Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Last Week of Advent


"Today the darkness begins to grow shorter and the light to lengthen, as the hours of night become fewer.... Realize that the true light is now here and, through the rays of the gospel, 
is illumining the whole earth."
-Gregory of Nyssa

I'm one of the seemingly few people who loves the cold and dark days of winter. This is my favorite time of year. Here in the Puget Sound it's usually gray and rainy for weeks and weeks and honestly I'd be happy if it was gray and rainy for the whole year. So I really try and soak it up! 
My son Peter was born with HED (Hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia). He cannot sweat, so we really try and enjoy these cooler days with as much outside time as possible. When everyone else is starting to go outdoors in the summer, we seek shelter inside and actually (by necessity) end up watching way more movies/netflix than we would ever do in the fall/winter/spring. 

This Advent I've spent more time than usual inside. I cleaned up and gave away a lot of our things. It was great, but I totally noticed a difference in my kids (and my) mood. It was exasperated by the fact that I was cleaning and not as present with my kids. I turned to screens more than I should have and the repercussions of that were very hard. Everyone was getting crankier and crankier. Eventually I realized that the cleaning must stop. My attention turned back to our normal schedule. I turned off all screens for 3 days to reset the family. Suddenly the peace and anticipation of the season was felt. 

I'm glad the cleaning happened, but in the future I will have to take a slower approach. 

I love cleaning and my preferred approach is intense. In the past I would empty every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen at once, along with the fridge, and then deep clean the oven, then clean the cupboards, then put everything away again neat and tidy. Obviously, that would never work with a 2 year old and a baby, but I guess I had to try a few times to believe it. Actually, I'm embarrassed to say that I'm so stuck in my old habits, I might have to try a few more times before I'm absolutely certain. 

One of the biggest things for me to let go of as a parent is a contently tidy house. I also value creative play. So I compromise by rotating the available toys, making sure every single thing has a place to be put away, and then (while silently praying about 30,000 Hail Mary's) I relax. 


Peter enjoys stringing yarn all over the house. 


Peter actually loves putting things away with me. That's where everything having a place to be put away really helps. He knows where everything goes, so he's relaxed and happy to help. 

I'm thankful that the second half of our Advent reflected the joyful expectation that this season offers. 


Our daily walk to the forest. Binoculars for bird watching.

Peter and his uncle Arlen (my brother, who's only 9 months older) "fixing" the tractor.

Adventuring. 

On the carousel at Zoo Lights. 

Rosie has really started to enjoy reading books! <3

One of her favorites, she pulls it of the shelf and brings it to me!

Peter in a soothing lavender bath. Rosie laughing at the splashing.

Nanna and Papa got us a glowing stomp rocket. It's just about the best thing ever.

 Stringing popcorn and cranberries.

Peter telling Rosie that the cranberries are "bleck".
Eventually we had to move to the table, babies and cranberries-popcorn-sharp needles-fishing line don't mix.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Story Time Saturday - Our Favorite Winter Books

The weekly installment of (some of) what we're reading this week 

"The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air."
-John Greenleaf Whittier




The shortest day of the year is almost upon us! I can hardly believe winter solstice has come around again. My husband and I got married on winter solstice, so it's a sweet day for the family. 
It seemed a little too close to Christmas for me to do a post about our favorite Christmas books, so instead I'm going to list our absolute favorite winter books to read while the nights are long - all snugged up on the couch. 

1. The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader. 
The illustrations are so beautiful. Great story about woodland animals getting ready for winter.



2. Winter  by Gerda Muller. 
This is our all time favorite winter board book. Gerda Muller's illustrations are so detailed and fun for people of all ages to look at. This book doesn't have words, but beautiful images of a family enjoying winter activities together. We enjoy making up little stories about the family or just looking at the pictures. Gerda Muller has made one for each season and they are all great.


3. The Three Snow Bears By Jan Brett 
Most of Jan Brett's books are winter themed, but I'm listing Peter's all time favorite. A retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Snow Bears tells the story of Aloo-ki who comes across an igloo while out with her sled dogs. The igloo belongs to three polar bears, who left while their breakfast cools. Like all of Jan Brett's books, the illustrations are stunning.


4. Bear Snores On  By Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman 
A fun story about a bear hibernating in his cave totally oblivious to the party the other animals are having around him. Eventually he wakes and joins in the fun. Peter loves to retell this story with his stuffed animals. It's a great introduction to the concept of hibernation.


