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.

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.

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.

I made these quills today for a birthday party we will be attending this weekend.  Nothing like waking up one morning, deciding to make quills, then watching a few videos, raiding the craft stash for feathers, and then making them.  All in the span of about an hour.

Yet another beach photo.  But–it is a photo of a different beach.  I love that my children get to know all of the beaches in our area.  They always want to know which one we are going to, and each has its own perks.  This one happens to be the closest to our home.  We are so lucky.  After a fantastic steak dinner and a glass of wine, tonight we headed to the beach for our first after-dinner swim of the summer.  The water was much colder than we anticipated, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Other than that, my weekend included a chicken class, building and populating a worm compost bin (more to come on that), furniture painting, sewing, knitting, reading, and a run-in with three black widow spiders.

Just your ordinary Florida weekend.

We celebrated our first May Day today.  Being a cross-quarter day, marking the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, it signifies the peak of spring, and the forthcoming summer.  We joined together for flower crafting, singing, dancing, playing and feasting.  Enjoying the sunshine and fresh air, as many many before us have.  Celebrating community and a shared belief that we are all connected to each other as well as the earth.

This was our first outing to meet some local homeschoolers and they were all very friendly and welcoming.  Through a stroke of pleasant irony, The Boy’s previous First Grade teacher just happened to bring her son to the playground while we were there.  It was nice to see her (pregnant!) and fill her in on how it’s going.  It somehow seemed like a nice closure to school.  One thing I was really concerned about when The Boy left school was the loss of community.  Once we were gone, it seemed barely noticeable, and now it seems like a non-issue.

The Girl was very excited about the maypole, having watched several maypole dances online.  As we gathered to watch the experienced maypole dancers show us how it was done, she began to cry because she wanted so badly to join. Her turn came soon enough and she was delighted.

For the feast, I brought gluten free pasta with pesto and a gluten free lemon cake (with mini maypole!). The feast was delicious and I have to say that there once was a time that I disliked the potluck and having now enjoyed so many great ones, now I love it!  Not only is it enjoyable to build community through food, but what a treat to enjoy so many new dishes!

It was a lovely, inspiring day all around.

I love the springtime.  It’s my favorite season here in Florida, and it can be fleeting.  I love the whole spring holiday aesthetic: pastel colors, birdies, eggs.  What’s not to love about that?  I vowed to not let the holiday sneak up on me this year but it did anyway.  It seems that every year we are sick in the weeks leading up to it.  I don’t know why I am surprised that it happened again this year.  But every year I let go of a bit more and every year I am happier with our celebration.  I did not make The Girl’s dress this year, and I did very little crafting for basket stuffers.

And it seems I’m the only mama on the planet who didn’t make her own plant-based egg dyes.  Every year I want to and every year I don’t.  But I’m okay with that.  I have to be honest that I love the bright colors of the food coloring, but next year I swear I will make the natural dyes.

I did manage to make Not Martha’s Surprise Eggs which were a lot of fun.  The kids loved them. They are filled with chocolate, jelly beans, temporary tattoos, stickers, and a pipe cleaner chick.  These were seriously fun and with splitting up the tasks over several days, they were fairly easy to make.

I also managed to make some fresh butter while on the phone with The Bird. How’s that for pioneer woman productivity?

I made the same meal that I always do (except the salmon) and this year I made a gluten free lemon cake because The Bird planted the idea of lemon cake in my head and I couldn’t get it out. With cake flags, of course.

Hopefully next year I will actually get my act together early instead of just thinking about it.  I’ll admit that I’m still trying to find my rhythm as far as having both kids at home and working school into the day.  Watching the holiday come and go so quickly made me contemplate starting winter solstice gifts now.  Seriously.

Well I sort of disappeared from this space for a while there.  I’m sure you can guess why:  I came down with the flu the kids had. Somehow The Daddy Monkey was spared.  But today we are all sick with some sort of sinus cold.  So rather than focus on how much sickness I’ve dealt with over the last three weeks, I decided to pop in here and share a beautiful moment from last week.

It was Friday, and we had finally gotten back into the swing of things.  Laundry was caught up, and we were finally back at school again. We hadn’t yet come down with this bug we have now.  I usually make Friday a half day as far as school is concerned, but I just decided at breakfast that the day was far too beautiful to be inside.  The boy asked me, “why don’t we make Fridays a weekend?”

So for once, I indulged us all.  It was our first beach trip of the year.  We arrived to find the beach pretty empty, and changed from how we left it last year.  The water was still cold, but we managed to get a bit wet.  We had a lovely time, and it was the first time I took my children to the beach, just the three of us, and they weren’t asking, “when do our friends get here?”

I will admit I’ve had a few homeschool moments when I have thought, “what have I gotten myself into?” But to be able to take my children to the beach on a Friday morning (and manage to learn something while we are there!) fills my heart with such gladness that I am able to give them this gift.

“School always appeared to me like a prison, and I never could make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was such a joy to run about in the free air, or to paddle around in the water.”  ~Claude Monet

It quite a day.  The Boy ran around and played with friends, and The Girl and I picked berries.

It was a whirlwind sort of day.  Busy and fun.  Happy and productive.  Exhausting and satisfying.

Here’s how I felt throughout the day:

…stress from hurrying out the door to get there on time.  We were still late.  My get-up-and-out-the-door mojo is gone now that we are homeschooling!

…pride, as I managed to not get lost on the way to the farm.

…joy, at the glorious and warm Spring day it was.

…wonder, at the glorious sight of so many beautiful sun-ripened fruits.

…happiness, when The Girl said to me, “Mom, this is fun!”

…disbelief, when I discovered that the total for my 23 pounds of berries came to $57!

…regret, when I saw how much work I had ahead of me.

…fatigue, when I was up to my eyeballs in strawberries.

…relief, that I had started a pot of chili before we left, and did not have to cook dinner.

…satisfaction, that I made three batches of strawberry jam, totalling twenty-two jars!

Who knew strawberries could bring forth so many emotions?  I’m imagining a cold winter day in the future in which I will open a jar of this jam and taste a beautiful Spring day.

When the homeschool day begins to get stale, and I’m going a little cuckoo from being the only adult in the house, I like to put on some loud music and dance around.  Sometimes the kids think I’m crazy, sometimes they join in.  Today’s song was “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles.  Actually, almost any Ray Charles song will work.

I don’t know if it’s the act of dancing around and getting the blood pumping, or listening to a great song, but it almost always makes me feel better.

Play this song, dance around, and just see if it doesn’t improve your mood!