a little homeschooling update

Have I mentioned that my computer crashed taking with it all of my photographs from the last year or so? I am just not having luck with anything electronic lately. I am praying that we'll be able to get the photographs off of it once we take it in to an expert though. Please, please, please... I have so many photos I have been wanting to share and news to go with them. I hope I get them back!

Somehow or other I managed to misplace the children's painted pumpkins from previous years. I am sure they are just in the wrong seasonal box or something. Nevertheless, the children decided that was a good excuse to make some more this year.  L accidentally applied too much paint to his (reminding me that he needs more regular painting days - I have fallen behind) but big sister K came to the rescue and showed him how to soak it up. She is my little teaching assistant some days and I am so grateful for it! The girls decided today that they wanted to do some more pumpkin painting but this time in miniature form to make a garland out of, combining two of our favorite projects (seen here and here). Hopefully it will be dry and strung up before Saturday.

C has been playing a bit of catch up in her homeschooling handwork. She just finished up some chickens the other week. She knit the yellow one for herself and the green one for her dear friend that we went to see in Oregon (green is his favorite color). I have to say I am rather impressed by her stitches. She knits really tightly and neatly already. She is quite fast, too! She finished up her rainbow ball in just a couple of days and right now she is already on to her sheep. Next will be a lion. She is really looking forward to that. Then she'll be moving up to the second grade handwork projects which involve her making a new set of knitting needles in a smaller size (her current needles are about size 10 and she'll be moving down to about a 7).

Speaking of homeschooling - K is finally officially starting her fourth grade year next week. She pretty much demanded we start, telling me that she would just teach herself if I didn't hurry up. I totally appreciate and understand her enthusiasm.  I admit that fear of the first main lesson block (geography) and my focusing on catching C up has caused our delay. I finally decided that Kevin would be best to teach her local geography and that since he can't do it at the moment (did I mention he started college back up?! I'm so proud of him) we'll just start on the next main lesson block and move that one to another time in the school year. Of course the next main lesson block is math - fractions. Ack! But thankfully I still have some confidence from C's great math run that I feel up to the challenge.

While she has been waiting, K has been keeping herself very busy with her American Heritage Girls projects. Thankfully she is always looking for ways to learn and will absorb all that she can. She has been working on fire safety with Kevin and is thrilled that she can start a fire on her own now.

Oh, She is also supposed to be working on macramé this next lesson block in homeschooling. I have never done this before so we'll be learning together. Any advice?

The AtTheCrossroads giveaway ends tomorrow. Last chance to enter here!

a little homeschooling update

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.

I am currently working on a couple Christmas present knits. I couldn't find a moment to photograph them today without my children nearby so instead I am sharing some Christmas ornaments I am working on during C's main lessons each day (I can't ever have idle hands). I started these snowflakes a few months ago but realized I made a big mistake when I cut them out and ended up throwing them into the "someday I'll get back to it" pile. But then I thought I could make lemonade out of lemons and get two ornaments out of the one by just cutting out new backs to them. That was enough to get them out of the pile and back into my WIP basket.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

Don't forge there is still a chance to enter the AtTheCrossroads giveaway for some beautiful handmade buttons here.

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

Back to the Promised Land

Magnificent trees. Oh how I miss the carpet of leaves beneath my feet this time of year in Oregon. A little road trip crafting for our dear friends that are really more like family. Vegan candy corn ice cream!!! Need I say more?

The following photos were taken by Taryn.

The next batch of photos were taken with my friend Holly's Nikon camera. She is letting me borrow it at the moment (you'll see why below). This was the first time I used it and I couldn't figure out where all the setting were. I have no clue what I am doing! :) Walking up our old street to see our old Oregon house. K's nature finds from the walk on our street
Last weekend my family and I took a rather spur of the moment road trip back to the promised land AKA Portland, Oregon to celebrate a special birthday with our dearest friends and to attend Portland Waldorf School's annual Harvest Festival. We only had two days to spend there (along with two days of driving) but it was worth it for us, we needed to be back with our friends and community after two years of isolation. Our friends (aka family) were very brave in allowing our family plus our four big dogs to stay with them for the trip. What a treasure that was. Our children had late night slumber parties the whole visit, taking advantage of every minute together - our families really do love each other so.

I had plans of rekindling my love of photography (which has fallen to the wayside since we moved to Idaho - lack of inspiration, perhaps?) and capturing all of the mesmerizing beauty that is Oregon but  a moment cast by fate changed all of that. Our first day there I dropped my camera and jammed the lens so badly that it would not work at all. Of course my first reaction was fear of not being able to follow through with those plans of mine. Then a calm came over me and I realized I was meant to be fully present this trip and to take it all in with my heart instead. And so I did - the fantastic pumpkin patch party, endless amounts of beautiful autumn trees, the Harvest Festival, late night games in front of the fire, the children putting on plays for us, my friend's youngest child falling asleep so peacefully in her lap, a visit to our old house in the big woods... I won't forget them.

