beauty observed today

Tanya and Lela's salt dough chambered nautilus and sea turtle.

Tanya with her littlest one, MaKenna.

Storm approaching from the West.

Rainbow in the East, speaking to me and reminding me of my Papa, rebirth and the Great Circle of Life.

Seven Years

In Waldorf/Steiner philosophy, every seven years (or so) you go through transformation.

My friend Apple says that every seven years, your body "replaces" itself and you are in a new body. (Reminds me of what I heard my dad say once: "If you have an axe and you replace the handle three times and the blade twice, is it the same axe?")

And of course, the "seven-year itch". Haha!

Today Mike and I celebrate the 7th anniversary of the night we decided to get married. In many ways, I consider this date, July 28th, to be more important than the actual date we got married, September 28th. After all, it is the day that you actually made the committment to each other - the marriage was for everyone else, in a way.

When we made the decision, most everyone was skeptical, to say the least.

I think their worries have been assuaged now.

I couldn't ask for a better partner on this journey, a better father to our children.

I love you Mike - Happy 7th Engagement Anniversary!

Schiele Museum

We love the Schiele Museum here in Gastonia, NC. Only 10 minutes door-to-door, it is a perfect place for us to escape the heat. We went this afternoon after a busy morning around the house and yard.

Laurel chatting with a chickadee.

Laurel checking out the beautiful sandhills diorama.

Liv outside the Schiele, wearing Ima in Didymos Pfau!

They have a new Ocean exhibit that we also love - we go about once a week. This was earlier in this month.

Another picture from a weekend visit to the Schiele. Daddy was with us and Lela got to do the gemstone mining. She found beautiful emeralds, garnets, amethyst and a huge smoky quartz!

And another earlier trip on a day when I was keeping my neighbors grandkids.

I love their puppet theater - the kids had a great time acting out my impromptu play about animal friends who couldn't get over their Friend Skunk's smell, so Eagle invented a nose plug. Ha!

And one for my detractors who say I never let my kids have ice cream! :)

Visit with Aunt Bec

Last weekend, we were so happy that Aunt Bec, my sister Rebecca, came to visit. All week, the girls kept asking if Aunt Bec was coming today. On Friday morning, I was so happy to be able to say "YES!"

(picture from May visit - see end of post)




She came bearing many gifts. For me, some new incense and a brand-spankin' new pair of Maui Jim sunglasses. She got them through the company, which sponsors her shooting. I have always had Arnettes and love them, but these are some nice spectacles! I do think I'm hooked already, though the real test is how they do fly fishing. (double pun intended!)


For the girls, a book called Hidden Flower Fairies with illustrations by Cicely Mary Barker. A few months ago at a flea market, we picked up a series of her Flower Fairies books based around the four seasons. There are beautiful watercolors with little poems, each steeped in natural history and folklore. We love them, and are so happy that we have a special new Flower Fairies book!


Laurel peeping in FairyLand!

There was plenty of time for snuggles with Aunt Bec.

They also enjoyed doing some watercolor paintings together. I hope to get pics to share of the paintings soon. There was little time for taking pictures with two 2 1/2 year olds wielding
sopping wet brushes!

Lela especially enjoyed showing off her new "pumping" abilities.

Since I didn't get enough pictures of the girls, I thought I would includes these of a brief day visit with Aunt Bec. We went to McDowell Nature Preserve, where Mike works, of course!

Laurel is always in favor of being carried.

Showing Aunt Bec "their" creek.

Of course the sisters didn't get much time to visit. Hopefully she can come back soon.

Thanks for visiting us Aunt Bec, we all love you!

Happy Birthday.....

ERIN!

We love you!

Another Visit from the Faeries

In Waldorf, physical and imaginative play is a important part of being a young child. Academics, mental work, is discouraged, until the child is developmentally ready, around age 7. There is plenty of physical play here, but for Lela, imaginative play is really just starting to blossom. Laurel and Liv are following and learning as well, and benefit from having a big sister.

Our recent faery garden is a great example of their imaginative play - acorn caps become bowls, a shell is a lake, and tiny bits of mulch outline a path to the dance area. Sunday afternoon, after our yet-to-be-blogged-about adventures to Latta Nature Preserve, the girls rearranged and redecorated their faery garden. Offerings of three blueberries, a baby corn and a tiny tomato from our garden were left in a Pop bowl for the faeries.