5. The Snowy Day By Ezra Jack Keats
I'm sure everyone is familiar with this one, but I just couldn't leave it out. It was one of my all time favorite books as a kid. Peter also loves it. This book captures childhood wonder like no other.


6. James Herriot's Treasury For Children By James Herriot
This is such an incredible collection of James Herriot's fantastic stories of a British Veterinarian. The illustrations are so lovely. Although not all the stories are set in winter, there is a cozy feeling about all the them. The stories themselves are unabridged, so they are fun for the parents to read over and over again too. This is an all time favorite of ours!


7. Owl Moon By Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr
Oh my gosh, this book is so stunning. It tells the story of father and daughter walking through the night to see an owl. It's written poetically and the illustrations are gorgeous. We love books about appreciation of nature and parents spending time outside with their kids. At the end, when the little girl gets to see her first owl, I always tear up a little. I'm a sap like that.


8. Snowflake Bentley By Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Mary Azarian
This is my all time favorite winter picture book biography. It's about the scientist Wilson Bentley who developed the technique for photographing snowflakes. Through his photographs it was discovered that no two snowflakes are identical...and that they are stunningly beautiful. Illustrated with charming woodcuts.


9. Animals in Winter By  Henrietta Bancroft and Helen K. Davie
Another great nonfiction picture book about winter. This one talks about what the animals do during the winter. I've been reading it in anticipation of our plan to decorate a tree for the wild animals (birdseed pinecones, strings of popcorn and cranberries, and suet) on one of the 12 days of Christmas. I'm hoping that will become one of our yearly traditions.


I hope everyone has a peaceful winter weekend! 





*This post contains affiliate links ~ For any purchase made through the links I post, a small stipend goes to our family book fund.  

Friday, December 18, 2015

Seven Quick Takes

Today I'm linking up with This Ain't The Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes Friday! 


1.  Peter has gotten so much more articulate and mature in the last week. It's amazing how quickly that happens! I'll write more about Ectodermal dysplasia soon, but Peter was born with it and he does not have any teeth (yet). We often tell him about how he will get denture teeth from the dentist soon and he's very very excited. This last Sunday after Church was the first time Peter came to me saying "Mama, my friends want to know why I don't have teeth."! I was wondering how I would handle this, and it was way easier than I had anticipated. We go to a lovely Catholic Parish full of the kindest parents & kids. I went over to explain why Peter doesn't have teeth only to hear a couple of the older kids already doing so in the kindest and most sensitive way ever: "Peter can't grow teeth." one of them said, "But that's okay! He will get his teeth from the dentist". "Just like how some people need glasses to see" chimed in another kid. Yes. I chose the right community for raising my kids in. 


2. Advent has been awesome. I'm so glad that I've taken the season more to heart this year. I'm saving up my celebrating for the 12 days of Christmas and it feels good! We're loving the Jesse Tree and singing Advent songs. We even found one that Peter likes to sing with us: Easy Advent Song For Toddlers. Rosie even signs along a little! 


3. My kids have both rolled and scooted very early, which makes diaper changing a challenge. With Peter I spent so much time laying him back on his back. With Rosie, I've tried a different approach and it works great. I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before!

Yes, it's on backwards. 

4. We've had so much fun with this super easy to make trolley. I just tied a little box to a toilet paper tube and then strung it on yarn across our cabin. The Playmobil and Duplo people/animals no longer have to traverse our cabin in the back of a Unimog. 


5. It's that time of year again, everyone is getting sick. For the last 2 years, I tried to avoid people who were sick, and we ended up isolated and still caught everything. This year I'm not going to be as cautious about other people's illnesses, instead I'm using great herbal immune boosters and trying to eat a clean diet. We've done a lot of foraging this last year and this week we're making some tinctures. It's been a few years, so I'm super excited to build up my now depleted medicine cabinet. 

Nature journaling, toddler style.  

Playing in the dirt while I gather the early fall crop of nettles. Yum! 

6. One of Peter's Christmas presents is a little kit (I put together) for starting a spring garden. I keep having conflicting feelings about this because what I really want is to start homesteading on a property of our own. But the reality is, that will likely not happen for a few years. Meanwhile, there's everything right about starting a small garden. Maybe we can even get a bee hive going! 


7. Rosie's been keeping me up at all hours this last week. I've gotten lots of time to read and pray, so I'm just seeing it as productive time. My feelings about sleep deprivation have shifted dramatically this year. When you can't change it, why let it bother you? Instead I sleep when I can and enjoy it when I can't.