Epiphany~ The Kings have come to worship Him

I just realized as I was contemplating the taking down of our Christmas decorations that I had forgotten to show you the wooden nativity that I had made for the little ones to play with. I posted a preview when I had cut everything out and sanded it back in September, here. I did decide to both wood burn the details and paint them with a nice watercolor wash after all.

Claire and Emmett both really enjoyed playing with the little wooden figures. We have several beautiful picture books depicting the story of the birth of Jesus. I was asked to read one or several of them almost daily over the past month or two. After  we read the story they would climb down from the sofa and go over to the little table where we had the nativity figures and the would play with them telling each other the story and acting out the parts with the wooden dolls. Claire did request that I make a "bad king" (Herod) for her to use next year. :-) Ours will be the only nativity scene I've ever seen complete with a king Herod!

The stable didn't get made for them this Christmas, I had great intentions, but like so many other things this fall and winter I realized that I simply couldn't do it. I have really enjoyed this Christmas season so much more because of that. It didn't feel like laziness, it felt good and relaxed, like I was keeping my priorities straight and not trying to "do it all". Instead of driving myself mad trying to get everything finished and have all handmade gifts for each of my children, and baking cookies for all of our friends and neighbors, and hosting a party for our homeschool group; I chose to cuddle with my kids and breathe in that sweet new baby smell. We played games and read stories, sang Christmas carols, and watched a few Christmas specials on TV.  I made exactly one batch of homemade cookies and that was it. And you know, my children didn't seem to mind one little bit. There was pretty much zero pinterest worth crafting for or with kids happening, and the meals were (mostly) wholesome and yummy and humble, nothing fancy and time consuming was attempted. And the house, it was not spotless! And I completely enjoyed it all! I rested and recovered and just was "there".

It has truly been a wonderful Christmas season. On Christmas morning my sweet Claire woke up to find her stocking filled and a beautiful present for her under the tree. She was so excited! After about half an hour I mentioned to her that we needed to get out of our pajamas because we were going to Grandma and Grandpa's house to spend Christmas there. She immediately ran to Emmett and told him "Emmett we have to get dressed, we're going to have a birthday party for Jesus with Grandma!" ♥ She had no expectations of anything for herself, she was just happy because we were celebrating Jesus' birthday. My sweet girl, she melts my heart!

Handmade Holidays 2013...so I begin

Yes I know...It seems very early in the year to be thinking about Christmas gifts. But folks, my darling husband just told me there are only 110 days left until Christmas. That's less than 4 months! And this year I don't want to be caught unprepared. Plus in my case there are some special circumstances coming into play over the next few months which necessitate my getting things done early or probably not done at all. Not the least of which is the impending birth of our sweet little girl due in November, and family coming to stay from out of the country for several weeks in December!  Since I probably wont get much wood working done after the baby gets here I am trying to get that part of my handmade holiday preparations finished now! Sawdust and baby wearing really don't go hand in hand!

I've wanted to make a wooden Nativity set for the little ones to play with for a couple of years and I just never got around to it for some reason. I have the set I played with as a child, but it's more delicate than these sturdy wooden figures, so I really don't like them playing with it unsupervised. I have, until now, kept it out of their reach and only brought it down to the coffee table for them to tell the story of Jesus' birth and then back up it goes as soon as we're done playing and telling. But my plans for this one are to leave it within their reach all Christmas season so that they can interact with it as often as they desire!

I looked at a couple of  natural toy catalogs I have and different stores online then drew out the elements I liked best from several different wooden Nativity scenes. Next I transferred the outlines of my drawings to the wood, and cut them out with my scroll saw during two afternoon nap times last week. (I try to get the potentially dangerous crafting done while the under 4 crowd is napping in the afternoon!)  Yesterday during nap time I managed to get them all sanded and snapped these pictures outside just as the little ones were waking up from their naps. Sometime over the next couple of days I plan on wood burning details into them, and I'll probably add some nice watercolor washes to them. I haven't decided for sure whether I will paint them or not, I'm leaning towards yes, I will, but we'll see how I feel about it once I get the wood burning done... Then to seal the wood with some kid friendly homemade beeswax wood protector. And I'll be done!

