Apparently I can’t manage much more for this blog than uploading photos every month or so and pasting them here without much commentary or polishing. That’s the season I’m in right now, folks! So here you go:
Tag Archives: Nesting
green! but only inside
We’ve been experiencing a typical spring — days of sunshine and mud and hope alternating with days of cold and snow boredom. We’ve spotted a few slips of green outdoors — most notably our chives and some dandelions sprouting. But we also decided to bring some green indoors. We are conducting a twig study, with lilac, plum, and basswood branches clipped from our yard. And we made a terrarium. Just enough green and growing to get us through to the warmer side of spring.
feathering the nest
In a little over two months we will be celebrating our 1st anniversary in this house. And I feel like we are still unpacking and moving in. In the past couple months we finally hung some stuff on the walls, put up shelves, did some little projects we’ve been intending to do since we moved in last May. We now have enough space for our books. The girls have a gallery for their art. We even made a heart mobile for Valentine’s day (that may just stay up all year round). It’s good to feel a little more settled — and organized!
there are never any pencils
I think we are finally — after months of chaos and upheaval — settling into a comfortable homeschool rhythm. It helps (me) that the house is a bit more in order now; we’re hanging things on the walls and organizing closets that have been in disarray since moving day. I’m working with the girls to keep their school and art supplies organized. For some reason we have every art and craft supply under the sun, yet the humble, essential pencil always goes missing. Bea and I sharpened half a box of them the other day and I’ve been reminding the girls to place them back in the proper jar, so we’ve had about a week now without scrambling around the house every time someone needs a pencil. Sometimes it’s the little things.
We’ve been working on familiarizing Bea with numbers and letters, and also writing her name. I’ve been using the alphabet printables from this site and she loves to do rainbow writing (writing the letter or number over and over again with different colored markers).
We’ve been doing art more regularly, and it has been welcomed back into our lives with joy from all corners. Adeline has been having fun using Ed Emberley’s fingerprint drawing books. 
We printed out some play money to use in our alphabet store. Both girls like this game, and it helps Bea with letter recognition and Adeline with addition.
Our devotions lately have revolved around the Lord’s Prayer, using the activities found here.
These winter days have been cold, often with crazy wind, so we find ourselves indoors much of the time. Bea will keep herself occupied for a long time with the Play-Doh supplies; Adeline has been reading chapter books and practicing songs on her accordion. We are all wishing for warmer days — or at least some snow to go out and play in.
amidst the clutter
I like to have the house all clean and tidy before we decorate for the holidays. Of course it doesn’t stay that way for long. The regular toy-book-paper-musical instrument clutter accumulates again. Decorations get arranged and rearranged and played with and misplaced. I try fairly hard for a few days to keep things organized and looking the way I would like it to look.
And then quickly I am reminded that the living we do in this house — the learning, playing, creating, and mess making that goes on here on a daily basis — isn’t going to cease just because I’ve put up some lights and garlands. The house isn’t going to stay any tidier during the Christmas season than it is during the rest of the year. And that’s fine. The nativity sets, the Jesse tree, the lights, they’re still there amidst the clutter of our everyday life. They still stand out as reminders of what’s most important. They’re no less meaningful for the mess all around them; in fact, I think perhaps there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, in the way my kids incorporate the symbols and reminders of this sacred story into our own messy, common, everyday lives. Perhaps it’s a lesson that’s worth remembering long after the decorations are packed away for the year.
And anyway, once darkness falls and the lights are sparkling, it’s much harder to see the rest of the mess.
new traditions
My girls have never made gingerbread houses before – and it would never have happened without these kits.
Adding O Antiphons to our Advent devotions (free ornaments here).
a cozy week
decking the halls
so long
Perhaps I should mention here that we are moving. Many of you already know that, but for the people who only know me through this blog it may be the first you are hearing of it. The good news is that we are only moving thirty miles away. The bad news is that moving is always a pain, whether the miles are few or many. The other good news is we have so many awesome friends who have volunteered their services to make this easier — thank you all, dear friends!
Woody Guthrie’s “So long, it’s been good to know ya” has been on repeat in my head. Alsoly (which is Bea’s word for “also”) this line from Sigrid Nunez: “Moving house is an ordeal, not least because of the unpacking of the past that is usually involved.” Some of these boxes have been with us through our last three moves and then waited in our basement for four years for this very event. When I see them I can’t help thinking of all the homes we’ve loved, the memories we made, the friends we’ve left behind. All that sentimentality in a piece of cardboard! I’m sort of an emotional wreck when it comes to moving. But it’ll all be over soon.
small things
1:: A bowl of rattlesnake soup, anyone?
2:: A vest, nearly finished.
3:: That girl.
4:: Those curls.
5,6:: Sewing felt pastries.
7,8:: Indoor icebergs.
9:: Clementine candles.
making life 