In gratitude, Mike and I once more slipped on our faery wings to create gifts of appreciation. Over our faery nectar, we created each girl a watercolor picture with their name. Mike hung them out in the garden on Monday morning.

Happily he got to see the girls find them before leaving for work. The pictures are now hanging in their play room. We had fun creating them and engaging our creative, imaginative aspects as well.

One of my favorite parts of the faery play is that a new family tradition seems to be starting. Family traditions are something we've been talking about and seeking to create. I also love how faeries have danced their way into our everyday lives - a piece of trash is picked up, a flower touched kindly - because they are alive and well in our minds and spirits.

They have given a special gift to the girls - for the first time since we have lived here, tiny toads are to be found. Thank you Faeries!

Saturday Visit to the Nursery and the Skate Park

On Saturday we took a trip to local nursery, Stowe's. It is only about 10 minutes from our house and such a nice place it visit. There's a lake with a floating dock and swings, cows and a donkey, and lots of beautiful old farm buildings.

The girls playing in the labyrinth of Sun-loving plants.



Lela running toward one of the partial shade houses.


Mike with Liv while Laurel stops to smell a flower.


Their prices are so good and the plants are extremely healthy, so we picked up a few for our yard. We're sticking to perennials for now since they are a better investment, and less work! For under $25 I picked up 7 large plants: 3 herbaceous Salvia (hummingbirds!), 2 lavenders, 1 rosemary, 1 Echinacea.

The Echinacea now looks beautiful in the front bed, and 2 of the partial shade Salvias and the rosemary went in the kids' garden in the backyard. One Salvia and one lavender found homes in the faery garden.

It is going to look so beautiful back there!

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And the latest on our Skate Park:

Mike found this big piece of iron and a 6x6 in a trash pile, and it is now a perfect grinding rail.

A Faery Garden

Yesterday afternoon we started on a little faery garden. We decided to put it in the section of the girls' backyard garden pictured here. After cleaning away debris, settling stones back in their places and smoothing the dirt clean, the construction began.

We used pieces of cedar, small sections of the limbs and cookies, to make two houses. A large cockle shell (from Gran) was selected to become a faery lake. Large sticks were planted at the back of the garden as trees for hanging wreathes, flowers and garlands. A teeny tiny blue vase (from GG and GP) held cut flowers from our front yard beds. I buried it down into the ground to keep it from being knocked over constantly.

This morning the girls ran outside while I was making blueberry pancakes (again!) to poke around. With the foundation for the garden already in place, the fun of decorating could begin!

Lela settled some miniature flag stones into the ground for the faeries to walk on. These are actually tiles that our neighbor gave us after she tiled her kitchen. A tiny ear of corn is inside the house - Lela found it while shucking corn for last night's dinner, and put it out there last night.

Liv uses her trowel (from GG and GP as well) to "dug out a place" for a stone. Pictured is one of the three faery doors that we made during co-op. Small stones were added to make a path from one of the houses to the lake. More stones ringed the vase of flowers. Liv took extra care to put a few choice beads into a small scallop shell for the faeries.


When the mosquitoes were too bad, we went inside and made pinwheels. They were so simple - I used origami paper which had a slight waxiness to it. After being cut, the paper was pushed onto a bent paperclip. The paperclip was stuck down into a straw, and a bamboo skewer was pushed into the straw some stability. A little bit of hot glue secured a bead onto the end of the paperclip to keep the pinwheel on. All the girls could help with some part of the craft, minus the hot glue.


Lela and I used extra skewers to thread leaves on, and topped them with gum balls. These, she decided, were trees that the faeries could climb. Laurel and Liv skipped this in favor of the swings.


After lunch Liv and Lela snipped marigold leaves and scattered them over the ground of the garden. "To get the faeries to come," Lela said. As added incentive, a tiny blue faery that Mike made sat in the middle of the area of dancing.


It is finished, for now!





What faery wouldn't want to play here! I hope to get some close up shots of the individual aspects. They all put a lot of time and love into their creation. I had a lot of fun too! We sat in front of the garden and read _In the Land of Fairies_ by Daniela Drescher. A gift from Aunt Bec.

After cutting the grass, I walked by the faery garden and noticed three necklaces hanging from the stick trees! It also appeared in the darkness that there were tiny glittering baubles all over. The faeries had already come to dance and apparently appreciated their new home.