Oh and I still would like to come up with a nice little stable for everyone to hang out in, at least something big enough for the Holy family and a few animals, and as always sturdy enough to stand up to years of play! Or at very least to survive Emmett's toddlerhood! He's rather a force of nature, that one! Kind of like what an insurance company might describe as an "Act of God" :-) That's it, our darling little Emmett~ our own personal Act of God! I read recently on someone's blog that a friend had described her toddler boy as feral, sometimes I feel like that might describe our child too. You'd think after having this many kids (he's #5 for goodness sake!) that we'd have this parenting little ones thing all figured out. Ha! Not really, this kid is so different from any of my other children. He is sweet, and loving, and always happy...until he's not!  He is very friendly and outgoing and extremely high needs all at the same time. At least the fact that he is number five gives me the perspective of knowing that although some days are completely draining and can feel like they last forever, time really does have a way of passing so quickly and pretty soon, he'll be beyond this stage and on to some new and exciting development! :-) That perspective is something that I am very thankful for, that comes from having gone through these years before, and really wanting to mindfully make the very most of them now, because this adorableness, and even this neediness doesn't last forever. At least not in the same ways.

Linking up with Nicole here and Linda here.

A Choir of Angels and a Giveaway!

I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people! 

And a giveaway!

^{Luke 2: 8-14}

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” 

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 
       ¹⁴ “ Glory to God in the highest, 
      And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

I made these little angels for a swap I participated in hosted by the lovely Ms. Bloom of the blog We Bloom Here. I made them in the Waldorf tradition, using all natural materials and giving them simple faces. But since these were meant to be more for Christmas Decorations or for the Winter Nature Table I decided to add some sparkly beads to their gowns. I really do love making this type of doll. Every one is the result of a lot of hard work, but so worth it, as I think each one turns out beautifully! I love how they all look different and each seems to have her (and his) own sweet little personality! 

The little boy angel I made especially for my children. I crocheted his hair out of the same yarn I used for the girl angels. I love how soft and curly he looks. Logan (my oldest son) laughed and said his hair looks like he has an afro... he is an afro baby angel according to him! I love my afro baby angel! And Claire does too! She has not left him alone since I gave him to them. I don't think the beads on his robe will last for very long though!

Just in time for Christmas and celebrating the announcement of the birth of Jesus the Savior of mankind, I am hosting my first giveaway! I've wanted to do this for a while, at first I planned on doing it for my blog's first anniversary, then I was going to do it for my hundredth post... both of those came and went, in a flurry of living a very full life. So now this is my 137th post, about time to have this giveaway already!

This sweet little Angel doll is looking for a new home. The giveaway is open to any and all around the world! The only requirement is that you leave me a comment on this post. If you want to follow my blog, or post about the giveaway on facebook, twitter or even blog about it, that would be great, :-) but not needed to win! Only one comment per person please! Just be sure to leave me a way to contact you, if your comment is not connected to a blog. 

The winner will be selected by a random number generator on next Sunday evening December 11, 2011. I can wait!

Luke 2:15-20

¹⁵ So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. ¹⁷ Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. ¹⁸ And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Our Easter Garden

A few days ago I stumbled across a blog called Embracing the Now. The writer, Erin, had a sweet idea for making an Easter Garden.  I thought it would be a fun thing to do to give the kids a visual while we read and talked about the events that led up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus this week. I had everything on hand that we needed so we got started after we had church on Sunday morning.

Jesus and the Angel standing by the empty tomb.

{*We have church at home usually. Rodrigo leads us in prayer and worship and we take turns reading a selection from the bible that we have chosen together earlier in the week to share with the family. We discuss it with the children, asking them questions to make sure they understand what we have read and allowing them to ask any questions they might have. We also try to have family devotions after dinner every night, but some nights I serve dinner too late, or life just seems to "happen"! But we do try! This week our after dinner devotions have a distinctly seasonal bent to them, as we discuss Jesus's arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey and the people laying branches in his path and singing psalms in his praise, then his dealings with the Pharisees, his parables, his late night vigil in the garden of Gethsemane, his arrest by the roman soldiers, his trial, crucifixion and death and last but definitely not least his glorious resurrection. Which is the basis of everything we believe as Christians!}

The boys loved Embracing the Now's peg people Jesus and the Roman soldiers. So we copied them! (Why mess with a good idea?!) They helped make them and within an hour we had most of the important players for the week! (I ran out of peg people so I'll need to go pick up some more peg people so they can have a couple of Pharisees and Pontius Pilate and any others we come to think we might need.)

