We celebrated a sweet and simple birthday this past weekend.  My little girl tuned four.   She now informs me that she is not little and is indeed, “a BIG girl.” Well, I think I’m inclined to agree with her.

I gave her a couple of party options and she chose to light sky lanterns with a small group of friends at the beach.  I purchased five lanterns here, and couldn’t have been happier with the results.  It was cold that evening, so the celebration was kept short and sweet.  While bundled in our warmest sweaters, hats and gloves, we enjoyed cupcakes, blew bubbles, and played with sparklers.  After the beautiful sunset, we lit our lanterns and sent them flying with sweet birthday wishes. I was glad to have so many adults present, to help with lighting all the lanterns.  We had eight in all (a family member brought three more), and lost only one to the cold and windy conditions.

It was a sweet and magical party.  One I am sure no one will forget any time soon.

Now that the holidays are over, I can show off some of the toys I made for the kids. Here are the fairies I made, to go with these from last year.  All of them get played with a lot, by both The Boy and The Girl. I won’t show you how last year’s look now.  They have held up well, but they have been played with hard. Somehow I find that very satisfying.  I also love how I find these little fairies in odd places all over the house.  It’s a nice surprise.

I’m very pleased with how these came out, and now that I’ve made quite a few, they are getting much easier to make.  They are so cute, I am always tempted to keep them for myself.

I mean, they would look cute on my desk.

I’m here to talk about the Word of the Year, but first I think I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about these cinnamon rolls. On a whim, I made them for Christmas morning, then again for New Year’s Day (today).  They have changed my life, in a very bad way because now I am obsessed with cinnamon rolls.  I am determined to make an orange version, similar to those pop-the-tube-on-the-counter sweet rolls from my 80’s childhood.  I have however, taken a liking to the Swedish tradition of fika in the afternoon, with a cinnamon roll and a hot cup of tea.  Really, what could be better than that?

The holidays were nice, even though I experienced them through the fever-riddled haze of a sinus infection. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is always my favorite time of the holidays.  Rather then feeling a big let-down, I tend to breathe a huge sigh of relief, as the pressure of the holidays seems to fade into a nice, slow, easy pace of nowhere to be and nothing to do. I love it. And this year I managed to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, something I haven’t managed to do since having the kids. It was fun staying up late drinking wine, listening to The Daddy Monkey play guitar, and visiting with an old, old friend who may as well just be family by now.

In a tradition I’ve borrowed from my dear friend The Bird, rather than making New Year’s resolutions, I tend to choose a simple word to live by for the year.  I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what my word of the year ought to be this year.  Many words rose to the occasion: lovingkindness, gratitude, and peace. But really, I think for me it’s going to be about simplicity this year.  Simple meals, simple home, and simple schedules.  Keep it simple.

In 2012, I’d like to spend more time in this space, but less time on the computer as a whole.  I’ve been away from this space for longer than I would like.  Sometimes life just gets away from me and I’m not quite sure how.  I also would like to enjoy cooking again.  My cooking has been so strained lately, I’d really like to see some joy come out of my kitchen again (see cinnamon rolls, above). I’d love to learn how to play an instrument. The ukulele to be specific. I love how it sounds, and everyone keeps telling me it’s easy, even though in my many attempts to learn an instrument over many years, music just doesn’t come easily to me. I’d also like to spend some more time sewing for myself.  Make some new clothes which would allow me to  simplify (!) my wardrobe. I’d like to get back to some of my old cameras, and play around with film photography again.  It’s an old love of mine, and I miss it.

2012 was a pretty good year for us. There were some struggles for sure, but overall, it was good. I’m looking forward to The Girl’s fourth birthday this month, getting back into the swing of our normal rhythm of school and life, and enjoying the unbelievably gorgeous Florida winter we’ve been having.

Life is good. Happy 2012.

Another sweet and simple holiday–just how I like it.  Our celebration was very similar to last year’s. This year, St. Nicholas brought each child a golden nut, a tangerine, chocolate coins, a candy cane, a geode to break open, and a small wooden mushroom kaleidoscope. For The Girl, he brought a small wooden honey pot for her tea set, and for The Boy, he brought a tiny Lego set.

After celebrating the festivals for over a year now, I can see how the simplicity and the sameness from year to year really shines through.  It’s the resonance of the year’s passage and the comfort of the reliability and predictability that really makes celebrating the seasons so special.

