A Quiet Christmas Day

Sighting a pair of bluebirds on Christmas morning was a rare gift! Being able to capture a photo of them with my new camera was even better.

The softly glowing tree looked over our early morning gift sharing. Even after a late night of last-minute crafting the children were not about to sleep in! On Christmas Eve, all five children sleep in the girls room, Jill reads "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and they all try to sleep in spite of the excitement. I think they were all up by 5 a.m., but they know the rule is to let Mama and Daddy sleep until 7. They can look at thier gifts from Santa and peek at the stockings, but the rest must wait.

Tradition dictates that stockings aren't opened until the parents are up. Presents will be saved until after the Christmas Breakfast - Stollen, eggs, and hot chocolate. We were joined for our breakfast this year by Grandaddy and Gramie and Uncle Joe.

Once the present opening commences, it is done in an orderly fashion. One present at a time, taking turns youngest to oldest until everything has been opened. This year after the present opening, we were able to have a lovely, quiet and relaxing day reading new books, playing with new toys, napping, going for a walk with Grandaddy and Gramie and sighting bluebirds!

It was the first time in 15 years that we had Christmas Day all at home. It was so peaceful and beautiful. In the evening we gathered around the table by candlelight for our Christmas Dinner of ham, gratin potatoes, salad, and our jule log cake with marzipan mushrooms. The little ones were almost too tired to eat and drifted off to bed with dreams of a magical Christmas Day.

A note: The sweet little nativity in the pictures above was made over 30 years ago by my Oma. It was part of my childhood Christmas memories and I am so blessed to share it with my own children now. The sheep are even older - probably 40 or 50 years ago when Oma taught school she and her students made them of wood and wool. Somehow they ended up with the nativity set where they seem to fit right in!

December Happenings

December is flying by, but we are keeping warmth in our hearts and simplicity in our souls. Here is some of the goings-on around the Miller household...

On December 7th we said farewell to Uncle Jared as he departed on his two-year LDS mission. We are so proud of his willingness to serve the people of South Africa, but will sorely miss his fun, sweet spirit! (Yes, we have two Jareds who are very dear to us serving missions. Uncle Jared is my youngest brother - only two years older than Jill, he is very close to our family. The other Jared is Jill's (and our!) dear friend to whom we said farewell in June...)

We have an advent tradition in our home of an advent house with doors that open each day to reveal a little suprise. Each child takes a turn - youngest to oldest- so they each end up with 5 suprises. Here are a couple of the things I made this year. A little felt fox, and a baby mouse in a walnut shell cradle. The fox was designed by Elsa, and the mousey was inspired by a similar one my Oma made years ago. It is such a special treat to pass on memories of my childhood!

This month I participated in the Seasons Round winter nature table swap. The Seasons Round is a lovely swap among Waldorf-schooled families to share ideas throughout the year. My partner was Wendy W. in San Fransisco, and although she does not have a blog, I truly hope that at some point she will, as she is such a sweet spirit and has much to share. She sent me the beautiful beeswax candles shown in the advent wreath below, as well as a good fortune bag of the most heavenly lavender and an adorable seasonal story about a little sunflower seed being tucked in to bed for the winter by Mother Earth.

I made for her a little star-bearer table doll, a Celtic sun spiral tapestry, a beeswax votive, and a straw star ornament. You can read a more detailed description on my flickr site here.

Our cutie Lucy attended a formal 16th birthday party for a friend last weekend. She was so beautiful in her sparkly dress and makeup with her hair all done up in ringlets!

This is our advent wreath inspired by Tasha Tudor. I actually just made it on Friday! I hadn't thought I would, but I sat down Friday afternoon to have a cup of tea and the last piece of Panettone I made for homeschool the day before, and decided to watch the Tasha Tudor video "Take Peace". It was a very sweet and calming moment. In the video, Tasha digs in the snow to find the last green branches of boxwood and brings them inside to make her advent wreath. I suddenly realized that I have a boxwood bush that is sprouting like crazy and needs to be trimmed anyway...so I went outside in the 72 degree gentle afternoon and cut some branches and wove them into the beautiful wreath seen above. I had two candles from my swap, and just happened to have two more sheets of beeswax. Elsa helped me carefull roll them into candles and we hung our beautiful wreath with plaid ribbons in tribute to our Scottish heritage. I think we have come upon a new holiday tradition!

One of the most meaningful experiences I have had this season was crafting an ornament for a special lady in need. When Nicole (gardenmama) contacted me about this project I was so touched that she would think of me and so grateful to be included. Sometimes service for others is hard to do, but then again, sometimes we need to let go of our feelings of being overwhelmed by our busy lives and reach out to those around us. Perhaps it is time to bring our thoughts inwards, simplify our lives, listen to the spirit and then extend ourselves to those in need.

There is a beautiful quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the LDS First Presidency: "In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but he number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. Let us open our eyes and see the heavy hearts, notice the loneliness and despair; let us feel the silent prayers of others around us, and let us be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to answer those prayers."

