Our Candlemas...

Candlemas was February 2nd. We celebrated last night, the 3rd. I'd like to be able to blame our belated celebration on there being a newborn in the house.... but, really, its just that I'm not all that good at getting things done on time.... oh well... Aurora doesn't know the difference, yet.

So, this was our Candlemas: rolling beeswax candles and a candlelit Pancake dinner... simple, but still very fun. We also talked a bit about Spring being on its way, and the return of the sun and why we celebrate those things with candles and pancakes. Aurora understood more of this than I had expected and commented that when Spring came, the bees would come, and we could thank them for our candles.... Oh, my sweet girl, you are always melting my heart :)

Rolling her first candle

Counting the candles... one for each of us, including Liam

Her first candlelit dinner

Our Candlemas table (we ate on our coffee/playtable, because our dinning table's covered with stuff at the moment)

And, for good measure, a picture of the babe this morning. I can.not.believe. he's going to be two weeks old tomorrow!!! His skin seems to be fairer than Aurora's and he's definitely more prone to baby acne and newborn rash... hence the redness in his face. His eyes are lighter, too, so I'm thinking they'll stay blue~ just like Daddy's :) Time will tell...

New Years and Epiphany/Three Kings Day

New Year's for us this year was kept pretty darn simple. We had some yummy (although store bought) pastries for breakfast, switched the calendars and Around The Year book over, lounged around and then Rory and I made this special candle. We will light it on the first day of each month, and then next January, use it to light the new New Year's Candle. The idea being that we will watch it grow smaller as the year progresses. We used clay punches to punch shapes from beeswax decorating wax strips and Aurora chose where to place them on the candle. Easy peasy and lots of fun.

And, today we celebrated Epiphany/ Three Kings Day for the first time. We took down all our Christmas decorations last night, and Aurora was none too happy to see the tree go... It helped that we had this small celebration to look forward to today. Given that I am ahem rather large with child at the moment (and contracting regularly, but not enough, apparently... whole other story), this celebration was kept pretty small as well. I had originally wanted to at least bake a tree kings cake to have for breakfast this morning... but last night, rather uncharacteristically, I actually recognized my limits and decided to skip any baking/further crafting, and stick to a paper crown and the three small gifts we had chosen for Aurora. And that was truly plenty for this year. It was a very sweet morning.

Our Martinmas Lanterns

Aurora enjoyed this so much! Martinmas will now have a permanent place on our holiday calendar, I believe. And it has inspired me to to take a closer look at some of the lesser known/celebrated holidays and festivals- next up would be Santa Lucia in December.

working on her lantern (she loved the gluestick!)

a very, very happy girl

out for our lantern walk

back home, the lantern aglow on our Nature Table

St. Martin was a noble military officer who sliced his cloak in half and gave one half to a freezing beggar. He later dreamed that the beggar had been Christ, or a messenger of Christ, and was moved to give up his Military career for a life of peace and service, in God's name.

Next year, I plan to have Aurora help me gather up her warm winter clothes that she's outgrown and help me deliver them to shelter or donation center. Another way people celebrate is by having a meal in which each person has a roll or muffin that they then slice in half and offer half to the person sitting next to them.... we'll plan to do this, too.

Corn Cob Montessori

Oh wow, was this a huge hit!!! Removing the kernels from a cob of Indian Corn, one by one. The idea for this actually came from this great book, which is Waldorf Inspired.... but lends itself so nicely to both schools of thought. The first time I put this out for Aurora, she sat and worked for nearly 45mins and finished the whole cob! I've left the activity out, and she's gone back to it several times.... and carried the kernels off for all kinds of other activities too: cooking in the play kitchen, filling various containers, putting some into two duplo blocks to make 'maracas' (loved that one!), several have also made their way to the nature table.

I have many other activities planned to expand on this (hopefully we'll get to at least some of them before we lose steam- things have been moving pretty slowly around here):

~grinding the cobs together to make dust.... then using her little sweeper set to work on sweeping skills

~ using the mortar and pestal to grind some up. I don't think we'll get them fine enough to use in baking, but I plan to print out cultural pictures of stone grinding corn and then using some store bought masa to make corn tortillas.

~putting some in rice and then using a slotted spoon to sift them out and transfer to a bowl

~ soaking some overnight then using a blunt tapestry needle to string them into bracelets.

Any other ideas??

Welcome, Autumn

Our Autumn nature table

Aurora and her sweet new Waldorf doll, Autumn, handmade by Grandmommy

the joy of Autumn leaves

cranberries cooking on the stove (wow, did that smell good!)

dying playsilks with 'natural' dyes

So, because playsilk dying tutorials with kool-aid and food coloring are a dime a dozen, I never borrowed to post one about the fun I've been having with dying these wonderfully open-ended play props. Also, because I was getting really frustrated with the less than stellar pictures my camera was turning out. But, boy has it been fun.

So, I knew I wanted to dye some earthy colors to add to our collection, and I figured what better way to get 'earthy' and 'all natural' than to head to the pantry?

The first step, not pictured, is to soak your silks in hot water with a splash of vinegar for 20 mins or so. While the silks are soaking, you can prepare your dyes. I used the left over grounds from our coffee this morning and ran the coffee maker again with 12 cups water (as measured on the coffee carafe). I also thought I'd give turmeric a go, so i sprinkled a bunch into the bottom of a four-cup measuring cup. How much? I didn't measure, but about this much:
I then added some vinegar to the turmeric and some salt as well 'cause I hadn't realized I was so low on vinegar. I was worried all the dye would wash out when I rinsed the silk, and I was pretty sure I had heard that salt could be used as a mordant. I figured it couldn't hurt anyhow... and I think it did help. How much, you ask again? I would guess about a 1/4 cup of vinegar and two tsps of salt or so. Then I poured in boiling water from the kettle to measure about 4 cups and stirred to combine. I put my silks to be dyed (in this case a 30''by30" and an 11"by11") into a pot and poured the turmeric mixture on top.

For the coffee silks (same sizes), I plopped them into a pot and poured the weakly brewed coffee over, with another 1/4 C of vinegar (all that was left) and some salt.
Then I put both pots on the stove top and brought to a boil. As they were boiling, I stirred the silks around pretty often to get even coverage. I meant to time how long the were on the stove, but my dear husband called right as I was putting them on, so I was talking to him all the while and lost track of time. I'd say they were probably on for 15 mins or so. Then I turned the burners off and let them cool for 5 mins or so. I planned to let them cool all the way in the pots before rinsing, but I'm simply too impatient.

They were such beautiful, and yes, very natural, earthy colors coming out of their dye baths! I was particularly impressed by the turmeric....
The coffee was a little lighter than I had anticipated, but beautiful nonetheless. I'm sure if dyed with full strength coffee, it probably would have been darker... but coffee is much too precious to me to 'waste' on silks.
I was super nervous rinsing them out that all the color would go right down the drain with the water-- but nope! It really didn't take very much rinsing either, before the water ran clear. Many people will throw their silks in the washing machine and give a rinse and spin (with no detergent), but I have community laundry and have to pay per load, so I just rinse mine in the kitchen sink and they seem to turn out just fine ;)

They're out in the living room drying now. I think Aurora will be very pleased with them when she wakes from her nap!