Well, even though the winter holidays are nearly upon us, I wanted to share a few snaps of our Autumn.  We had a nice Martinmas, even though we headed out a bit too late and The Girl was a bit scared by the complete darkness of the woods around us.  It was still a delightful and magical evening.

And here’s how our nature table looked before I cleared it off for Advent.

Even though I felt like I was well prepared for the holiday season, it sort of crept up on me!  But vowing to do less every year has really taken the stress out of the holiday.  We are going to wrap up school this week, and get down to some serious crafting and baking in the weeks to come.  I’m really looking forward to it!

I’ve always been a great sky lover.  It’s always changing.  Always different. Always beautiful.

It’s one of my favorite things in the whole world.  When things are making me crazy, I like to look up at the sky.

Kind of ironic, being grounded by the sky.

Once again, I was pretty proud of myself for getting the kids’ Halloween costumes done ahead of time.  I love making the costumes for the kids (I always did fantasize about being a costume designer), and the key to doing it stress-free, is starting very early.

Much to my chagrin, The Girl chose to be a princess.  Specifically, “a princess with a fluffy blue dress.” While I don’t especially subscribe to the whole princess thing, I can surely understand my girl’s desire to wear a big beautiful dress. Despite the trickiness of all those layers of tulle, the dress went together pretty easily after just a week’s sewing.  I used Simplicity 2569, even though I had to combine several of the designs to get what she wanted. The crown is the same as these.

The Boy chose to be The Dragon King.  His favorite fantasy character at this time, The Dragon King does not hurt the dragons, but rather he communicates with them.  He is their friend.  We re-used the cape and shirt from this costume, so all I had to make was the vest.  You can’t really tell, but the vest fabric is printed with reptile scales.

This was the first year we took the kids trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood, and we had a great time!  There was much grumbling at first, but once the kids saw how much candy they had, they began to really enjoy themselves!  It was a very sweet and easy Halloween, quietly celebrated by our little family of four.

Well, it’s been nearly a year since we started homeschooling.  I’ll admit I’ve been through all the emotions: happiness, confusion, bliss, hopelessness, desperation, joy and acceptance.  A wise friend told me that the only way to get through it was to change my perception.  My children, and the situation at public school certainly aren’t going to change. They are what they are. For better or worse.

Now that I have made it through to the other side, I am so happy to be here.  I’m so glad that I get to spend quiet lazy days reading books in the backyard with my kids.  I’m so glad that I’ve finally started meeting some homeschoolers, and we’ve been getting out of the house more. What a difference it has made!  Most of all, I am so glad that I’ve been witness to the development of my son’s love of reading.

We just had our first evaluation and he passed with flying colors!  What a relief.  I have to admit that through the year, doubtful thoughts crept into my mind from time to time.  But when I received a very large photo order in the mail for our homeschool portfolio, all of my doubt was erased.

We’ve had so many adventures.

We’ve made so many discoveries.

And side by side by side, we’ve created so much.

To top it all off, today we made a trip to our local art museum, and for the first time, the kids actually enjoyed themselves there.  It’s a place so dear to my heart.  As young art history student, so many years ago, I spent hours there nearly every week.  What a joy it was to share it with my children.

Yes, homeschool is awesome.

We were sick just a few weeks ago.  Just a little cold virus.  It took a while to make its way through the whole family.  Then just as we were all getting better, another one came.  I am really glad I had these dried elderberries stashed away.  Using this video, I made some elderberry syrup.  I think it’s delicious, but the kids aren’t really crazy about it.  Next time I think I’ll just use the berries and honey, omitting the spices.

I’m accepting this illness as gracefully as I can.  It’s a nice rainy day with some cool weather on the way.  A good day to hunker down with some good books, my knitting basket, and a cup of tea.

I made this apron from a beautiful white pillowcase.  The pillowcase is an odd size, it must have been a huge throw pillow or something.

I really like the apron, and I look forward to wearing it when I cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family.  It will be the first time I’ve had the whole family over since before having the kids.  I’m looking forward to it.

For Thanksgiving, I’m planning to make and freeze some pies and rolls.  I used to freeze dough in pre-shaped roll-sized balls.  Why don’t I do that anymore? Also thinking of freeezable side dishes.  Ideas?

I’m working on perfecting my pie crust, now that I finally have a real pie plate.  I’ve been making pies in a cake pan.  I’ve never been very good at pie making, so lots of pies are in my future.  I know, poor me.