Love-N-Links

Love-N-Links

I loved the second annual summer concert put on by Maple Village School this weekend.  It was lovely to see so many friends that we've missed this summer. 

THANK YOU to all the lovely teachers and their families who created such beautiful music.

The stage...

F got to come on stage and sing Peace Like a River...she was thrilled.  Thank you Ms. Lisa!

Baby C enjoyed it so much she drooled the whole time...

Here we are singing along to one of our favorite Natalie Merchant songs, Calico Pie.

Thank you to the lovely hostess Shannon, who let us invade her urban homestead.

And of course thank you to my foodie partner in crime, Isa.  I take full responsibility for running out of food...but at least it was tasty!

Thank you to Stephanie for getting most of these pictures!  Your photographs are always lovely.

There was much love, laughter and most importantly a sense of community.  Contact info@maplevillageschool.org if you're interested in parent/toddler playgroup, pre-K or Kindergartern classes.  Maple Village School is a waldorf inspired education for both you and your children.

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Snapshots of our first week of "Kindergarten"

Posing by her new daily rhythm chart.

A certain little faerie dropped off a friend to take her through her days...

Circle time (with E of course).

Story...

From the school cafe...

Spirulina makes a lovely natural green for homemade playdough.

This week we made green - mint and yellow - fennel.

A lesson in textures and noise as we made our felt noise makers.

I'm a believer in the suzuki method!

Preparing yarn for finger knitting...

She finger-knitted mama a bracelet.

Thank you my dear F, 

it's been a magical week!

Dehydrator Diaries 8/24 - Millions of peaches

...peaches for me

millions of peaches

peaches for free

Remember that song?  I do...

Anywhoo, peaches are definitely in season and I decided to put them to good use this week with some dehydrated munchies.  Like I've said before...we like to do a big batch of raw snacks about once a week.  With the travel to WA and my tendency to eat raw fresh fruit all day long when it's HOT, this is the first time we've fired up our D in a month!

First up was this:

Peaches-n-Cream Grawnola going into the D

I know it doesn't look like much, but it was ridiculously good and lasted all of 3 days in the house, which might explain why I didn't ever get a good picture of it.  It's my basic granola recipe with peaches as the main sweetener and cashews instead of pecans and almonds.  The cashews give it the "creamier" taste/texture.  Is it ok to describe granola as creamy?  Ha!

Here you see:

1. Peach-flax roll ups
2. Peach buckwheat cereal

1. 
   
   We often pour a bit of our green smoothies onto parchment paper and dehydrate it to make an easy portable snack - Green Smoothie Roll-ups.  This week we made peach-flax roll ups.  Just blend the fresh peaches with 1/2 cup of flax (soaked at least 2 hours with 1/2 cup of water) and dehydrate them for 7-10 hours at 115.  Then just roll em up and store them i a ziploc bag.  These were good, but I prefer the pure fruit/veggie roll ups.  Adding the flax gave them more of a crackery-crunch.
2. 
   
   This is just our regular buckwheat cereal recipe (from Raw Food/Real World) but I substituted half of the agave for pureed fresh peaches.  It was subtly peachy, but a fun variation on our cereal.

Yummy

Yummier

I got the new issue of Purely Delicious last week (yay!) and saw Russell James' recipe for Blueberry Buckwheat Coconut Granola Bars.  We didn't have any fresh blueberries on hand, but we did have peaches.  So I subbed peaches for the blueberries and the apple in the recipe. 

Going in...

These came out beautifully. 

Be warned, they took a full 24 hours in the D before they were crunch-tastic.  Not sure if it was because the peaches are juicer than blueberries, but there ya go.  I'll make the original recipe next week if I can find a good deal on organic blueberries.

 
My counters are overflowing with summer squash...so I think that might be the snack theme next week.

Versatile

From the lovely Wikipedia:

versatile (comparative more versatile, superlative most versatile)
1.capable of doing many things competently

2.having varied uses or many functions

3.changeable or inconstant

4.(biology) capable of moving freely in all directions
 
 
Oh Oh!  I'll take #4 please...that sounds like fun!
 

Kirsten over at Kirsten's Kitchen nominated me for this award.  Thanks Kirsten!  Now make me some yummy vegan food and send it my way, ok?  Seriously, check out her blog for some good vegan eats.

I guess now I have to do one of those "tell 7 new interesting things about you" deals.  That's cool..I kinda like reading other peoples' interesting things, so here ya go:

1. 
   
   I don't like the water.  Seriously.  It takes just the right conditions to get me into a pool or the ocean.  Must be my Aries FIRE sign.
2. 
   
   I didn't graduate High School, I took my exit exam early (at 17) and started City College.  Take that High School!
3. 
   
   I've been vegetarian since I was 14 when I read about how dolphins get caught when catching commercial tuna and get mixed all up in the tuna-ness.  Ugh...sorry if that's TMI.
4. 
   
   I don't sleep much (thanks Dad!).  I generally do well on about 5 hours of sleep.
5. 
   
   I secretly want to be a tinker, which is basically an Irish Gypsy (although now I guess it's not that secret anymore).
6. 
   
   Although it's all cool and hip to like almond butter instead of peanut butter...I'm a PB girl through and through.  I only buy organic though since they are proven to not carry the aflatoxins. 
7. 
   
    I take being a Mom very seriously.  It's my number one job.  I love my little attachlings...

Ok, so if you want a few more tidbits, go here where I won another award and rattled off another 7 things.

 
Now, I pass this along to 7 other versatile bloggers:
 

1. Angry Chicken
2. The Knitty Gritty Homestead
3. Wabi-Sabi Wanderings
4. Twig and Toadstool
5. Blue Skies and Dragonflies
6. Earthmama
7. The Magic Onions

So there's the 7 I chose tonight.  There are many blogs that are versatile in their own interest area, but I tried to choose blogs that branch out and try to encompass many different ideas/thoughts/practices.

Here's to being versatile!

Love-N-Links

LOVE-N-LINKS

The Summer has flown by, no?!?

Here's what I was doing (and loving) just about 30 minutes ago...

Planning my first year of homeschooling. 

Kindergarten.

I know I know...laugh now all you seasoned homeschoolers, but even K takes a bit of planning.  We follow a Waldorf Education, so K is all about continuing the rhythms of home life.  I am mostly just planning our monthly circle time, exploring what classes we may take and working on my self so I may be a guiding light.

But enough about that for now, on to more love-n-links!

I am still loving our CSA from The Growing Experience, and guess what?  They finally have a website, so I can actually link to the farm now instead of an old newspaper article.  Yay!  Go here and see what they're up to.  F helped paint the mural on their home page.  Below is a picture of the contents of this week's box.  Update: We fired up our old Tanaka box too.  This hot summer has me wanting nothing but fresh fruits and veggies, so going through two large CA boxes a week is easy peasy.

I'm loving Amy's spunky reusable snack bag tutorial at Angry Chicken.  I have some cute fabric scraps that I can use to make these, plus there's no velcro, liners, snaps or anything.  Just simple, easy and functional.  Fantabulous!  I'll post pics (assuming I'll find time to sew this week).

I'm also loving how cozy my bed looks with Baby C all cute and snuggly in it, so off I go to the land of nod...

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Our Week in Washington (continued)

Ok, so here's the rest of the photos I wanted to share from our week in WA which culminated in turning this...

My sweet little brother

Into this...

Well, my lil bro is obviously the dashing red-head in the Irish tweed suit, but bonus points if you can pick out my older brother!

The wedding was beautiful and so was the reception.  They kept it simple yet elegant and had an awesome wedding coordinator because everything went very smoothly...except of course for poor little E who had to sulk her way down the aisle because her bubble gun didn't work. 

I do think Fike Photography captured the moment, don't you?

Oh, yes!  She is shoeless.  She flat out refused to wear the expensive lovely shoes my Mom bought her.  F on the other hand was thrilled to be involved.  She played the part of Flower Girl with honor and awe.  Not to mentioned she loved being around all the gorgeous bridesmaids!  We were supplied with sparkly tulle to wrap her cast...

Uncle A always makes time to hug his nieces.  Baby C got a special dance with him...

