December's Slow Snow Days

This December has been full of snow, which led to several snowdays, very welcome among these holiday weeks.

We made the most of those snowdays and the rest of December by sledding,

followed by the obligatory hot chocolate,

cookie-baking,

cookie exchanging,

gingerbread house-making,

tree-decorating,

staying in jammies by the fire with bedhead all day,

and most importantly for some of us. . . napping.

May your holiday season be filled with joy, food, friends, family, and rest.

Ice Walk

Winter at BlackAcre

Field Trip

Skye's most recent field trip was to the Kentucky State Arts and Crafts Museum.  I chaperoned, which meant that Quinn got his first ride on a bus - those amazing vehicles that he's fairly obsessed with.  He was wide-eyed to say the least.

The kids got to make some hands-on clay art, glaze and all to be fired soon.  What a terrific field trip.

Christmasing and Crafting

I love Christmas.  Always have. 

I have such great memories of Christmas as a child: my Dad playing Christmas music nonstop after Thanksgiving, driving to the same Christmas tree farm every year to spend at least two hours roaming the hillside looking for the "perfect" one, making cookies with my mom, hearing Santa on the roof with my uncle, making and wrapping presents in my room with a sign on my door that read "Santa's workshop: Keep OUT!", running around my grandparents' house with my cousins amidst unwrapping and family chaos, sleeping with my siblings every Christmas Eve, and on and on.

 

So, I've been trying to pass some of that holiday cheer on to our kids.  We have had fun dragging up the holiday boxes (that's right, there are more than one) and pulling out decorations and books that are just for this short burst of winter cheer.  Skye is now old enough to recognize things from years past and even ask where this or that is.  It's so fun to re-tell the stories of who or where things came from again and again.

The past few years, I've been snagging the free greenery that is cut off of the bottom of Christmas trees when we go buy our tree.  I've had fun decorating the house with it in little vases here and there and on the mantle. 

I made a little time for crafting this year, albeit small and modest.  With a Quinn in the house, any crafting is a veritable feat of engineering.  I finally found a use for some of those babyfood jars I'd been hanging on to.  White tissue paper decoupaged on with watered down glue, some gold thread, and seed beads made them into cute little candle holders for our mantle this year.

May your holidaying be filled with growing traditions and much crafting!

The First Snowfall of the Winter

Some might have called it "just a dusting," but we called it sledding weather.  After all, we had just gotten hand-me-down snowgear the day before from cousins.  We had to try it out. 

November Blur

November has come and gone, in the blink of an eye apparently.
This month has left us with so much to be thankful for:

plenty of food,
         

 a family carriage-ride at Black Acre, 

an excuse for a flower splurge,

"helpful" children,

the first taste of soda-pop,

soup from our garden squash,

the start of Parent-child "playschool" at our beloved Waldorf School of Louisville,

time spent with family,

and of course, hedge apples on the ground.

I am so full of thanks, and I hope you are, too.