Scenes from a long weekend

Time to tap the trees! (Actually, with this strange winter, I think we could have been sugaring for a long while now.)

Reach,

snatch,

slurp!

Repeat.

An afternoon walk with Alexa, visiting from Michigan.

With gliding!

A morning at the children's museum, especially to see the ambulance (a current interest of Lucy's):

With climbing,

and big bubbles.


How was your weekend?

Happy Valentine's Day!

6:45 am:

Later:

Breakfast:

(and just so you don't think it's all sweetness and light all the time, this offering was greeted with a wail of "I didn't want that!!" She will be three tomorrow, after all.)
8:00 am:

(valentine's boxes)
Morning snack:

10:00 am:



Lunch:

Here's hoping your day was full of love, too.

How we know she's related to me

She may not be my daughter by birth, but our feet tell the true story.

Yes, there's still snow on the ground in places.
It was about 40 degrees.
Those are her nice warm wool socks in the pot.
This scene was preceded by her saying "don't look, Mama" and ended soon after when she decided that, alas, it's still too cold for bare feet.

A little winter hike

A tomten in our home

One of Lucy's very favorite books this winter is The Tomten and the Fox. Tidying up a cabinet recently, I came across this gorgeous fox I'd gotten once at a tag sale, and was inspired to make her a tomten to go with it.

I'm just figuring out the wonderful world of craft supplies, and am working out kinks like paint pens bleeding on the wood, and tan paint coming out greyish. (I need to figure these things out soon, as I have big peg-people plans for Lucy's birthday next month.) But overall, I'm pretty thrilled with how he came out.

Lucy is too. (Here she is playing with him before the glue on his beard has even dried.)

Finally!

Is it sap season yet?

This time of year, any hint of warmth has us wondering, "is it time yet?"
Friday afternoon, we decided it must be, as it was warm enough to go out without coats.

With great excitement, we headed off to the backyard, drill in hand.

Everyone got a chance to turn the drill.

We were treated to an immediate reward: the sap was running!
Oh, how I love that "drip, drip, drip!"

The next day was frigid, but we'd gotten some new buckets, so we set out again to tap more trees.

Naturally, it's been freezing cold since then, so we haven't begun boiling. But it's coming!

Jump!

Like just about everyone else, it seems, we got snow this week. Enough to be super-deep for young children to try to wade through, too deep and fluffy for sledding, too dry to pack into snowballs...so what to do? The kids in the purple house decided to jump!

Senior version (5 year olds):


Junior version (1-3 year olds):

An oasis of calm in the midst of the bustle

Our winter table:
two fake-but-I-still-like-them little trees,
a new nativity picked up at the thrift store this weekend so Lucy could have a set to play with,
a favorite book,
a new doily bowl I love, love, love,
and some of those horrible-but-I-can't-resist-'em craft-store cinnamon pinecones.

Great Christmas Books for Toddlers

The Christmas book basket has been out for a while now, and we've been reading one book at dinner each night (as well as other times). It's crammed full of books, but these are our favorites right now, perfect for Lucy at 21 months.

The First Christmas by Robbie Trent, illustrated by Marc Simont
This was my first Christmas book, and the one I remember reading over and over as a child. It is the absolute perfect introduction to the Biblical Christmas story for toddlers: "This is Mary. This is the donkey Mary rode..." Simple and sweet with fabulous illustrations (though very "white.") I was devastated that I couldn't find my copy to read to Lucy this year, so I bought her a new board book. A must have, I think.  (edited to add: I found my original, and discovered that the board-book version is abridged and is missing one of my favorite illustrations of the baby Jesus, as well as other pages.  What a shame!  Get the original if you possibly can.)

The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats
This, too, is an absolute must. It's the other Christmas book I had as a child, and really, these two were enough. Keats' illustrations are wonderful, as always (and more ethnically appropriate than the first). Of course, we sing it, and Lucy loves the song (doesn't every child?). She sings favorite phrases ("baby Jesus," "Mary nodded," "me and my drum") to ask for this book.

Who is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate, illustrated by Ashley Wolff
This is relatively new to me. I first read about it in Under the Chinaberry Tree (a wonderful resource!) and so was thrilled to find it on a sale table one year after Christmas. It's not appropriate for a public-school teacher's reading list, so it has sat waiting for a few years, and I'm only now getting to share it with Lucy. She loves the anticipation of the animals preparing for an arrival, knowing herself who's coming before the animals do. At first glance, I hadn't thought it would hold a toddler's attention, but it definitely does, with many requests for more.

A Child is Born by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Floyd Cooper
This is our newest book, bought for Lucy just this weekend because of her many requests to hear more about "baby Jesus." I knew she'd love the cover illustration of the baby, and I loved balancing some of the other books with this view of a dark-skinned Jesus.

The First Night by B.G. Hennessy, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher
Another very simple and lovely introduction to the Biblical story, written for toddlers. This one, along with The First Christmas, are the reason Lucy can tell the whole story herself. ("Mary and Joseph. Mary rode on donkey. Bethlehem. No room. Keepers said. Manger. Baby Jesus!")

