re:green and yellow

Dear Julia Charlotte, Green and yellow are becoming popular colors around here! I spied delicate green from tree branches in my backyard this morning! evening shot of some of our daffodils...

daffodils are coming up all over the place!!

On St. Patrick's Day, we dug out SquirrelGirl's spring coat. It was appropriately colored.

On St. Pat's day we all wore something green for an evening outing! We studied the reasons for the day as a homeschool lesson that day( minus the beer and gold-lust!).

painting shamrocks......

SquirrelGirl paints .....

Our shamrock banner! (I wonder why the shamrocks curled up later??)

You can find the original instructions for this project at No Time for Flashcards

Did you know that (according to our limited research) St. Patrick,when bringing Christianity to Ireland, used the shamrock to explain God. As the shamrock has three leaves on each stem, St. Patrick explained that the shamrock was like the Trinity. There may be other explanations about all this but it was an interesting way to study Ireland a bit and surrounding topics.

We did come to the question of whether one ever could come to the end of a rainbow and delved into the research of that. Happy bunny trails!

re:learning adventures

Dear Julia Charlotte, You've asked about how our children learn. Here are some pictures....

pipe cleaner eyeglasses by Alex,worn while playing UNO

coloring ....

Peruvian puppets,(gifts from Peruvian friends),as a banner in the Learning Studio....

chalk art on our front door.....

cartoon drawing...

List of VHS videos being watched right now:

Nightmares of Nature

Great White Shark, Truth behind the Legend

Eyewitness on the Amphibian

The Maurice Sendak Library

Madeline and the Toy Factory

Sandcastle Secrets

Touring England

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

Pinnochio

and more!

The children had music class today and played soccer with their music teacher.

We are still working on the Abe Lincoln book.

So, some of our learning right now!

In His Love, Pilgrimama

re: Shakespeare behind Bars

Dear Julia Charlotte, This is a letter to tell you about a good flick. Last night I left house,children and chores with a sitter and went off to meet my good friend and cousin for a movie night at the community center.
Photo of lantern at a ladies tea night in a local tea house.


We watched Skakespeare behind Bars. The movie covers a group of prisoners through the course of putting on a Shakespeare play. It's a story of talents being unearthed, of growth, of redemption of life of a sort (though you will ache,especially at certain points for them to know the redemption of Jesus Christ) of humanity. The photography is amazing also.
Not recommended for children though,so get a sitter if you go to see this one.

On to the day. We have colds,Lee worked all night(the scamp!) and there are curtains to be hung, wedding gifts to buy, compost to deal with. Good stuff on Saturdays! May your day go well also!

In His Love,

Pilgrimama

re:spoiling or doting

Dear Julia Charlotte, Just pondering the delicate balance between doting and spoiling in regards to children. When I was little, I longed to be spoiled in a good way,I think. I wanted to have my sandwiches cut up in tringles and served up on a plate, with some little celery and carrot sticks on the side.
I wanted to have someone around that noticed the things I was good at and drew me out.
I wanted to have a dad that brought me home little trinkets from buisness trips and swung me off my feet in a hug.
It wasn't that I ever went hungry. And I had some little trinkets. But I think what I wanted were those little touches. Those details that I wouldn't ask for but would happen because somebody loved me,oh so much. The situation I grew up in was challenging. It didn't allow for pampering. Then I started my own family and those little things are a regular part of my offsprings lives.
They get their bowls of sliced apples and oranges, their trinkets from trips, their hot cups of tea in the morning,all nicely prepped. Their dad takes them to play soccer and I take them to art class and the list could go on and on.
They do their chores and say thank-you Mama and so on.
So is there any problem?
Well, I think there's one thing I didn't know as a child, who wished for love-touches.
It's that those parents who can give so much, walk a fine line between loving ,and doing our children a disfavor, by having them come to expect too much, by too much serving instead of training them to serve, of spoiling instead of teaching independence.
I think it's a path that can be navigated by prayerful interceding and God given wisdom but it can be tricky!

In Him, Pilgrimama

re:crocuses and projects

Dear Julia Charlotte, Here is the promised picture of our backyard crocuses. Aren't they lovely? They've been up for probably almost two weeks now.

Here's that project I had in mind to go with the bathtime theme on the notions and threads blog(see sidebar). I sewed away at our areas monthly birth related circle time.No, I am not pregnant. But my friends go, a lot of them. So,you see?

This wasn't supposed to turn into a bath puppet. If you follow the directions in the pictured book, you should get a better finished project. It's called a bath buddy. I should have read the directions more thoroughly,I imagine. The key seems to be WRAPPING the bar of soap and then sewing it into the washcloth.

Well, there's a pumpkin cake in the oven,the trash and recycling has been hauled to the curb, a bit of yard tidying happened and now onto feeding the tribe breakfast. After that, library, lunch and art class. This evening: lots of company for "small group" night!