Little L and I even had the honor of meeting some very special people in person for the first time while we were there. My talented friend Taryn, someone I felt I have known forever but we had never actually met in person, and her son Bracken who is one of Little L's pen pals. Those two boys instantly hit it off and played for hours at the harvest festival, giving Taryn and I lots of time to talk. She is truly the warmest and sweetest person. I am so happy they made the long drive to see us! You can see Taryn's post about her trip here.

It felt so comforting and refreshing being back with all of our amazing friends, and even making new ones. I finally had the sense of home I had been missing since we had left. I admit I was a bit anxious over the trip. As much as I wanted to return, I was a bit afraid it would make my family and I even more homesick and sad back in Idaho. Thankfully that didn't seem to happen. It lifted our spirits and recharged our hearts enough to get us by these last years we have left here. I feel reinvigorated with our homeschooling and way of life after being around our friends, teachers and the school itself. Plus our close friends already have plans to come see us again in the spring and we are hoping to try to return there in the late spring/early summer (after seeing that the drive wasn't all that bad).

I try, I really do, to be happy with where I am at and what I am given. I want to always be grateful for the simple gift of being alive, but as you know I have struggled since we moved to Idaho. The isolation from like minded people has taken it's toll. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that this pregnancy has been harder on me than usual. I normally feel my best while pregnant but not this time around. My doctor actually has me scheduled for all kinds of blood work to see what is going on but I might have an idea now. While we were in Oregon, my appetite came back, my energy came back and I felt ready to take on the world. Then when we came back to Idaho, although feeling reinvigorated,  I went right back to not being able to eat, barely getting out of bed and so on. I am beginning to wonder if I might be suffering from a bit of depression here. But just as the Tomten says as he dreams of summer while enduring the long winter,

"Winters come and winters go,
Summers come and summers go,
Soon the swallows will be here."

Soon we will be back to the promised land, and that hope is enough to get me by.

Back to the Promised Land

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.

Long story short - I don't have a current work in progress to share due to technical difficulties. Instead I thought I would share my finished package for the Martinmas swap I am in. I already mailed out the little lantern children and wool acorn necklaces to the swap coordinator and now I my children and I wait with great anticipation to see what beautiful handmade goodies we get in return.

p.s. - lantern children pattern and details here.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

My favorite time of day

My most favorite time of the day is handwork time. It's usually later in the day sometime between the end of our main lessons and before we have to start dinner prep. Somehow my children and I always end up at the other end of the house (the darkest area with not a lot of natural light) and relax on my bed to do it. Good, cozy down time.

p.s. - The knitting you see L ripping out was my campside cardigan. I messed up and used the wrong size needles so I had to rip it all back to start again. L liked having this job.

My favorite time of day

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.
This week I thought I would share K's current project. She had a vision in her head and is making the pattern up as she goes and I have to admit I am quite impressed by her abilities and creativity with this! I can't say what it is just yet because it is a gift but I will be sure to share the finished project with you all.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

worked up

Remember my post about my fear of teaching math? Well, I am very happy to report that I worked myself up over nothing. The four processes were so much easier to teach than I expected, once I actually got over my fear and did it, that is! C picked them up straight away. She loved meeting Porter Plus, Michael Minus, Tabby Times and Donald Division (Waldorf math teaches all four processes at the same time, I rather wish I learned that way!). I started out with very simple problems and about five problems in she asked me if I could please make them a lot harder. Here I was thinking it was going to be such a struggle and it ended up being too easy for her! Phew!! I suddenly have confidence in teaching!!

We have since rotated back to a language arts block and have given math a time to rest but continue with some math in our morning circle time. I am realizing now that a key to math for my children is doing our daily circle time which incorporates math. I can truly understand why the Waldorf schools do this. Math was always K's favorite subject in school but then when we started homeschooling it became her least favorite. She seemed to forget everything she was taught. I felt like such a failure (maybe that's why I feared teaching math to C). Skipping over those circle times played a big part in it, and I see the proof of that now. Since I started math with C and doing our daily math verses, skip counting on the balance beam, movement, etc. K has picked up her love of math again. She loves joining in and now asks for daily math work. She just wants to sit and do math all day long. Her confidence is back! I am so grateful for all that these lessons have brought our way. I think I am beginning to love math myself!

worked up

Looking after those who are lost

The calendar says autumn is here. My heart says autumn is here. Yet the weather does not seem to comprehend and is still acting like it is summer. I think it is teasing me. I so look forward to the autumn stillness and slowing down so I am acting as if the weather is cooperating as much as I can. I have been digging through baby clothes - months ahead of time, I know, but I thought it best to take advantage of the current sunshine and hang them outside for some fresh air and stain removal. These clothes have been through three babies (some even more than that as they were hand me downs) so they need lots of sun time. This is also giving me the chance to take inventory of what we have and what we need. A lot of the baby clothes really need to be replaced (due to aforementioned use) so I am making lists and budgeting in preparation (baby kind of blew our no spend challenge for the year but that's okay!!). Baby woolies and pilot caps are definitely a must in my book. Our woolies are really stained but still useful. I do hope I can swing getting this sweet miracle baby will get a few new wool shirts before February, though.

Our garden is still growing like crazy, even though I have already started pulling a lot of it up. We decided to keep the flowers that we can use for dye baths and medicinal purposes in as long as possible. I have been trying to keep up with them and harvest at least every other day now. Surprisingly some of the things we planted in the spring are just now starting to come to life. C's morning glories bloomed for the first time today. Oh, our garden is a bit wacky.

Just a couple days before the feast of Saint Francis, a sweet little lost dog made it's way to our home. K said he was sent to us by Saint Francis. She loved it so, if you couldn't tell by the photos. We would love to have a small dog, maybe someday we will, but that would not work with our current big dogs. Especially Paw Paw. To him, all little dogs are yummy snacks. *sigh* That adorable little pup ended up spending the whole day with us as we searched for his owners. We missed out on homeschooling that day but I think the lesson of looking after those who are lost was far more important.

Looking after those who are lost

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two and share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.


I am finishing up my lantern children for the Martinmas Waldorf swap. They are all knitted and stuffed but now I just need to finish up four more lanterns. I also wet/needle felted some acorn necklaces to go along with them. I forgot how fun wetfelting was!

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Keep Calm Craft On {crafting on}

Dyeing yarn with marigolds, Michaelmas and the moon!

I apologize for my absence last week. We all had head colds and then I just felt nauseated and had absolutely no energy. Really it's been that way this whole pregnancy. Usually by the time I hit the second trimester I have endless amounts of energy and am eating enough for three or more but not this time around. I am having an awful relationship with food where I just don't want to eat at all. Of course not eating makes me feel worse and then nothing sounds good. 'Tis a vicious cycle I am stuck in at the moment. Kevin likes to tell me that this pregnancy is rougher on me than the others because I am so old now. *Ahem* I just turned 36 and don't see that as very old at all, thank you very much.

Anyways, I thought I would share some moments from this year's Michaelmas. It was our usual celebration but this time instead of dyeing silks, we dyed yarn! I am now officially addicted to natural dyeing.

After our morning main lessons and circle time we made our dragon bread.
We had leftover dough this year so the girls also made some St. Michael bread. Above is K's dragon and St. Michael bread... and here is C's dragon and St. Michael. L made a dragon and a boat.

The children put on their Michaelmas pageant for us. This year C was St. Michael and K was a narrator. Little L was the dragon, of course. I was thankful his dragon balaclava and legs/arms still fit him.
Bowing at the end.

We also did some yarn dyeing with natural dyes. This was something K was supposed to do at the end of her third grade year but we didn't get to it. I had been wanting to dye some wool yarn I had with marigolds from our garden to knit some sweet baby items (I have a thing for the name Marigold for a baby girl. I am just smitten with it. I blame Downton Abbey). Michaelmas seemed like the perfect day to try our hand at crafting a yellow dye. We started out by soaking our wool yarn in a mordant solution of warm water, 2 tbsp. alum and 2 tsp. cream of tartar.
We let it sit while we gathered the marigolds from our garden. I was fearful we didn't have enough and that the dye bath wouldn't be a nice yellow so we gathered some calendula as well to add to the batch. When we brought our bowl of flowers inside we noticed a sweet little hitchhiker that came along for the ride. I gently picked up the marigold flower she was on and placed her back outside. Then we got to work making the dye bath. K poured all the flowers into our largest pot and covered them with enough water to fully cover the 560 yards of yarn we had (but we did not add the yarn at that time). We brought the pot to a low boil and let it simmer for about 1 hour. The new turned off the heat and let the dye sit for a few hours. After that we strained out the flowers and poured the dye bath back in to the pot. That actually ended up being our stopping point for the day. I read that the yarn should soak in the mordant solution for twentyfour hours so we decided to finish the yarn project the following morning. The next day we warmed up the dye bath again on a very, very low simmer and placed our soaking wet yarn into the dye bath. We let it simmer for 30 minutes and then turned off the heat. I let the yarn sit in about 30 minutes longer and then K took it out. As you can see the yarn was a bit of a mess when we took it out. K rinsed it with lukewarm water and then helped to dry and straighten it by basically swinging it around on her arm like a hula hoop. I saw this method on some yarn dyeing video somewhere. K had fun with this part. We saved the leftover dye bath to dye some more yarn. As you can see the yellow came out very vibrant and strong so we are hoping to get at least two or three more skeins out of this dye bath, each slightly less vibrant than the one before. I am out of yarn so we will have to wait on that experiment, but there is a trip to Portland in our future so I can pick some up then. I honestly can't get over just how bright yellow it came out. I expected more of a muted or brownish yellow. But, then again, I did add a lot of flowers fearing the yellow to be too soft. It really reminds me of Michaelmas. I will have to find an appropriate baby pattern for it. Any suggestions? Defeating the dragon (candle).

Oh and last Sunday night we stayed up way past bedtime to watch the moon: I wish I had a better lens to capture it with but I made do with what I had. My children were absolutely awestruck by the whole thing. I have to say it was pretty incredible!

Dyeing yarn with marigolds, Michaelmas and the moon!