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, post it on your blog, on Instagram #craftingon and/or Flickr and then share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.

I have been so busy in the kitchen processing all that is coming in from our garden that I nearly forgot my crafting on photo! It seemed appropriate to just throw my current project on the counter amongst the beet mess. The kids Michaelmas dragon is almost done!

What are you working on? Happy creating!

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Crafting On

Michaelmas

First grade Michaelmas verse in main lesson book.

The boys and I gathering goldenrod in one of our hayfields.

Goldenrod in a pot of water to make a dye bath for our Michaelmas silk capes.

The capes came out the most beautiful muted mustard yellow. This picture does not do them justice.

Making their dragon bread

Baby F's dragon on the left and L's on the right. Baby F said the whole almonds on the sides of his dragon were his wings.

We used the Dandelion Room's bread recipe this year.

K's snake dragon

C's dragon

The cutest dragon there ever was

Showing his scariest pose

My children after they completed their Michaelmas pageant

I know, I know. I am a week late but I still had to share our yearly Michaelmas celebration. Remember when L was the tiny dragon?!

Michaelmas

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, post it on your blog, on Instagram #craftingon and/or Flickr and then share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.

A little belated Michaelmas crafting on a dark and dreary day.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Crafting On

The big 14th birthday promise

Somebody hold me... My oldest is 14! 😲 How do these years go by so quickly?! K is blossoming into the most loving, and nurturing young woman. Who knew when she was my little spitfire that she would be discerning becoming a nun once she finishes school.

 She has been looking forward to this specific birthday ever since she was 4 years old. For reasons we can no longer remember, Kevin told her then that he would let her drive on her 14th birthday. Every year she would remind him of his promise and every year it seemed like 14 was a lifetime away...yet here we are. Kevin kept his promise and the two of them spent a good chunk of the day in a mall parking lot driving our van and they ended with a special father daughter coffee date. Later on we had the family of her closest friend (a family we all love and are close to, actually) come over for some delicious sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, egg free chocolate cake. I promise it was incredible! They brought her the sweetest rose plant which was really quite the perfect surprise. She had told me nearly a year ago she wanted roses on her 14th birthday in honor of St. Terese. I love when things work out like that.

This year she requested that I knit her a gold shawl instead of our traditional birthday sweater. I had her pick the pattern herself because I wanted to make sure she would really like it. Knitting for teenagers is different than knitting for toddlers who have no opinion on what they wear. Ha,ha. Thankfully she still loves my knitted gifts. She chose the Afterglow shawl.  I made a couple of modifications to make it the way she wanted. My rav notes on it are here.  Shawl pin is of course by our favorite makers - Wooly Moss Roots.

Okay, I need a minute again. My baby is so grown up! 😭 I am not ready for this!! Wasn't she 4 just yesterday?! Days like this remind me of how grateful I am for our birthday ring tradition. I can look at all the ornaments we carefully chose each year to represent our child's growth or interest and instantly be brought back to that year of their life. It rather eases the pain of their growing. This year's ornament was supposed to be a car but I somehow forgot to order it 😵 so one of L's train ornaments is temporarily in its place. Oops. Oh well. It will be there for her next birthday along with all the memories of this one.

**You know your daughter loves you when she will wear her birthday crown for you...then she goes to put it on and it doesn't fit. D'oh! Guess I need to loosen the elastic. Her head has grown since I made it when she was just 2 years old!

The big 14th birthday promise

Well, hello there! {end of the school year}

Hello there! Long time no see! To show you just how long it has been I am sharing photos from back in June. 🙈 We took the kids to Knoebels Amusement Park for our end of the school year celebration. It might become a new family tradition for us. We all had such a good time - just look at all those happy faces in the pictures!

As we entered the park they stamped Baby F's hand with the word Little. There was just something so unbearably poignant about that word being placed on his tiny hand. He was such a big boy riding all the rides at the park. He had no fear (he never has). He longed to be older and taller to ride the roller coasters with his siblings but all I could think was, "Please slow down! We are going to miss these little years."

Well, hello there! {end of the school year}