Jesus with 2 of his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus's arrest in the garden by the Roman soldiers.

The angel telling the two Marys of the empty tomb and our resurrected Lord.

Complete (so far) Easter Peg People Cast of Characters. 

The adorable reason one of Roman soldiers has a bent sword! 

At 16 months she is still too  little to understand the meaning behind the story, but she loves the new "babies" and the little garden to play in with them! Several times a day I hear the gleeful cry of "Babies!" and turn to find her like this... :-)

Will you "Bee" my Valentine?

First off... Thank you to everyone who commented and emailed us during our recent bout with the flu! We are all right as rain now! Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement!

This year we signed up to be part of a Valentine's Card Exchange.  The kids were really excited about making their own handmade Valentine cards to send out to "new" friends in blogland. So I thought about it for a while and we bounced ideas around and finally decided to go really homemade! We would make our own paper! Seed paper to be exact, so that our new friends could plant their Valentines and watch pretty flowers grow all summer long!


This is our seed paper. We made it pink by adding red tissue paper to the paper pulp. Once we spread the wet paper pulp onto the screens to dry we sprinkled it generously with flower seeds. We chose cosmos seeds because of how easy they are to grow! Even the littlest gardener can grow lovely cosmos!

Then we cut out a simple flower shape from our homemade seed paper.
 

I found a cute clip art bee and printed out several on card stock. We cut those out along with flower stems from green card stock. The boys glued everything together and we wrote on each valentine:

"Will you "Bee" my Valentine?"

On the back I included a little folded note explaining that the paper flowers could be planted, grown and enjoyed all summer long!

Valentine flowers for all of our new Valentine Friends!

The last day of the year

Today turned out pleasantly warm and even a bit sunny... So we spent lots of time outside playing together. The boys brought out some of the new toys we made them for Christmas and had a great time playing and practicing with their new things!

Claire enjoying the sunshine on New Year's Eve!

 Practicing with the whips I made for them for Christmas. They were really easy to make and best of all they really crack! I made one for each boy.

Matthew trying to get his whip to wrap around their zip line so he can swing on it "Like Indiana Jones!"

  

Sir Matthew with his new sword and shield. Rodrigo helped me make these... they turned out beautifully! (My only complaint is that with very rough play the cross guards are breaking off... next time we make them I'll choose a harder wood that should help prevent breaking along the grain of the wood at the cross guards. These are made of pine. But the boys love them, and that is the important part! )

Sir Ethan showing off his sword and shield too! 

 

His sister's brave protector!

Claire was fascinated with the remnants of Christmas day's now melted snow fort.

Ethan helping prepare for our family's New Year's Eve "party".

My kids are so much fun and so easy to make happy! I just make a bunch of fun finger foods, use special glasses, light a few extra candles and have some nice jazz music playing in the background and they call it a party! I have memories of many such parties from my own childhood. I know these simple family celebrations are things that they will always remember. That makes me happy!

Getting the table ready for our party...

My beautiful handmade Christmas Present... This table and a wonderfully long bench made to match just for me by my loving husband! I had been wanting a bigger table for years, but especially since our family was really outgrowing our other small table. We filled it completely and there was no room for any guests or (hopefully) future family members! So my sweety made this table for me! These pictures don't do it justice... it is really gorgeous! I am so happy with how it turned out, and now we have room for lots of people!!!

Claire playing with a music box that Grandma got her for Christmas. 

The boys goofing off...

Happy New Year! We have so much to be thankful for. This past year was filled with many blessings and wonderful memories for our little family. We pray that this coming year is filled with many blessings as well! There are so many new and exciting things that we are looking forward to in 2011... I can't wait to share them with you all! I pray that God places a special blessing in each of your lives and draws you closer to him through out the coming year!