

This was a gift they made and gave in 2016, because I never shared it! Beeswax sand candles and essential oil scented bath salts.

Here is to a creative 2018!

toffee time!

This is a post previously shared on my former blog and posted again each year. This is such a favorite that I receive multiple requests for it each year. 

 

Toffee
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Butter an 8-inch square pan. spread the chopped nuts in the pan.
Heat the butter and sugar and boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture darkens and just begins to smoke, approximately 7 minutes.
Immediately pour the mixture evenly over the nuts and sprinkle the chocolate chips over this.
Cover the pan with a cookie sheet to keep the heat in and melt the chocolate.
Spread the chocolate evenly over the toffee layer. If desired, sprinkle more chopped nuts into the chocolate layer. Score while still warm, unless you don't mind irregularly broken pieces. (I don't mind them.) Refrigerate until hard.

Nicola's edited additions: I don't usually stir constantly. A reader commented about butter separation. When she did so, it had never happened to me. It subsequently happened once. I believe it was because I started with frozen butter and let that melt and begin to bubble before I added the sugar. Make sure you put these in the pan at the same time, room temperature. If you like hard toffee, make sure you cook it long enough. (It begins to have a slightly burnt smell.) If you like softer toffee, don't cook it as long. The 7 minute marker is helpful, but after you have done a handful of batches, you will also notice the mixture thin and darken slightly.

from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn

stan

Meet Stan. Lala Bug gave him (the part she had begun, at least) to Little Brown Mouse for Christmas. She finished him last week while we were at the lake.

I am so proud of and impressed with my girl. She's quite a crocheter and knitter.

Easter 2016

Although we are secular, we do celebrate a mix of religious holiday in gentle ways, perhaps more as part of our seasonal rhythm and sometimes as part of our curriculum.

This year, we enjoyed the ten day audio story about Easter from the Martin & Sylvia collection from Sparkle Stories. We love Sparkle Stories and I find I often learn something, whether it is new knowledge or a parenting tip!

Wrapped into the ten days including and leading up to Easter, the kids dyed eggs (with natural dyes) with my parents, but not at home. This is the first time we haven't dyed eggs together since they were old enough, but they were satisfied with what they did with Nonno and Grandma and it left us more time for other projects.

We made hot cross buns for the fist time ever. Ours are gluten free and are a modified version of the recipe found in Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts, my heavily used go-to cook book for gluten free versions of gluten filled classics. All of us loved them, which doesn't always happen with baked goods.

We also had fun making stained glass window eggs, using the directions posted at Nova Naturals.

The kids insisted that hubby and I leave out Easter baskets, as well, so I did and they were filled with goodies to share. The pattern blocks, Wreck This Journals, and the story cubes were hands-down hits. Woo hoo!

 

After a nice morning together, we joined family for a delicious, beautiful lunch at my parents' home. It was a gorgeous day and the egg hunt was good fun, with everyone involved by the end. We wound up with a mini concert, completely organized, as a secret, by Lala Bug and Little Brown Mouse. She was on the piano, he was on the ukulele. 

 

All in all a beautiful week, day, and entry into spring.

right now...

This past week has been so interesting. There have been some incredibly challenging times, but more times of deep joy, pleasure, growth, exploration, learning, and connection.

 Special time with Lala Bug ended with a visit to the library. I love that my girl asked to visit the library as part of this time just the two of us.

 Pressing flowers with this beautiful press hand made for Little Brown Mouse by his Dada, for Christmas.

 

 Play time with these kids! Lala Bug, the librarian, and Little Brown Mouse, the used toy shop seller. So suited!

 We are currently doing a block on Africa. This was an unplanned block, but family is unexpectedly traveling there, and we wanted to learn more. We finished up Ancient Egypt and instead of moving to our next block, we just moved beyond Egypt into other parts of Africa. This ties in wonderfully with another Fables block Little Brown Mouse.

We have been reading through and will do some activities from Africa for Kids by Harvey Croze, which is wonderful and we read the book Anna Hibiscus, an early level chapter book by Atinuke. We also read a lovely book about Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson (his art is incredible) and talked briefly about how he parallels Martin Luther King (whose I Have a Dream Speech really captured the attention of Little Brown Mouse a couple of weeks ago). I started reading some of Kipling's Just So Stories, but they were not well received, so I will find a version of some more Anansi tales, then I will see if I can get the kids to write one of their own fables or trickster tales.

I need to spend some time re-evaluating the rest of our year, as we are solidly more than half way through now. I can’t believe it! I have made some changes to my approach to homeschooling in the past couple of months. No value changes, but subtle little changes which seem to be having a very positive impact on my energy for our homeschool and the kids' interest and engagements, which feels very, very good.

366: 31

January 31, 2016

Today was a quiet, re-connecting, home day. It was quite welcome, with one sickie and all of us tired. I fell asleep reading books to the kids tonight (and didn't go immediately to bed because a full day tomorrow requires some pre-bed prep) and hubby fell asleep with (before) Little Brown Mouse.

This month, I posted a photo daily. My hope and goal is/was to post at least a photo daily, preferably with some words, too, to get me back into taking photos and writing. It has partially done that, but I think instead of daily, my goal will be weekly, because I found, several times, I took a photo just to have something for my blog and took more photos on my phone than I would have liked. Okay, my phone actually takes great photos and is what I generally have with me in the moment, but I really want to feel motivated to use my SLR again. In addition, all my posts have a title starting 366: and I would like to post with other titles sometimes! And finally, no one wants to look at my blog daily, and since I switched to this new blog space, I get so few readers. I lost a lot of you when I closed the chapter on Which Name? I miss that space...)

So...my amended goal is weekly!

Below, our living room this morning. It progressed into a crazy blender of trains everywhere, the city roads play mat covered in cars, and yarn scraps and sewing bits everywhere. I wish I had taken a photo of it in that space. It was...enchanted.

I never did post all the holiday home made gifts. I should! The row of wooden and clear boxes on the cabinet to the right of the plant are handmade candle lanterns made by hubby and the kids for me. They are a replica of lanterns from the historical site where Lala Bug and I did a living history overnight in the autumn.

toffee

This is a post previously shared on my former blog. This is such a favorite, I receive multiple requests for it each year. 

 

Toffee
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Butter an 8-inch square pan. spread the chopped nuts in the pan.
Heat the butter and sugar and boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture darkens and just begins to smoke, approximately 7 minutes.
Immediately pour the mixture evenly over the nuts and sprinkle the chocolate chips over this.
Cover the pan with a cookie sheet to keep the heat in and melt the chocolate.
Spread the chocolate evenly over the toffee layer. If desired, sprinkle more chopped nuts into the chocolate layer. Score while still warm, unless you don't mind irregularly broken pieces. (I don't mind them.) Refrigerate until hard.

Nicola's edited additions: I don't usually stir constantly. A reader commented about butter separation. When she did so, it had never happened to me. It subsequently happened once. I believe it was because I started with frozen butter and let that melt and begin to bubble before I added the sugar. Make sure you put these in the pan at the same time. If you like hard toffee, make sure you cook it long enough. (It begins to have a slightly burnt smell.) If you like softer toffee, don't cook it as long. The 7 minute marker is helpful, but after you have done a handful of batches, you will also notice the mixture thin and darken slightly.

from The Compete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn