Spiraling in....

Little signs of Christmas are emerging at our house. This little wreath is sitting out on our porch--the stones soaking up the Advent light gathering warmth deep within.


Spirals are an important image for me at Christmas. They are a symbol of the inward spirit that flames so strongly at this time of year.


I wanted to create something that would remind me to seek peace. To seek quiet. To remember the spirit during all the merriment and festivities that come with this joyous season.


This is our new Advent calendar. A little apple moves from star to star, each day spiraling inward. The center candle--to be lit on the solstice--sits in the star of the apple.

Lou has made some sugar cookies to have with eggnog for an afternoon Beaver. Nels is putting out Christmas lights. Hels is getting the Christmas books from the attic. And so it begins. During this joyous season, I hope we can all stop just a bit more to find that star that glows deep in each of us.

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Over the river and through the wood...

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with 14 for dinner and many overnight guests. Luckily our neighbors were out of town so we cooked two turkeys at her house. While the house didn't smell of turkey all day, it made preparing the side dishes possible. Here is the arrival of the turkeys.

I was so busy cooking that I forgot to take a photo of part of the table--it had an extension reaching almost into the kitchen. Luckily Hels was using my camera throughout the day.


Hels's third try at making pumpkin pie turned out to be a success. My Mother made an apple cider pound cake--delicious!

A walk in the woods and a little football was very necessary after this feast. I wonder how my Uncle's back felt after all the tackling?

My brother cursed me when he saw this puzzle back out after not finishing it last year. He ended up working on it for two days and discovered it has a big error in it. I promised not to have it out again!

Evening brought turkey sandwiches, more pie and games such as Yahtzee and Thunder Hole dice. The stones are from our island vacation. The bowl was carved by Hels.


Friday brought lots of outdoor time--Nels and my brother sided part of the barn. The rest of us ventured into the woods to find treasures for terrariums.

It was fun to make little forest worlds from moss, lichen, and bark.


I love having these little bits of forest with us through the winter.


I hope those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving this week had a lovely time. We certainly did. To the family members who read this blog--I'm so glad you were all here. It was nice to be together remembering those who aren't with us anymore and being thankful for the love we all share.

With these bits of green and red decorating our home, it's time to turn our thoughts to the lovely Advent season.

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Hurrah for the Pumpkin Pie!

Well, we can't say "Hurrah" just yet. Last year Hels made the pumpkin pie and forgot all the spices. It was just a tad....bland. Last night, remembering this fact, she added EXTRA spices when making the pie. We had a little preview taste of the extra custard that she had baked. HOLY COW. It was spicy.


My sweet brother is running her down to the grocery to pick up some more pumpkin so she can try one more time before the turkey goes in the oven. It's important. This is a pumpkin pie-loving family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Another type of Pilgrim

Did you ever read Molly's Pilgrim as a child? It's a beautiful story of a Russian Jewish child trying to fit into her new American classroom. When the teacher asks the children to create a "pilgrim" or "indian" for a Thanksgiving diorama, she and her Mother create their own idea of a "pilgrim".

How Many Days to America? is another favorite book which reminds us that people still seek refuge in America.

The immigrant community is not very visible in our part of Vermont, however many Cambodians have settled in the Burlington area. Two stunning, gruesome, and difficult books that I've read about this community are First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child by Loung Ung who escaped the Killing Fields and came to Vermont.



Like Molly's Pilgrim for the girls, these books were important for me to read as it showed me how important it is to understand the cultures of refugees if we are to help them and truly see them.

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Thanksgiving Preparations

We've had a busy and fun weekend getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Creating a new chalk drawing for the entry.

Filling the wood boxes.

Ironing the table linens.

At the end of the day, while browsing through some Thanksgiving books, Lou became inspired by a corn bread recipe in "Sarah Morton's Day." She got right up and made it for dinner.

