Spiral of Lights

"As the children walk the spiral, one can truly get a sense of the incredible loving light each individual brings into our world." - K's teacher.

Today was K's Spiral of Lights at school. This is truly one of my favorite festivals of the year. It's so simple and pure and filled with such reverence. There is just nothing else like it. We enter a room that is pitch black minus one candle in the very center of an evergreen spiral. A harp is beautifully played as the children walk the spiral. Each child is given an apple with a candle in it and will walk to the center to light it. Then he or she will find a star on which to place his/her particular light. As each child walks the spiral the path is illuminated more and more. If you are unfamiliar with the festival you can learn a bit more here.







This year's spiral was quite a bit different than the one from last year for me. The meaning and beauty of it all was still the same but Kevin wasn't able to attend and I had a cranky teething baby doing gymnastics in my lap during the whole thing. You've seen this/been there before, right? The baby who's poor gums hurt so much that he wants to nurse for comfort but then doesn't really want to nurse so he stops, sits up, and then arches his back and cries to nurse again. This went on pretty much the whole half hour we were in there. That explains the one and only (blurry) photo I got of K as she lit her candle.









Here she is last year. Yep, she's wearing the same dress and everything. I think it became a tradition for her.



May the beauty of this season be with you always!

P.S - I am so late posting this but if you are in the area please consider helping out Share Your Warmth. We are knitting and crocheting warm, natural fiber outerwear to warm the hearts and bodies of our neighbors in need.
Details can be found here or on their Facebook page.

Spiral of Lights

Knitting Through Tears

Preparing for Saint Nicholas day!

Here we are, already at this week's Phoebe Sweater KAL and yarn along update. I have nothing to say on my Phoebe's sweater for C. No, that's not true. I have a lot to say but I am still just too bummed out about the whole thing to go in to it, so here's a recap:

I was nearly finished with C's sweater (just had to do one sleeve and the hood) and it appeared to be small looking rather small. I did check my gauge this time around but something still went wrong. Fearing the worst I brought her into the bathroom so no one else could see and told her to close her eyes. I then tried the sweater on her. The length was perfect but I severely underestimated the size of sweet C's Buddha belly. It was barely able to wrap around her.

I tried my hardest not to cry but it was hitting me hard, all my work and no margin for error on this Christmas gift making timeline... Ughhh! I tried to devise a plan where I wouldn't have to rip out the whole sweater. I came close but couldn't find a way to avoid it entirely. So I sat and shed a few tears while I ripped out the entire upper body, just until I got to the decreasing section, then I stopped. I should have taken a picture of the many little balls of yarn I had from ripping it out. It was such a sad sight. I picked up the stitches on one side of the bottom half of the sweater and knit 3 rows in seed stitch then cast off. I did the same to the other side of the bottom half of the sweater. This added 6 stitches of width to the entire sweater. I then changed my needles from size 10 to size 10 1/2 and followed the decrease instructions but this time for the size 6 sweater instead of the size 4. Now I am knitting the entire upper body in size 6 with the bigger needles. It looks much bigger, now lets just hope it's not too big! I do want it to be a bit big and loose, though, so she can wear many layers underneath it.

This mistake of mine set me back big time, so now I am not sure what I will finish up in time for Christmas. The plan was just the Phoebe sweaters and the doll versions for the girls along with a patchwork quilt for their bed. Not sure about working on that quilt now. I am thinking if all else fails, I may have to drop making Baby L's gift and give it to him later. He has gifts coming from our families so I doubt he'll notice...

I was still sulking a bit when I took these pictures today. As you can see I choose to focus on our cute little Scandinavian Christmas angel chimes instead of my actual project. Ahem.

I suppose I better get back to work on that sweater!
What are you working on? I hope you are having better luck than me! Happy creating!!


P.S - Blogger wouldn't let me upload pictures tonight so I had a lot of hoops to jump through to figure it out. Thanks to my dear (birthday girl) friend Marina I think I have it set now.

Knitting Through Tears

Rhythm In Our Home : The First Sunday in Advent

We light one candle shining bright
Upon this Holy Advent night
Fill our hearts with loving might
Lead us to Christmas Day's brilliant light!





There is so much to say on this topic but I have to admit that exhaustion is getting the best of me tonight so more details will have to wait for another time. You can see some of my previous Advent posts here. Most are from 2009 as I didn't have a working computer to post during the 2010 Advent season. 2009 was the first year we celebrated Advent and I can not get over how much deeper we dive into it each year. Our Advent wreath is a small example of our changes - in 2009 we bought a wreath and added our beeswax candles to it, in 2010 we made our own wreath around our Advent wreath ring using branches and holly from the forest behind us, now in 2011 K and I attended Church on this special day and made our wreath there afterwards. More on that later in the week. We also rolled our own beeswax candles, instead of buying them. On a side note, my beeswax sheets made two candles each so I am set for next year, too - woo hoo! You can see one of the pink candles is different from the rest, C got a hold of one of them and broke it so I had to replace it with one of her own beeswax sheets.





Since the season of Advent reminds us of patience, we slowly bring out our decorations a little at a time. For the First Sunday we simply have our handmade Advent wreath at our dining room table, the empty manger in our living room, our Advent calender (with the first window opened), and a few Advent/Christmas books out. We actually don't even have a full nativity set. Each year I save up and buy one more piece for it.



This year the girls have their own beeswax manger on the windowsill in their bedroom. I look forward to adding to it each week.



Steiner corresponds the four kingdoms with the four weeks of Advent starting with the mineral kingdom.

The first light of Advent is the light of stones,
Light that lives in seashells, in crystals and in bones

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts,
Light of hope that shines in the greatest and the least

The fourth light of Advent is the light of you and I,
The light of love, of thought, to give and understand
-Rudolf Steiner

Even though we are now imersing ourselves into the deeper aspects of Advent, we still honor Steiner's tradition (after all, his teachings are what brought us to this new place in life) by placing a wooden bowl in the center of our wreath. Each Sunday in Advent something is added to it in representation of that week's kingdom.



Last year we enjoyed reading stories out of this book for each night in Advent. Some of the stories were long so we would stretch them out over a few days to equal the amount of days in Advent (like this year it is 28 days long). We are doing this again this year along with some other reading.







We follow the custom of youngest to oldest in lighting the Advent candles. For this first Sunday in Advent, C had the privilege of doing it (with Daddy's help and supervision, of course).





Next week it will be K's turn then my turn the following week and lastly Kevin's turn. I haven't figured out how we will work it when Baby L is older yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now he is content just watching the flame dance as he snacks on his squash.



We have a couple new Advent traditions I will be sharing in a bit with you, too!

Please remember - this is just our family rhythm and what works for us at the moment. This isn't meant to be hard and fast rules on how rhythm should go in every one or any one's homes. I just thought to share it because I receive quite a few e-mails asking about our home rhythm, and I also just wanted it documented for myself so that I may remember these times when they are older and/or on to another rhythm.

Thank you, again, for joining me in the rhythm fun! Here is the linky list. If you have a (new or old) link you would like to share about your family rhythm, please enter it below so that we all may see. Then please link back here in your post. I look forward to seeing your inspiration!
Thanks friends!

Rhythm In Our Home : The First Sunday in Advent

Growing

Happy first Sunday of Advent! My head is spinning from all that we did today. Oh my sweet K, I am forever in your debt for all that you bring into my life. More on that tomorrow, though :)









We had the entire week off of school for parent/teacher conferences and Thanksgiving, but before that break began, C and I stopped by our school's annual shield benefit. I had to see my friend's shield in person (the knitted one in the first photograph), as well as check out all the other beauties. C and I both fell in love with the one in the third photograph down. The talent in our school community is unsurpassable.



Kevin came to the realization that if our children and I are to make it through the winter, I need to learn how to chop wood. It's getting cold here now (either I have acclimated to the climate here after spending four way too hot and humid years in Virginia, or this fall/winter is just warmer than the last couple of years), and since our heater can't get the temperature in our home past 59 degrees, we need a constant fire going.

Our cord of wood arrived a couple of weeks ago but it is all in big pieces that need to be split. Kevin isn't home enough to chop it himself, and when he is home it's when the children are sleeping so, of course, he can't cut it then.
He reminded me of my desire to be like the frontier women before me, and how they (may have) had to cut their own wood. Yes, yes, I hear that. This is a skill I want to have, and I understand how important it is but ughhh - I have no muscles whatsoever and my 'to do' list is already so long to begin with. No amount of whining or complaining can get me out of this one, though, so I stood by to watch and learn from the master. (with a baby on his back, even!)





He informed me that in order to cut the wood, I had to become one with the wood and showed me the 'miyagi focus'...







Which slightly frightened the girls who were outside in their nightgowns playing. Don't get me started on them out in the mud wearing their nightgowns, rules fall to the wayside when Daddy is home - not by my choice!



I got the hang of it enough to make kindling at least but that took me hours. Hey, maybe I'll get some muscles after all. Boy, do I have a long lesson ahead of me. Kevin joked that I have to 'wear the pants in the family' while he's working so much. See? I did. They may be my running pants but they are pants!







We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner on our crowded coffee table in front of the fire. (dining room is much too cold to use now) Someone else joined us at the table...















Baby L!!! We let him play with a quarter of a plain baked acorn squash and he loved it. I normally like to wait until closer to a year in age to start solid food but this little guy was determined to eat much sooner than that. Both of the girls weren't all that into eating solids but Baby L just can't get enough. I wish you could watch him and listen to his cute little excited noises he makes when he sees the spoon coming his way. His little legs kick in anticipation and his hands clap like crazy. Cutest thing ever. I realize these pictures look a bit gross with him having squash up his nose and all over himself (not to mention the indoor lighting) but I still couldn't help myself. His first top tooth came in this weekend, to boot! A lot of growing going on in our home lately, inner growth, too.





We even enjoyed some family drawing time over the week, much to K's delight. It has been months since our last session. Yep, this week was pretty full.

Growing