March 4th, 2010 . Posted in Family Life, Waldorf stuff | No Comments »
This isn’t a concept I’ve often thought about. But the more I read up on warmth, especially for children, the more I’m being conscious about it, even for myself. I have embraced it!
I’ve ordered some wool underthings for her, and will knit and order some for the baby coming to. I’ve become a believer in this and what it can do for development and attitude.
When my daughter was between 1 and 2, we didn’t like to give her a lot of chocolate or sweets. So for days when we went outside to play in the snow or cold, we didn’t offer hot chocolate.
We came up with nice alternatives to help warm us up after playing outside in the cold.
The first was warmed milk with a drop of vanilla extract or some Cinnamon. The other is Lemon Ginger herbal tea with honey. The ginger gives an added bit of warmth. Her favorite is the tea. We are big tea drinkers in our house (both herbal and black, green, and oolong teas), so it was natural for her to want some tea too.
It’s very pleasant to sit and drink our mugs of tea with biscuits after building a snowman or sledding.
March 3rd, 2010 . Posted in Knitting | No Comments »
March 2nd, 2010 . Posted in Handwork, Homeschooling | 3 Comments »
Any animal fiber (wool, silk, your own hair, skin, and fingernails too LOL) can be dyed with Kool-aid. What’s nice about this technique is that it’s totally harmless and a perfect project to do with a little one (Emerson is nearly 3).
Tonight my daughter and I dyed wool fluff for some bird boxes.
We bought 2 suet boxes, which we will fill with cut lengths of colorful wool yarn and dyed wool fluff. Miss Sue worked with Emerson today to cut the yarn, and tonight, she and I dyed the fluff.
The dying is really cool actually. You just take the fiber and wet it with cold water. Then you fill a pot with water, and you add the kool-aid packet. Add the wool and swish it around. If you are going to use your hands, use gloves LOL or you’ll end up with dyed hands too.
just beginning to heat up
Bring the water up until JUST about to boil. Turn off the heat, and let it cool. As it cools, the water turns clear (or milky white) as the dye is pulled into the wool.
Then once it is cool…just rinse and dry. She took her bath, while we waited for the fluff to cool.
Rinsing with cool water
On Thursday, Miss Sue and Emerson will assemble the boxes and hang them. With luck, during the summer, we’ll see some of our wool in birds nests around our yard! How FUN! And since we used natural fibers (wool yarn and fluff), this stuff will just degrade along with the nests after the birds are done with them. And the kool-aid dye is harmless to our feathered friends.
dyed wool fluff
March 1st, 2010 . Posted in Cooking | No Comments »
M – Greek salad
T- Indian Chicken with Rice
W- Left over lasagna
Th – Soup
F – Stir Fry noodles and veggies with Tofu (Allen as an idea about baking the tofu…we’ll see)
February 26th, 2010 . Posted in Cooking, Handwork, Homeschooling, Waldorf stuff | 1 Comment »
Earlier in the week, Emerson and Miss Sue made birdseed cookies. This was a wonderful (if messy) activity. We really appreciate how much time and care our nanny takes with the projects she does with Emerson.
The weather has been horrible though, so they weren’t hung out until today. We used a bit of hemp twine to make the loops.
Birdseed cookies
Hangin one on the holly
Cookies on the tree
The weather today was so nice in the morning (37F and SUNNY), so we spend a good deal of time this morning out and about. We walked down our dead end street and looked out into the farmer’s field to watch the geese.
Geese watching
We also “borrowed” our neighbors perfect climbing tree. This is Emerson’s first experience with tree climbing. She loved it. She was even hugging the tree branches and saying “I love you, tree.” She was able to nearly get up the first branch on her own, and she said “I’m like a little monkey.” LOL
Sittin' Pretty
On her perch
We went back on our afternoon walk, but the branches were too slippery, and she had her rain boots on…so it wasn’t a good mix for climbing.
One cannot underestimate the importance of frequent exploratory trips out of doors. Interacting with all the elements, feeling all the textures, the smells, the quality of natural light…all of these things shape the brain and attitudes of a child.