Musings on Stars

I'm feeling introspective tonight - and Mike suggested that I share my thoughts here rather than with him and his skateboarding magazine. A wise man.

It is an inward-turning time. The Moon is waning. And although the days decidedly Summery around here, they are growing shorter as we wobble and spin toward Winter.


Stars in the dome of the Earth as I'm walking this evening. Stars are deep metaphors as well - tonight they represented bright flashes of insight.

Humans must have always marveled at the Stars. I still do, though it is through a haze of smog and the glare of light pollution. Street lights and the airplane headlights creating unpleasant, hard linear strokes. I grumble inwardly at how only the brightest can shine through anymore.

However, there is a Star, a bright spot, in that event. I suddenly see people on those airplanes - mothers, fathers, children, friends, lovers - speeding to and from their loved ones. I feel thankful for the airplanes that connect people in faraway places. Connection births understanding, and understanding births peace.


Liv captured a Star in this picture. Seeing it at the end of a long day brought a rush of insight. My tiny little daughter, who looks up to door handles. How her world is so different! Certainly an in-sight.

The Stars shining down on my world. Three little girls sleep while banjos and mandolins serenade us. The willingly and peacefully laid down on that blanket for us, trusting that we would watch over them. In that Star moment, I closed my eyes and thanked them.

Fun and Productive Saturday

Today we accomplished so much, and had a great time doing it! Usually those things don't go together: finishing adult tasks and happy children.


I rearranged the playroom - pics to come of that!

The girls and I sat down and shelled a big bag of butter peas. Yum! We'll be having those tomorrow. We also made bead and shell necklaces - all three girls threaded them on their own. Lela and Liv are wearing theirs in this picture. Laurel decided it would be more fun to cut hers with the scissors. So it goes.



Mike cleaned the backyard up and his shed. He got all the junk off the patio - he's turning it into a skate park back there. There are big plans, I tell you. Handrails and a quarter pipe that drops in from the screen porch. I'm sure this add tons of value to our home. Haha!

But wait! He's not done! Together with the girls, Mike ripped out the plastic edging around the girls' garden and replaced it with rocks from the woods. It looks so much better! We're going to get some flowers for them tomorrow.


I reapplied cayenne pepper to the tomatoes. The squirrels ate all of them, even the green ones, last week. We came home from the bluegrass concert to no tomatoes at all! How sad! I'm hoping this remedy will keep the squirrels away. Mike told me it was payback for feeding Girlfriend.

Birthday Party/Cookout

Friday we had a cookout and birthday party for one of our neighborhood friends. There were three families there, including ours, with a total of 9 daughters! Our Waldorf co-op only has one girl besides ours, so time spent with the same sex is welcome for us.

We decided to make a treasure pouch for our friend. Lela chose the fabric and thread, cut out two squares (which needed very minimal trimming by me) and with my help, pinned three sides together. Then she stitched the three sides closed - I turned the opening under and stitched it down to create the casing. Together we threaded the drawstring through the casing and attached two beads of Laurel and Liv's choosing. Lela really did most of the work - I was very impressed!



Laurel and Liv enjoyed some embroidery while Lela and I were sewing.

Add carefully selected treasues: crytals, beads, fossil coral, glass stones, shell and fossil shark's tooth - and you have a lovely handcrafted birthday gift.

Liv and Laurel chow down on hotdogs. I wish I had more pictures of the party, but all the rest have the other kids in them. It was a lot of fun though - it was after 10pm before we got home! We're hoping to make cookouts a regular event now.

Laurel's First Haircut

I'm always reluctant to cut my babies' hair, especially for the first time. All three of them were 2 1/2 when they had their first haircut. I think about cutting off those first little hairs that sprouted out of their head when they were born - and also how a haircut makes them look less like babies and more like little girls.

So it goes - we decided Laurel was ready for her first haircut, and had it done yesterday afternoon.

Waiting patiently for her stylist (haha!) Marina to take a before picture for posterity. The first snip is taken off!

A quick blow-dry - another first for Laurel. They have such quiet equipment at this place!

Are you ready??? Here is the "new" Laurel!

When I cut Lela and Liv's hair short, I loved it from the first minute. But with Laurel, it's having to grow on me. It DOES look better and very cute, but I think it might have been a bit too short (even though it needed that much to even things out).