A Birthday Gift

 My dear friend's little boy is turning 4 tomorrow! He's grown so much this year, has really turned into a little man.  He began his first year at our local Waldorf School and has really blossomed there.

Despite my friend's repeated attempts to ask her friends and family to refrain from gifting her son with media based toys, she lamented over the mountains of Transformer and Batman toys her son received this Christmas feeling defeated.  He loves those toys, but she has worked really hard since he has started at The Waldorf School to try to introduce him to toys that encourage more open ended play.

I know how hard she is struggling and how she feels nobody is taking her request/concerns about the media toys seriously.  So I decided to gift her son with a story.  I needle felted  a carrot, knitted then felted a little mouse, and knitted a chicken, a horse and the cutest little gnome I ever did see (if I do say so myself).

The story is inspired by this story which is inspired by The Giant Turnip, I believe.

One day horse saw what looked like a enormous carrot growing in Farmer's field, deciding this carrot would make a fine lunch, he tried and tried to pull it from the ground, but could not loosen it from the earth. 

Chicken saw horse struggling and came over to help, Horse and Chicken pulled and pulled but could not loosen it from the earth. 

Mouse watching the goings on, came to help. Horse, Chicken and Mouse pulled and pulled but could not loosen it from the earth. 

Mouse said he would ask his friend, Gnome to help. Mouse tapped on the earth and asked if gnome would help.

 Out popped gnome explaining, "I didn't know you wanted the carrot, I've been tugging on the other end this whole time!" 

So gnome came to help. Horse, Chicken, Mouse and Gnome pulled on the carrot and it popped right out of the earth, but horse fell onto chicken who fell onto mouse who fell onto gnome.

 Horse got up and said," I'm sorry chicken", Chicken said, "I'm sorry mouse" and Mouse said, "I'm sorry gnome". Nobody was hurt so they all laughed and enjoyed one enormous carrot  for lunch together.

I am so in love with the way this little gnome turned out.  I think I am going to knit up a few more in different color ways, I forsee my very first give away in the very near future.  The pattern is the same pattern my friend Claudia used for her second grade students and is available on her blog.

Autumn

Autumn is my favorite season and is particularly welcome and beautiful in Virginia.  Our summers are just too hot and humid to really enjoy our time in nature.  Here are some photos of how we marked the changing of the season in our home.

 

Our Nature Table

A little shelf in our hallway

Our dining room table

We also transformed our barn into a haunted house and have been practicing trick or treating with our wooden figures, this will be the littles first year going trick or treating to collect lots of sugar for the sugar fairy of course!

Our ooky spooky haunted barn!

The Squirrel

(From Wynstone Press's "Autumn")

Whisky, frisky, hoppity hop,

Up he goes to the tree top!

Whirly, twirly, round and round,

Down he scampers to the ground.

Furly, curly, what a tail!

Tall as a feather, broad as a sail!

Where's his supper?  In the shell.

Snappity, crackity, out it fell.

The littles have been very interested in the squirrels recently, often asking to look out the window when they first wake, to see what the squirrels are up to, laughing in delight watching them run up and down the trees and bury their acorns in the ground.  Luckily at any given time our yard has squirrels to watch.

We have been telling a simple story at night about father squirrel playing in the woods, when the cold wind blows (I gently blow the children's hair) and he knows Father Winter is coming so he must collect all of his acorns to eat during winter.  I throw up a handful of felted acorns and have the children help collect them and bring them back to Father Squirrel so he will have plenty of food to eat this winter.

We usually repeat this story a few times before bed, they have great fun gathering the nuts and it helps to get the last of their energy out as we settle in for bed time.

A few more photos of Fall in our playroom.

A shelf in the playroom

the bookcase in our playroom

The children's table with their felted fall harvest

Happy Birthday Kiera Raine

This weekend we celebrated Kiera's 2nd Birthday with  a Snow White themed party. What a magical day we had celebrating with friends, it was better attended than I had thought/ hoped but what do you when everyone has multiple children I think we ended up with 13 children total. 

 I made caramel apples using honey instead of sugar, an apple spice cake and my German Grandmother made an apple strudel, we served apple cider and apple spice tea, keeping with the apple theme.

I knitted her a white dress with red rose accents and ribbons, felted a matching birthday crown and made her a Snow White doll to match.

I also needle felted a Snow White mobile to hang above the picnic table.

The children took home their dwarf hats, a needle felted apple and these little medicine bags that had a peg doll forest spirit inside.  Each child choose their own bag hanging on the Camellia Tree.

We also wet felted magic rocks with the children this was a perfect activity to keep both the older children and little ones entertained.

 I wish I had taken a better photo of her cake, it was actually very simple, so simple I feel in love with it, it was a gluten free cake mix from Namaste foods, that I followed their instructions for creating apple spice cake (basically add apple sauce and grated apples) then baked cinnamon apples to trim the top with and then covered with a glaze.  I thought it was beautiful!

We concluded the party with a Snow White puppet show and lighting a few sparklers.  We could not have hoped for a more perfect day.