February 25th, 2010 . Posted in Family Life, Homeschooling, Waldorf stuff | No Comments »
Many fun things today.
we took a nice rainy walk this morning. We began in our yard…
and ended in War Memorial Park
We went back home for snack, then headed out to story time at the local library.
I had a dr. apt, so I left when Allen came home.
When I got back, we had supper, and played.
It became peepee rabbit’s birthday, and Emerson created a birthday picnic, put on her birthday crown, and made a cake out of beanbags and pinecones.
you can see peepee rabbit in the high chair with HIS birthday crown on too.
She ended up in bed a bit late due to a late nap…
I set up this little scene for her for tomorrow morning 
We’ll see what she does with this tomorrow…
February 24th, 2010 . Posted in Cooking | 2 Comments »
YUM!
I’ve been dying for stuffed peppers, but I’m not a huge fan of the traditional American version.
Once upon a time, I lived in Stuttgart, Germany and was an Au-Pair there. The wife was German; the husband was Greek. They made the most awesome stuffed peppers, topped with plain yogurt.
So I scoured the internet to find a recipe for this type of stuffed pepper…and found this recipe for Kırmızı Biber Dolması, which looked just lovely! I love rice with lemon too.
So here are a few pics of the prep. I omitted the scallions, since I feel like it had so much onion flavor already
Red Peppers
Rice Stuffing
In the Cook Pot
I’m really looking forward to trying these tomorrow! My hands smell like garlic and lemon LOL
February 23rd, 2010 . Posted in Family Life | 2 Comments »
There are many advantages to my cozy, single level home. For one thing, the bathroom with the tub is on the same level as all the other rooms in the house.
This is great during bathtime. It has become, for Emerson, her alone time.
She sit in there for 20 or 30 mintues, sing to herself, tell herself stories, play with a few bath toys. It’s a wonderful chance for her to decompress from her day, and she is much more relaxed going into bed time.
for me, it’s a great time to tidy up a little, do the dishes, pick up, knit etc. It becomes a little bit of alone time for me, too.
She’ll usually call out “ok, I’m ready for you to wash me,” when she is done playing. I’ll go in and wash her up. Then we head over to the woodstove (she chills very easily) and she’ll lay on blankie while I dry her off, apply body creme, and get her in her jamies (lately, just a short sleeved T-Shirt and diaper). She likes little foot massages too LOL
Days activities can seem so overwhelming to a small kid. And this small amount of time along is important to her well being.
I probably wouldn’t do this if the bathroom was on another level of my house, though…so I’m quite glad for our little home.
February 22nd, 2010 . Posted in Cooking, Family Life, Homeschooling, Waldorf stuff | No Comments »
It’s a lot of work, don’t get me wrong. It takes more time and effort…and there is a lot of “don’t taste that; it has raw egg” LOL, but it is so worth it.
This weekend, Emerson and I made banana bread — I had some bananas that need to be used up.
Emerson smashed the bananas with a fork. We measured out the flour and sugar together and helped add all the other ingredients. Then we poured it into the bread pan.
With every step, she would say “I can do that part!”
She was so happy when she saw the finished loaf come out of the oven. I could see that she felt proud that she had a hand in preparing our morning snack when we sat down to eat it.
We served it warm with cream cheese. It was quite yummy.
I have some pictures below of the day we made an apple pie together. This was really fun and easy, since it didn’t contain anything she couldn’t lick off her fingers.
She told me last night as I was preparing dinner “When I’m a little bigger I’ll be able to cook all by myself!
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Adding apples to the pie
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Proud Baker!
February 21st, 2010 . Posted in Family Life, Homeschooling, Waldorf stuff | No Comments »
We’ve been exploring the wood snake for some weeks now. I blogged about it here. It’s been wonderful. We have used it almost every day. We’ve had friends come over, and they have played on it. It’s been such a big success that we are trying to find a way to make something more permanant in the backyard. Not sure yet what form that will take.
This past week, Emerson decided she would crawl the wood snake. This is a great gross motor activity. We also had our anamalz out and they also crawled the wood snake.
At some point, we’ll have to clear the wood to burn (we are running out LOL), but for now, its a great outside play area. The “river” in the original configuration is gone…cut up for our wood stove.
