Solstice was all about the ANIMALS this year

Toy animals

Everyone got some little toy animals in their stocking Sprout got North American Wildlife, Nature Girl got sea creatures and Wild THing got ice age animals.

Crafty Animals. Everyone got paintable animals too...the snakes are already slithering about the house.

Real Animals. Little Bear was a big fan of the treats and had more than one candy cane taken away from him!

New Animals! Our newest pet, an enormous black and white cat we named Fritz. He is not a fan of dogs, is submissive to elderly Luna already, and absolutely loves the kids. They can dress him up and everything! He is enormous, and its all mouse hunting muscle, not fat. I think Duncan has competition!

A post by Sprout

Today is a good working day!

It's rainy. We plant the garlic.

Now we mulch it!

I moved all the big straw!

Now we can play in the puddles.

Dinner

Nature Girl's Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat played the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon

The littler dog laughed to see such a sight "Ha Ha Ha!"

And the dish ran away with the spoon


Nursery Rhyme collected by Mother Goose, illustrated by Nature Girl

First Snow

From the library window looking south towards the village and the Wolfville Ridge beyond. The world is silent.

Christmas Gifts - Shhhhh!!!!!

I found Nature Girl a sheepskin coat like Lyras from the Golden Compass at the thrift store today, and she now fits into my hippie winter boots that are a bit too narrow for me.  Two years ago I made her a hat like Lyra's but in crazy rainbow colours.  Unfortunately it was lost on a school trip.  So for Christmas I'm going to knit her up another Lyra's Hat and a pair of mitts.  

Wild Thing and Sprout are both getting reversible tunics so they can play knights and kings, and handmade swords.  OH scratch the tunics I found a super simple pattern for chainmail for them!

I'm a bit stumped on what to make for Darkmirror....maybe I should look for a Cuthulu to knit up?  I found Nauti' patterns (nautilii)  PERFECT, one of his first obsessions!

Math is fun!

No seriously, it is, and playing with math concepts instead of doing worksheets brough Nature Girl's math skills up to snuff :-)

Daily fun in our house involves addition subtraction, skip counting in lieu of multiplication, place value, geometry, and weights and measures.

Shhhhhh!!!! They really don't know that, it's just fun!

This Week

Little Bear doesn't understand the time change.

He waited in his usual spot to see the kids get off the bus for an hour each day. It was distressing for him.

This little laddy has been getting into a lot of mischief.

We've decided to enroll him in nursery school two mornings a week. He misses his big sibs too much during the school day.

Help a friend out?

My friend Meagan is in the running for a real life paid blogging job for Sam-e.  They want an optimistic blogger for the position and she's in the running.  She would be perfect for this.  She is a professional writer, got her start writing about health and wellness and parenting.  You can visit her blog and check her out at The Happiest Mom, which is also the title of her latest book - because mom and happy can be used together :-)

Clearly she's an optimist!

Could you please vote for her?  HERE:  MEAGAN NEEDS A JOB!  You can vote every day and you don't need to register or anything annoying like that.  If you'll help promote her so she can go onto the juried part of the contest she'll enter you in a draw for a cookbook and an immersion blender.  You can read about the giveaway on her blog.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Big kids - 17 year olds still dress up and go trick or treating here in rural Nova Scotia - The vampire and his victim.

A ghoul, a ghost, a devil, a victim and a vampire. I was a witch and handed out candy from my cauldron.

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! The Ghost of Gaspereau lives in my house!!!!

Mudmama said "Let there be light"

And she painted the ceiling,

and it was good.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Thanks to Krista  I was able to do a vintage style snapshot with Picnik!

Warm and toasty inside, real autumn weather outside. My roses are still putting out blooms though. I want to find a photo editor program that will let me do vintage style images, anyone know of anything?

The upstairs landing - BEFORE

This is such a big space we've known it would be a library since we first saw the house.

Floor ceiling and Walls are painted steel grey. It's depressing despite all the light.

But we decided before we paint we need to deal with the creeping chaos that is all our books which are slowly crawwling from boxes and being littered about the floor. So we're making built in bookcases for this space.

Sprout insisted I take some pictures of him playing, so here's my favorite...twist my arm!

Corners of My Dollhouse

A special post by Nature Girl!

The hangars I made myself. I've also been sewing some clothes.

I like how the light shines on this and its more spectacular now, I've added more beads and made it into a triangle.

Begging for scraps while cooking rabbit stew.

Homemade flannel pillows I made, aren't they wonderful?

Nature Girl has been reading all the Borrower books and working on her dollhouse. She took my camera and documented it the other day. These are our favorite pictures. She described them for this post.

I feel blessed today!

I entered a giveaway at Soulemama's blog for an Online retreat with Pema Chodron and I won!


This was my comment:   "The Places That Scare You and the work I did with it prepared me for reporting the sexual abuse I survived as a child. I'm waiting for it to go to trial right now, this couldn't happen at a better time!"


But I don't feel blessed because I won, I feel blessed with the compassion, generosity and good will extended by so many other Soulemama readers who said in their entry comments 'If I win, please give it to mudmama."


Thank you Amanda, Shambhala, Pema and all of the wonderful women and men who visit Soulemama!   


NAMASTE!

Sprout turned THREE!!!!!!

He got a big red barn (look it needs to be mucked out) from Papa Pan and me and some animals from the kids. We're on the look out for a realistic tractor still. When you're a dedicated recycler/thrifter spending 50.00 on a new toy tractor is ridiculous. All told these cost us 22.00.

It was COLD last night, thank goodness for groggliy finding the duvets and the warmth of a brother and a puppy!

That puppy sure loves his boys.