Read On for a Bit of Out-of-the-Box Encouragment Mothers

Just when we mothers were feeling overwhelmed for not "doing" enough for/with our children, Charlotte Mason's words speak right to the heart and put us at ease.
Miss Mason says...

"The busy mother says she has no leisure... and the child will run wild and get into bad habits; but we must not make a fetish of habit; education is a *life* as well as a discipline. Health, strength, and agility, bright eyes, and alert movements, come of a free life, out-of-doors, if it may be, and as for habits, there is no habit or power so useful to man or woman as that of personal initiative. The resourcefulness which will enable a family of children to invent their own games and occupations through the length of a summer's day is worth more in after life than a good deal of knowledge about cubes and hexagons, and this comes, not of continual intervetnion on the mother's part, but of much masterly inactivity."

Relax. Enjoy your children. And let them be busy at nothing most of the time! What they will learn through invention, innovation, trial and error and pure instinct will amaze you.

handmade gifts and an agenda for the season

As all of you might have noticed by now, I have this adorable little "Handmade Pledge" badge in the margin of my blog. I added this badge a few weeks ago as I began thinking about the holiday season in general and Christmas presents specifically.

My dear artist friend Jessica introduced me to Etsy in early spring. She is an artist and has an Esty shop where she sells her work.

After my first time browsing through all of the amazing Etsy shops, I am hooked.

And now it seems that Etsy has a new feature called the Gift Guide. They list gifts/art/crafts/products according to
certain categories like age, gender, relationship to that person, a person's interests, the occasion and the price range. What a great way to shop.

I have been talking to Mike for a few weeks now about what I want our Christmas to look like. I have vowed to
make what gifts I can,
buy a bit of handmade,
avoid the "mall scene",
not put things above people this Christmas season and
have a Christ-centered, joyous season.

We are blessed to have such a flexible schedule/routine with our homeschooling lifestyle. We have about two more weeks of lessons to work through and then we are off for the remainder of the year to simply live life together and prepare our hearts and homes for Christmas.

I have so many ambitions for those lovely, free, open and blank-paged weeks leading up to Christmas... things like
baking,
sewing (hopefully many gifts and stockings for us!),
visiting with friends and family,
reading festive and meaningful stories/Bible verses
and simply being together and going through the "mundane"
together as a family.

Hopefully we'll be blessed with a bit of snow between now and then too so that we can enjoy the wonders of God's creation during the winter season. I think it's probably one of the first years in about six years that I am not pregnant or have an infant... so it will be off to the hills we go for some sledding!

Enjoy your weekend friends...

full of thanks

Today was a very different Thanksgiving Day in our house. For the first time I was gone for part of our day... I ran a road race here in town. It was my first race and I loved every minute of it. The race- a 4.7 mile course- is a Thanksgiving morning tradition here in our town and has been for 71 years. It was so exhilarating to be part of something so huge- almost 10,000 participants and about 30,000 spectators.

My goal was to run the entire course and to finish in under an hour. I did both. My amazing, wonderful, supportive and encouraging husband is the one who encouraged me to register and do this thing called "running" officially. He assured me that it would be his pleasure to "hold down the fort" while I was out doing something good for myself. He held true to his promise.

I think (for the first time) I can say I felt the "runner's high"... the overwhelmingly amazing and pleasurable feeling that comes over a runner after running for a certain distance. I felt like I could have kept on running. My body felt as if it were a well-oiled machine- each muscle working in perfect synchronicity with each other, my frame- a powerful and erect tower. It felt good to feel so strong.

We had a splendid meal at my parents' house and had the pleasure of watching the long-awaited "First Thanksgiving" performance put on my Sophia, Nicolas and their cousin. My mother read the story as the children acted it out. They each had a few lines,

but my favorite was when Nicolas appeared on the scene as a Native American and beat his chest with each syllable as he said, "My-name-is-Sam-o-sett".

Precious.

Our family is rare, and blessed, in that we get to joy of spending Thanksgiving with both of our families. Mike's Mom, Dad and nieces join us from New Hampshire at my parents' house every year to share our day.

We had an amazing day and I truly feel so thankful for the blessings of family, healthful foods, bright children, a strong marriage, healthy family and the freedom to speak the name of Jesus.

the mundane, and more

Recently I've had the problem of not remembering what I'm doing or, for that matter, what I've done during the course of the week. During casual weekend conversation when someone will ask, "How was your week?", I find myself at an utter and complete loss. I try very hard to remember what I've done. Surely something important or meaningful must have happen, right?

Well, I've decided to close this week with a "My Week At A Glance" sort of post. I'll try only to hit the highlights and not bore you with the mundane. Although, I have to admit, that a lot of mothering and simply being "at-home" has a lot to do with being faithful and motivated in doing the mundane. It is the mundane that keeps us alive, right?

Monday...
Made a a new version of "play dough" from this amazing and creative Montessori site. It is a no-cook recipe so I gave each of the children a bowl and let them measure, mix and knead their own dough. Simple. It got lots of use and now lives in our fridge just waiting to be taken out and squeezed!
We attended our last "Monday Homeschool Class" at the Lutz Museum and watched Sophia's chorus class perform five interesting and beautiful songs. Loved it.

Tuesday...
I attended a meeting of "Birth Network National" at the Papaya Patch for their monthly meeting. It was "Doula Night" and I had a chance to meet up with some of my favorite doulas and meet a few more. Oh, and got to browse this shop- one of my favorites.