In Christ, Pilgrimama

re:kitchen and table letter

Dear Julia Charlotte, Way too much happens around here to record it all. So many people, so many moments of wonder. Here are some kitchenish pictures I've taken of late....
making Harvard Beets with fresh squeezed orange juice....

I find all kinds of creations made from word magnets these days..

My dining table-today.

My table from another angle....

making Harvard beets...

beets...

We've served quite a lot of this almost cheeseless pizza. We like to use up what we've got and not run to the store for ingredients we don't have. Thus pizza made with just a bit of Parmesan grated on top.

The children and I are reading through Proverbs at breakfast time. One chapter a breakfast.

(I skip the extreme details about adulterous women and their wiles. Somehow that's difficult, especially that time of the day!)

I captured my cousin this weekend and we made Cinnamon Pecan coffeecakes. I've also made Cinnamon Ribbon banana bread to share with friends and neighbors.(We're about out of cinnamon!)

And last but not least,here's something cool I glued up yesterday evening on my kitchen countertop,just in time for a surprise birthday party. My candle decoration!(Look on the very bottom of the linked page. And give it a try. )

Happy creating!

Pilgrimama

re:buns

buns
Originally uploaded by pilgrimama

Julia Charlotte,
I also thought you might like to know there was apple crisp made by yours truly. (Really I'm mostly just playing with some new online toys....)
Pilgrimama

re: breadmaking for a new mama

birth-p 028
Originally uploaded by pilgrimama

Dear Julia Charlotte,
Recently I had the great privilege of making bread for a friend who was in labor.Here is a little helper shaping the buns as we kn ead and wait!
A short post today as I process life and God's shaping of it!
Good things!
Pilgrimama

re: books and pajamas

Dear Julia Charlotte, some of the books we got at a literature fair recently..
You do see a Max Lucado book on that pile. My children have a few of Lucado's books, one or two courtesy of a loving Sunday school teacher. How do you feel about Lucado's books?
I found Jodi Picoult's Mercy among the piles. I rarely read novels but I have read some of Picoult's work. Mercy tackles a difficult topic as usual. Not recommended for just any readership.
A side note. (I saw my neighbor a couple doors down, out back wearing a coat and pajamas. I felt happy to see she was so normal. She is a lot older than me,I hope that still gives me justification???
But then I had a worrisome thought. I hear a new family is moving into the empty house next door. The wife is from England. She is a mother. Do proper English mums ever sneak out with the garbage in a coat and pajama bottoms?
And worse yet,if I don't get some curtains on our windows, she might see pajamas being worn at other odd times of the day. But I can see in her windows too. I know. I'll hang a sign in my window that says"It's ok, WE CAN BOTH WEAR PAJAMAS! I WON'T TELL! LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM!"
On to other things. Be well.
Pilgrimama

re: the blahs

homemade valentines using scraps of fabric

I think we got this idea at all buttoned up and adapted it.

Dear Julia Charlotte,

Have you ever had one of those days that are gray outside, (and inside too)?

You can't decide what to do and feel listless about starting anything?

The blahs get worse and worse as you think about how much time is being wasted doing nothing?

What works for me is usually this. I go do one or two small things. As I do those things I will see more things that need to be done. Interest starts building. And soon the blahs are gone!

March is still cold around here but Spring promises it's first official day later this month. I am hibernating pretty much still. Kind of a sulky hibernation.

Maybe I will send you pictures of the stack of books I picked up at the thrift store over the weekend. And as a side note, we finished Homer for children last week. It was quite the strenuous read. Jess has been reading a kids book on Abraham Lincoln with Lee in the last few days. That was one of my weekend thrift store finds.

I should go to bed now. Everyone else is snuggled under comforters and the like,sleeping, while Squirrelgirl and I play with our respective electronic toys(the computer for me and the Babe (pig)movie for her.

~Pilgrimama

re: raw motherhood moments

Dear Julia Charlotte,Here's another stack of pictures...chronicling motherhood in it's raw reality. No book or magazine,with all their attempts at telling the truth about motherhood ,can probably ever reach the heights (or depths) of up close honesty that blogs can.

Clothes, doll clothes plus costumery equals One Big Mess. Systems are great for making order from the mess. Then-work the systems!

Sooooo part of the decor (not!).

How does this get in here?

This is part of what my job as Mom With Many Hats is. Broomwielder is on my resume`.

This is a very real part of my day. It is part of many moms' days. The dirty truth.

You will do this over and over. Find it, face it and sweep it into the trash.

Things like this will bob over your head. They provide the opportunity to laugh.

And this, these little dear ones are whom we are blessed to serve. Even when we feel like as exhausted as this little darling.

In Christ,

Pilgrimama