Congratulations again to the happy couple!  May I leave you with this Ancient Celtic wedding blessing:

Happy is the bride that rain falls on

May your mornings bring joy and your evenings bring peace.

May your troubles grow few as your blessings increase.

May the saddest day of your future

Be no worse than the happiest day of your past.

May your hands be forever clasped in friendship

And your hearts joined forever in love.

Grain of the Day (Part 2 )

Hi friends!

Still no camera battery charger...I'd better get on that so I can share my recipe for Diaper Pail Disks!  Hopefully tonight...

Today is part 2 of the post I wrote for The Magic Onions.  It continues with the Grain of the Day recipes for Thurs (rye), Fri (oats) and Sat (corn) as well as some book recommendations to learn more about eating with the cosmic rhythms.

To read last week's Part 1 go here.
Then visit here for Part 2.

While you're at it, check out all of Donni's posts in her Discovering Waldorf Series and then enjoy reading new ones every Thursday.  After you've read all of those go do one of the many nature based projects/crafts she has so graciously created tutorials for!

Our Week in Washington

Thought I'd share a few photos from our trip to WA.  After a few rough days at first (poor F!) we had a lovely time.  It ended with one of the most beautiful weddings I've been to.  Congratulations to my little brother Andy-pants and his beautiful bride. 

Day 1: F is on Sam first thing in the morning.  2nd thing in the morning?  F and E fell off Sam and F broke wrist.  Poo.

Recuperating.

E missing her sister while she recuperates.

C amazing everyone with her cuteness.

Ready for more riding by Day 3 (after she burned her good hand on the stove...yikes!).

E telling Sam "It's ok...I didn't get hurt...F saved me."  This is true.  The girls were riding together when they fell off and F was a soft landing for E.  They ride Sam bareback all the time, so this was a shock.  I turned away for one second and thump!  Poor Sam just looked down and kept eating grass.  He wasn't even moving when they fell off.  We love you Sam.  You are the best horse ever!

Papa D with C...she has learned to stick out her tongue...it never goes back in now.

Dad says this tree is dead.  I say it's beautiful.  What do you think?

Even with a broken wrist you can hope over streams...didn't you know?


**The rest of the pictures will be posted soon...I just found out my camera ran out of batteries and my charger is still having fun in WA.  Yay me.  Oh well...I'll pick up a new one tomorrow and be back. TBC....**

Love-N-Links

Love-N-Links

Sorry I've been MIA this last week.  We were in Washington for a whirlwind wedding week!  My little brother got married and it was a beautiful ceremony.  I am planning a pretty picture post, but I have to edit the 5 billion photos I took first! 

Dear Uncle Andy

If you can't wait to see wedding pictures, then here's the link to Fike Photography (she took the photo posted above).  She's the photographer they hired and she's posted some on her blog already.  There are a few of F&E looking precious as the flower girls.  Poor little E's bubble gun didn't work and nearly ruined her walk down the aisle.  I warned of the dangers of having a 2 year old flower girl!

On to Love-N-Links...

This week I dedicate this post to the package I received from the Bits of Goodness swap group because a) I love every single thing we got in the package and need to say thanks! and b) I have not had a chance to read my fellow bloggers' posts all week!  I am looking forward to a quiet day at home where hopefully I can hop on the computer a bit and get all caught up.  Although the ridiculously cute baby bunnies we came home to may occupy most of my down time today...we'll see.

Look at this absolutely adorable Strawberry.  I want about 10 more.  Visit the maker Denise over at A Smile a Day.

This is a sweet hairclip with felted roses and knit leaves.  Very creative Margaret!

I love using nature bits in a functional way so of course I love these beeswax candles made out of seashells.  I have a few deep shells that would make gorgeous candles.  Thanks for the inspiration Rose.

My daughters will be thrilled to find this dear little fairy appear on their nature table.  This was made by Jessi.  For more of her special treasures, check out her Etsy shop Blue Skies and Dragonflies.

As for this whimsical Dragonfly Hallie made...I already have a plan for it.  I'll post about our plan soon, but for now you can visit Hallie at Our Broken Road

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