While there I borrowed a few books and decided to join (yet another!) book club. This one is sponsored by Birth on Labor Day and the two books for November/December are "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" and "Spiritual Midwifery", both by Ina May Gaskin. They clincher is that we get to participate in a conference call with the author next month!!! This is amazing for me... I consider Ina May to be truly inspirational. I am loving the latter book (I've already read and re-read the first book while pregnant with Elias- amazing).

Wednesday...
Yet another trip to Old Sturbridge Village. What can I say... I can't refuse FREE admission to anything (they validated our tickets from two weeks ago for another, complimentary, visit). This time Mike joined us and loved it just as much as we did. I could just see him getting all inspired and giddy looking at those old timber-framed homes!

Thursday...
I am finding that the best way to start the day is to ease into it! This, lately, has meant loads of pillows, quilts and cushions from every corner of these being borrowed for forts, massive beds and the like for the children. We have been powering down our TV and putting on music instead. Perhaps it feeds the imagination. I don't know. BUT, these "forts" certainly do hold the attention of all three of our kids. This means time for coffee and devotionals for the mother... everyone benefits.

A lovely visit with our friends in the afternoon. Despite the rain and the gloom, lots of fun was had in our house which was bustling with SIX children. It's always good to sit (on the floor) and chat with you Amanda!

Friday...
A library visit. And some amazing books. We had just finished reading, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" taken from William Shakespeare's play and were really wishing for some more visuals of Puck, Oberon, Titania and the other fairies. Well, we found a book with full, color photos on each page. It is so great to see my daughter get excited about the same things that I am loving!
Oh, and she insisted on borrowing another version of "A Child's Garden of Verses" because she liked the artwork for her favorite poem, "Fairy Bread", better than the version we own. Now that's taking ownership of your education!

A night with only one child... my parents have taken the older pair overnight for a sleepover. Apparently there are some "secret Thanksgiving plans" for some sort of play. I think it may be a re-enactment of the first Thanksgiving because Sophia brought her bonnet and Nicolas was asking me for a hatchet and some feathers!!!!!

I am ashamed to say that I don't ever recall ever having any real, quality, alone-time with Elias. Tonight was that night. We read books, played chase, ate a quiet dinner alone and baked the yummiest banana muffins. He was so helpful. I even let him lick the spoon. It felt so good to be able to give him all of me. He was living for it. And so was I.


So that's it. My week, in a nutshell.

braving the elements

I told the kids to pretend that we were Pioneers... and to be brave...


You see, it rained ALL day during our outing to Old Sturbridge Village yesterday. It was "Homeschool Day" and we all learned so much during our six-hour visit to this old, historic village...

I got to thinking about a quote from Maria Montessori about the developmental stage of toddlerhood (and to me, childhood in general)-

"Help Me Do It By Myself"

In essence, we are to train/teach/guide/show the child how to work at a task until they can do it by themself. Self sufficiency is the end goal.

It was evident that children of the 1830s were just that. We were told that children as young as 4 years old would begin learning to sew/mend and help with farm/household chores.

Ugh, and here I am thinking it too hard for my kids to put their blocks away in the appropriate toy bin. Sad. Very sad.

Sophia sitting down to "tea" at the Bixby House. The table was labeled as to where each dish and piece of silverware would be set for a perfect and proper tea party! Very "Sophia"...

Sophia and Nicolas in front of the Blacksmith Shoppe- Nicolas especially liked all the hammering, pounding and blazing of fire.

Elias playing his "drum"- he seemed to turn an 1830s kitchen into a musical experience.

Sophia on the otherhand really got into character and began running the kitchen as any strong fronteir woman would have done- "stack the wood", " sweep the floor", "get the chickens out of the kitchen"!

Resting in the sitting room of the "Parsonage". I LOVED this wallpaper and these chairs.

This was the "Fitch House" and its theme was children and play. Elias enjoyed tucking the "baby" into its cradle and covering it with a blanket... adorable!

The amazing thing about the day is that not once did the kids tell me they were bored, argue with one another or "act out". They were using all of their senses and their whole body and mind to take in this experience. Their minds were engaged and they were using their hands to do new and important things. The older pair took their turn at splitting wood. You could just see how proud they were of doing WORK.

The Very Curious Children and the Eric Carle Museum

We did it... we finally visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. Anybody with a child who loves to read knows Eric Carle. I think by now we are on our third copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" due to several of our babies teething on the hard cardboard pages of the book and a toddler or two tearing out pages and squealing with delight at his accomplishment.
We had the pleasure of making it there in time for one of the storytimes in their library. While my children were some of the only kids not sitting still during the reading (they did amuse themselves and loved the various wooden toys, puzzles and manipulatives in the library), I for one really enjoyed the readings and loved the gentle way that the reader interacted with the children. Very calming.
Overall it was a fun day and I have vowed to go back alone at some point to really take it all in without having to peel an 18-month old off of the museum floor (thus, the absence of photos of my kids creating art and playing at the museum in this post!).

paper costumes

Just a few photos from our night full of treats...Sophia- the woodland fairy, Elias- a very healthy carrot, Nicolas- a knight in shining armor

Yes, those are real leaves. I didn't have time to sew anything this year, so we went for the "paper costume" look. Paper, as in wrapping paper.

Our knight's breastplate was layered with silver cupcake liners.