The Donkey's Christmas Song by Nancy Tafuri
If you've read my other book lists, you know I'm a sucker for the animals in Nancy Tafuri's books. They are just so sweet, I want to hug them! Here, the donkey doesn't want to frighten the baby, so he hesitates to sing his song. So all the other animals sing their songs first. When the donkey finally he-haws, "Jesus laughed" (Lucy's favorite line). We grownups pretend we aren't getting teary-eyed when we read this one.

Counting to Christmas by Nancy Tafuri
This is a lovely introduction to the Advent season, because it depicts a young girl getting ready for Christmas in simple, non-commercial ways: opening an Advent calendar, making gifts, sending cards, decorating cookies, playing music, making bird feeders, decorating a tree for the animals. I love it. And though I don't think Tafuri's people are quite as perfect as her animals, Lucy loves the wide-eyed, open-mouthed surprise when the girl awakes on Christmas morning.

Shadow dancing

With the changing light, the children have been noticing, exploring, and talking about shadows. Yesterday, Lucy danced with her shadow outside.

Forward.

Backward.

Forward.

With a friend.

Like an airplane.

With another friend.

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Sinterklaas, Kapoentje

Oops. I was feeling so sick Saturday night, I mixed up the dates and thought it was time to put out our wooden shoes for Sinterklaas. I was desperate to get into bed, and sad to think that this first Sinterklaas celebration that Lucy would remember would be so lacking. I had managed to get to the store for some once-a-year non-local citrus and a few tiny other treats, but had made no other preparations. But...

Over dinner, I told Lucy about Sinterklaas. She knew our wooden shoes well (my Dutch-descent family decorates with them), and I told her we'd put them by the door before bed. As soon as she got down from the table, she got her shoes and ran to set them right by the front door. We followed with ours, singing. In the tiny front hall, we held hands in a circle and sang "Sinterklaas, Kapoentje" again and again, dancing in that funny lifting-feet-high way of toddlers. It was glorious. I couldn't have wished for more.

In the morning, Lucy was thrilled to find an orange, a special candle, and raisins in her shoes. Thank goodness for the infectious joy of toddlers!

Happy St. Nicholas' day (even if the rest of you are all celebrating a day "late"!).

Independence Days challenge begins again

It's time again for Sharon's Independence Days Challenge. It's my third year participating in this challenge, which is a reminder to do a little something each day towards food "independence." Actually, it was just my own laziness that made me stop posting weekly updates last year; this is really something that can be done year round. I love this challenge, because it reminds me that storing food doesn't have to be some big huge overwhelming task; you can do a little here and there and still end up with a pretty impressive pantry.

Generally, I like to post on Mondays, because I'm most productive on the weekends. However, this Monday was lost to sickness, so I'll start now and get on a regular schedule next week. (Thank you for all your well-wishing comments. I think we're well on the way toward health now.)

Sharon's outlined 7 categories for the challenge. In the spirit of don't-beat-yourself-up, I will post only on the ones I've done. So, here's the beginning of what I hope will be our best year yet:

1. Plant something: Only in my head so far, but I did order many many things to plant! I've already posted about the seeds, and I'll post soon about the bushes and plants I've ordered.

2. Harvest something: What feels like a bounty of eggs, now that the chickens are laying regularly again. And sap! I got a late start tapping the trees this year. But instead of the two trees we've done in the past, I've got 6 trees "on tap" right now, and as soon as I can get my hands on some more buckets, I think I'll add a few more.

3. Preserve something: 1 1/4 qts. maple syrup, the best we've made yet (why is it yummier this time?)

6. Build community food systems: As always, I've got the kids in my early childhood program involved in the process. This week, their buckets of sand and dirt have been "sap" and "syrup." I love seeing through their play how they've internalized the idea of local food. And their parents are curious about the syrup process, too; perhaps I can convince a few of them to tap their trees.

7. Eat the food: We celebrated the arrival of syrup season with a 4-year-old's recipe suggestion: hot maple-syrup milk to warm up after a morning spent outdoors. Perfect. And I've been celebrating the return of my favorite daily treat: maple-sweetened coffee (started this two years ago as a way to make my morning coffee more local and found I far preferred it to white sugar.) Meanwhile, we're eating end-of-winter food-storage meals. We ate the last squash this week, are down to only a few carrots and onions, and so only potatoes remain as "fresh" produce. We've eaten a ton of dried fruit. Today's lunch was a delicious corn chowder made with dried corn and frozen corn stock, frozen green beans, and dried peaches.

What are you doing? Will you join Sharon's challenge this year?

Kaplink, kaplank, kaplunk!

In the summer, "kaplink, kaplank, kaplunk" means blueberries. But today, those are the words that came to my mind when we finally did this:






(Gee...don't see anything yet? Perhaps that has something to do with the misplaced lid. Oops.)


(That's better).