It is made by boiling cornmeal into a paste, cooling it, and shaping it into cakes to bake. As I suspected, it was TERRIBLE. As the girls madly added butter and honey to their bread, we had quite the talk about where food comes from, what the Pilgrims had to eat, how the Wampanoags helped them, etc, etc. It was fun. For more about this, Plimoth Plantation has a neat website that lets kids "be the historian" where they can view Thanksgiving from both the Pilgrim and Wampanoag perspectives.

So, we're just about ready for Thanksgiving. The family will be relieved to hear that we won't be serving Sarah Morton's cornbread.

Here is Lou's "Over the River and Through the Wood" drawing.

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Over the river...

I love Thanksgiving. For me it's a time to enjoy family and to reflect on all the good in our lives. This picture book brings all that is good about Thanksgiving to life for me. Thanksgiving is so much more than the Pilgrim/Wampanoag story. It's a centuries-old tradition of celebrating hard work, the harvest, and family.


This is my favorite version of "Over the River and Through the Wood." It brings Lydia Maria Child's poem to life and in the back is the actual music and lyrics. We pull it out every year and play it on our recorders.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood-
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow-
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, "o, dear, the children are here,
bring a pie for every one."

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmothers cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

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A New Skirt

Hels has been hunting for a skirt to wear to the upcoming Thanksgiving assembly and on turkey day. After looking at all the short, flimsy skirts available in the stores, she decided to make one herself.


Thursdays are short days at school, so today was sewing day.


Ta Da! Much nicer than anything in the stores. It's made from a very soft suede. It's long. It's warm. It's comfy. Sniff. It's the first piece of clothing she's ever made. Didn't she do a nice job?

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The shot heard round the world

Yesterday Hels accompanied me on a field trip with teachers to Lexington and Concord. We viewed an exhibit called "Sowing the Seeds of Liberty" where we worked with original family records and thought about what might turn a community of farmers into a community of revolutionaries. We then walked the famous battle road and went to the North Bridge.

She loved every moment of it and had insightful observations about the primary sources that the teachers missed :)

She took this photo at the Old North Bridge. As we were walking to North Bridge, she came across this quote by Emerson which she loved so much she memorized and wrote down after we got back to the car:

The thunderbolt falls on an inch of ground, but the light of it fills the horizon.

She decided that Emerson was talking about a thought or idea. We had a nice conversation about the impact of the events on April 19th and how they impacted the world. I have a feeling the quote will be hanging in her room soon.

It was a good day. Worthy of a day off from school I'd say.

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A Good Day's Work

Sunday was not spent in my kitchen, but outside splitting wood. Our woodshed has been alarmingly empty.


We began with a small pile up by the wood shed. Here, Lou is running the splitter, I'm managing the wood, Nels & Hels are moving and stacking.

We then moved down to the edge of the woods where we had lots to split. As Hels and I worked, we kept exclaiming over the beauty inside every piece of wood. The time sped by as we watched each piece to see what it would reveal.


It got colder as the day went on. We all added layers. Lou added sunglasses because there was a lot of flink flying about.

Done! We were so proud of the girls. They rotated through the day 40 minutes on, 40 minutes off (where they did laundry, made lunch, and baked cookies). Six hours of work. The woodshed is pretty full--4 layers deep.


As Henry David Thoreau says: "Every man looks at his woodpile with a kind of affection." We all feel the same and will appreciate our winter fires all the more this year.

All just in time--look what the morning sunrise revealed--snow!

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day in my life

Friday was the 14th and time for Jenny Wren's day in my life post.

After getting the girls off to school, I came home to start the laundry, tidy the living room, and start supper in the crock pot.










I then retreated to my office for a very busy morning. I was trying to get ready for an afternoon class, finish preparing for a teacher field trip to Lexington and Concord on Tuesday, and wrap up a power point for a presentation in New York. Lunch was a bowl of soup at my desk. Lots of emails and phone calls as well about family Thanksgiving and our upcoming school Winter Fair. Truly a multi-tasking morning.


