QUOTING quoting all the time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitations is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

Louisa May Alcott

"My father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child's nature, as a flower blooms, rather than crammed it, like a Strasbourg goose, with more than it could digest."

Moments of Christmas at our House

 

A young girl at the Kids Christmas Farmers Market handmade this Nativity. I think its so beautiful. I have been watching and waiting for the perfect Nativity and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the one- original, felted, and most importantly, not breakable!

Our new house is a "slipper house" so slippers was our Christmas Eve gift. Don't we look cozy?

The best pistachios ever. Mom and Dad brought them home from Iran for us and we saved them under the tree for Christmas day.

My Christmas gift from Charlie. So amazing.

Jacob's window stickers from her true love Summer.

The happiest day of Scarlet's life- a stroller for all her beloved babies.

Only the fairies know what's behind this door.

My amaryllis from my new neighbor.

Thank you Amy for the fun book! We love getting books for our collection.

Christmas Caroline

Ashley had a baby in December which meant we got to have some of Timmy's family around at Christmas time. We had a really fun day and late night talk.

Gingerbread house bonding.

Timmy and Mallie got the job done.

LIGHT

We changed some of the light fixtures around the house so I've been on the look out for ideas. These are a few that I drooled over.

Stretch Candy

Apparently stretch candy isn't as easy to make as it looks. I may need a one-on-one demo with Sis. Hatch to get it right. A pair of rubber gloves and a thermometer would have helped too. We still ate it, even though it about ripped our teeth right out of our heads, because the grape flavor was so tantalizing. I love these shots of crazy Jane stretching. 

Cornballs

I am not usually into this "Chicken Soup for the Corny Soul" kind of stuff but I couldn't resist. Plus, it had poppies at the bottom of it. Hope you enjoy it too.

Fashion Friday but its not Friday

Did I already post this one? Well its worth a second post- its so beautiful.

Lovely dress #1

Anything Peacocks is good. They are my favorite for obvious reasons. My gaudy persian opulent tendencies find relief in the presence of peacocks.

Lovely dress #2

Mariah posted this and I had a good conversation about hair knots with my friend Corrine which caused me to need to post it.

Heaven. Pure Heaven. 

Lovely dress #4

Sweetie Pie

This is how Scarlet says cheese. She puts her hands up in front of her. I also want to note here that she dies for applesauce. Like a big jar a day loves it. She also loves hummus so we let her in our family club.  She's been talking all of a sudden and we laugh so hard when she surprises us with new words.

The other night Timmy took Scarlet up to bed for night night and she was so sad to go. We were all sitting, reading stories and she knew she was missing it. She cried a lot on the way up to bed and Jane couldn't take it. She came and hugged me and had a nice little cry for her little sister's pain. I get that feeling at times myself. Its hard for a little heart to handle.

We are loving the Little House series and trying out all the old fashioned recipes. Snow + maple syrup= snow candy. 

My newest love

Healthy Licorice. Tried it. LOVE it. Have a stash. In my bedside table. For late night bedtime snacks. Have some in the car. Some in the pantry. Some in my gym bag. Tastiness. Goodness.

Ingredients: Molasses, wheat flour, cherry puree, citric acid, natural flavor, black carrot juice concentrate, licorice extract.

Marble Factory

Jacob made squillions of marbles for his Christmas Market Sale. We made a few batches a week for over a month. He made big ones, small ones, glitter ones, scented ones, white ones (snowballs), gold ones (fools gold), and all kinds of colored ones. The coolest part is that he truly worked on this project himself. 

This was his table at the market. 10 marbles for a dollar! It was so cute watching him count out the marbles and put them in a bag for his "customers".

This was Jane's table. She sewed bean bags and she made lavender sachets. Jane grew her lavender in the garden this past summer. She harvested it, dried it and put it in jars to use for her sachets. It was neat to see her learn this process from start to finish. I would wake up in the morning and often find her sewing away- who knows how long she'd been awake working.

I'm not sure why Charlie is doing his cool guy pose here :0) Charlie made these "I Spy Jars" but we called them Treasure Tanks. He collected all sorts and sizes of glass jars. We used our play rice to fill up the jars and then Charlie collected teeny items to add to the rice. He included pennies, buttons, fabric, safety pins, animals, bouncy balls, marbles, beads, hard candy etc.

Here is Timmy with the kids at their tables. The market was surprisingly busy which was relieving for the parents. At the end all the kids traded what they had left and that was the best part. 

There was face painting and stretch candy and yummy refreshments and Christmas music and all our fun friends to spend time with.

More House Tours

These are the stairs that lead you upstairs to the master bedroom and to the learning land (school room).

We are keeping this mustard color - the only walls in the whole house that we are leaving the same.

 This is by far my favorite place in the house. Its so nice to have a room to put all of our educational materials- frogs, magnifying glasses, games, books, maps, clay, crayons, canvas, puppets, puzzles...

Yes, I realize that the bunny wallpaper is deadly and the border is even deadlier. We haven't got the upstairs painted yet but its on the list. Notice the window seat by the windows for our reading time. Delicious.

Next door to the school room is the master. See the log walls... its wallpaper!!! I am not ready to post these pictures yet. Our room seems to be the last room to get attention.

House Tour #3

Jane's room before

Jane's room after

Jane asked for teal so this is what we came up with. The exciting part was peeling off that navy plaid wallpaper to find this pretty pink vintage print beneath it.