yum

I am loving this Orla Kiely mug. My grandma sent it to me from the UK. It holds the perfect amount of Ovaltine. The colours speak to me, yummy. :)

Another crafter in the family

I am not the only crafty one in the family. Actually, my son is an avid crafter and we recently pulled my husband into the crafting realm also. Max attends a local public Waldorf School where we have an incredibly talented Handwork Teacher. Of all subjects Handwork is one of his favourites and with Ms. Ahart, he has blossomed into an amazing self-directed crafter. I am not a knitter or crocheter (yet) so when he crafts at home, he is on his own. Any mistakes that he makes, he has to figure out on his own. I am constantly amazed by the wonderful projects that he work on at home. Wouldn't you rather your son crochet on a four hour long car trip than play on a handheld video game?

Max made this knitted doll named Oscar at school, isn't he great?
He made the hat for Oscar at home.

This little drawstring bag was crocheted by Max yesterday. Amazing right? He tells me that it's a fishnet bag. A girl at school was making one for a project, he watched what she was doing, came home and made one all by himself.

Cruising around Joann Fabrics before Christmas I saw these looms called Knifty Knitters. They seemed interesting so I bought a set for Max. He opened the set on Christmas Day and lo and behold the first person to make a hat was - my HUSBAND! He slaved over that Knifty Knitter for hours and this (below) is his first hat. Then he made another and another. He wears the hat that he made for himself all of the time. I know that technically it's cheating but hey, they come out great and they're handmade. I even made one for a friend's daughter in Tahoe. My husband is constantly busy, it was great for him to just sit quietly for a while and work with is hands. I think that after hat #3 he realized how crafting can be a bit addicting for me! :)

Here's a pic of my husbands first hat and the knift knitter loom.

In awe of my family,

Easter Surprises!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Max was up bright and early excited to hunt down his Easter basket. I love that Max still has that child innocence where he still believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny. We have decided that if we leave an empty basket and some eggs for the bunny to fill, he will stop by our house. The bunny was nice enough to leave Max some little toys, a book and a few chocolates. Mommies can add to the basket too, and Max saw that I also included a handmade bunny. I found the pattern here at Revoluzza.

Our Easter started with a group trip to our local Farmer's Market where we made up our menu on the fly. It was nice to just go with the flow instead of stress out about the menu and feel like you have to have everything perfect. At the market we also picked up some long bean starts which we will be planting today!

We celebrated Easter Dinner with family and family friends. We have clebrated several holidays with The Howards - it's been fun especially for Max because he associated Holiays with "The Howards". They have all sorts of fun big kid toys and a Nintendo Wii - Max has only ever played video games at their house so he's always very excited when we have holidays chez Howard.

I also finished my very first limbed Waldorf Doll this weekend - her name is Millie. . This was the first full head of hair that I have constructed. I found the tutorial for her hair here at Starry Sheep and I love the way that it turned out. I definitely need to work on constructing clothes, this is not my forte. From a distance they are fine but up close the work is a little messy :) See the wet felted eggs in the pic? Max and I eeked those out on Easter eve, we found the tutorial here.

We are now on Easter break - a friend has a house in Tahoe so Max, myself, a school buddy and his mom will be heading up later this week to hopefully squeeze in some end of season sledding!

Hello!

I have been super overwhelmed by life lately - mostly struggling with Max's school. Our Waldorf school is such a huge part of our lives that when you start to question it, your foundation feels very unstable. Trying to center myself and come to terms with the realities of what is and is not possible in our school has been hard for me but I think that I am getting there. In meetings I tend to be the one person who is the "hard ass" asking the hard questions, making parents think about what is really going on - I know now that I can only be that way. It is not in my personality to just sit by and watch things happen. As of yesterday I felt more empowered than I have for the past week so HOORAY!

Onto the fun!

We've got lots on or plate today:

Natural egg dyeing
Wet felting easter eggs
Attempt to make some fabric eggs
Pre-Easter food prep
Easter basket assembly!

Maybe even a quick trip to the craft store........

All fun stuff but also time consuming so I'll post more tomorrow about what I've been up to :)

Lovely Things

Bread is a lovely thing to eat -
God bless the barley and the wheat!

A lovely thing to breathe is air -
God bless the sunshine everywhere!

The earth’s a lovely place to know -
God bless the folks that come and go!

Alive’s a lovely thing to be -
Giver of life - we say - bless Thee!

H.M.Sarson

In Abundance and Gratitude

A