After lunch I took a group of 8th-grade students to our local cemetery. Their task was to find a Civil War soldier and gather information about him.

Later they will be researching the soldier's life--the family and community he left behind and the battles he fought. The kids seemed to really enjoy it.



I was a little stressed because I had lost my cheat sheet of where all the gravestones were. Luckily every student found his or her soldier.


After the class I dropped off a bunch of packages at the post office--Caps to Cap Haitien, a package to a certain blogger, and other work stuff.


I went to school and sat through an after school group violin lesson. After we got home the girls settled in for "Friday afternoon at the movies" and I did some tidying. No time for housework this weekend. We're chopping wood.

Dinner from the crock pot was delicious.

We spent a quiet evening reading our books. Hels and I are both reading books about Queen Elizabeth and are quite engrossed. Hels--The Redheaded Princess and me--The Lady Elizabeth. It's been fun to compare notes.

That's a day in my life for November!

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Caps to Cap Haitien

Yesterday we had a fun afternoon making caps and blankets for Soulemama's Caps to Cap Haitien project. I had been looking for an easy project for the girls and this seemed just right--many of the projects I had considered were in the Knitting for Peace book and a little too complicated. We began by watching the video about Konbit Sante which got the girls fired up.


Hels usually does the cutting and pinning while Lou runs the machine. Making the blankets was a bit of a challenge as my flannel stash is composed of small snippets--we did find this great piece of batik which made for a lightweight blanket when combined with a soft knit that I had once been planning to use to make Lou a pair of pants.

While I was helping Hels, Lou disappeared in a great(er) state of excitement and then came bouncing upstairs from the sewing area. She had made her own hat.

By the end of the afternoon we had made a stack of infant caps and two receiving blankets. The girls eagerly told Nels all about the health crisis in Haiti and proudly showed off their work. It was a great afternoon.

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Martinmas--toward a gesture of giving

We had a little Martinmas celebration last night. I really love Martinmas. It's the very first festival of light that reminds of us our inner light. It's also a way to consciously turn from the gesture of taking at Halloween to the gesture of giving through the holidays.




Hels began her day by helping the 3-year olds in the Nursery to make their lanterns. Then she came home to make phone calls for a food drive she is organizing. We also spent some time looking at hat projects with the idea of making something warm for others. The hat on her head is one beginning prototype made from a recycled sweater.

Lou then got down the box of lanterns. We have quite the lantern collection after all these years--balloon lanterns, paper lanterns, jar lanterns, and a tin lantern.


She wanted to light them all and have an "electricity free" evening which we did. It was a bit nerve-wracking seeing as most of them are made out of paper and balloons, but we did it. She enjoyed carrying this one around the house. Jar lanterns aren't as exciting to make as balloon lanterns, but they allow Mom to breath a sigh of relief at the safety factor.

As we sat by the fire amidst all our lanterns, I read Amy's Goose which I keep tucked away and bring out just on Martinmas.

This lovely story is about a young girl who comes upon a goose that has been hurt by a fox. She cares for it while its mate circles above the barn calling for it, anxious to head south. She eventually puts aside her own wishes and lets it go. I like the story because it is full of beautiful autumn illustrations and is a reminder that we each have a giving spirit inside.

I pulled out Three Cups of Tea and Knitting for Peace for Hels to look at. I also showed her Soulemama's Mama to Mama hats so we could think of a charity project to make. Over these next weeks I want our thoughts to start turning toward the seasons of thankfulness and giving. If anyone knows of stories (fiction or non-fiction) about people who have given I would like to hear about them--especially if they would appeal to a 12 year old!

This is my little way of bringing a younger child's festival to my older children. We'll start our sewing projects this week and our neighborhood is having a potluck and lantern walk this weekend, so we'll get out there and sing away with our lanterns. While my girls might groan a bit, they will secretly enjoy it and look back fondly to these days.

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