I am sure that participating in this act of service was far more of a blessing to me. It has helped me feel the true meaning of the celebration of this season - that love and charity are where happiness and peace reside.

A Neighborhood Nativity

Every year our neighborhood gathers for a Nativity play and dinner. Our family helps by providing Mary's "donkey" (our pony) and various goats for the shepherds. This year a new neighbor family brought a "camel" (llama) for the wise men and a darling miniature jersey cow! The cast is the children, with the nine year olds traditionally up on the scaffolding as angels, the oldest 11 year old girl and boy as Mary and Joseph, anyone brave enough to hold a goat as shepherds, and three 9-11 year old boys as wise men. All the other kids join in the Children's Choir. It is a beautiful and sweet event usually held the first Saturday in December. It is such a lovely way to start our season focused on the true meaning of Christmas.

Thankful For Family

Today all 37 members of my Bielefeldt family gathered at our home to celebrate Thanksgiving. We couldn't have asked for a more lovely day. The weather was warm and gentle, the food was amazing, and having all the siblings and little cousins together was just priceless.

Uncle Eric brought a bubble machine and all the little girls laughed and chased in wonderment trying to catch the floating bubbles. We finally got them to stay still (relatively!) by lying in a flower shape and singing "fairies!" up to the camera!

I am so grateful for my big family and our closeness and love. I am the oldest of eight, the youngest leaves for his mission to South Africa on December 8th. We are cherishing these moments together as we will not all be together again for two years.

Crafting, Cooking, Crazy!!

The holiday season is upon us and we are in the full spirit of it here. Earlier this month I signed up for three swaps, you can see the tags on the right sidebar. Two were due this week, we are also hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for my family (37+ people!) and Lucy is making Homemade Pies this afternoon to raise money for her marching band fees. So, it is very festive here!!These are all the cute things we made for the Handmade Stocking Stuffer Swap. We had 14 children on our list, 8 boys and 6 girls. David made the boy things, and I made the mermaid dollies for the girls. I was so glad that David stepped in to help! He is so creative and handy when he wants to be :)

A close up of the mermaids. I had so much fun making these for the swap that I decided to make some for my little nieces for Christmas.

I made these handmade chocolate truffles for the goody in the Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap. They were so easy and soooo yummy! If you want to try them, here's the recipe...

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup good quality chocolate (I used Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips)

Heat the cream over medium heat to just before boiling, remove from heat, add the chocolate and stir to melt.

If you would like to add flavorings, do so now. I added about a tablespoon of peanut butter to one batch, to the other I added about a tablespoon of reduced cherry syrup (another recipe maybe!) and a teaspoon of rum. Stir in the flavorings thoroughly.

Put in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until stiff enough to mold. (about 1-2 hours or overnight is fine.)

Form into little balls - I scooped with a melon baller and then rolled to form. Roll in cinnamon sugar or cocoa powder.

That's it! Easy!

Here they are all packaged up, with the ornament and a kitchen towel. The towel is made of natural linen with a border of Japanese woodland friends fabric I got on etsy.


With all the craziness, I let Jesse stay home from school today (it was only a half day anyway!) and he rewarded me by making these amazing blueberry scones! Thank you sweet boy! I think he's turning into a fine cook!

Grade One, F & R

Letters F & R
Waldorf Alphabet Book
A Journey Through Waldorf Homeschooling Grade One
Oak Meadow Kindergarten


Stories:
The Curious Fish by Elsa Beskow
The Roly Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter
Rapunzel by Grimm
The Dream Fairy (poem) by Thomas Hood


Activities:
Add new fish to our pond
Bake Roly Poly Puddings (recipe in Oak Meadow Kindergarten p. 209)

The newly released in English book by Elsa Beskow was perfect for F! We actually scheduled our lessons for F around the release of the book and I am so glad we did. It is such a sweet tale, and Elsa loved all the different kinds of fish in it.

We told several different tales for the letter R, but the image we finally settled on as most meaningful was the river. It lent itself so nicely to the shape, and really flowed in and out of all our stories this week.

One of our resources this week was the poem "The Dream Fairies" by Thomas Hood. It is in the public domain, so here it is:

A little fairy comes at night,

Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown,

with silver spots upon her wings,

And from the moon she flutters down.

She has a little silver wand,

And when a good child goes to bed

She waves her wand from right to left

And makes a circle round her head,

And then it dreams of pleasant things,

Of fountains filled with fairy fish,

And trees that bear delicious fruit,

And bow their branches at a wish;

Of arbours filled with dainty scents

From lovely flowers that never fade,

Bright ‘flies that flitter in the sun,

And glow-worms shining in the shade;

And talking birds with gifted tongues

For singing songs and telling tales,

And pretty dwarfs to show the way

Through the fairy hills and fairy dales.

So many beautiful images! "Fountains filled with fairy fish" was our repeated sentence for F. And Elsa was so inspired by "...pretty dwarfs to show the way/ Through the fairy hills and fairy dales." that she had to paint her version of her dwarf guide through fairyland...

...a lovely opportunity for a painting exersize in Red!


I wanted to share the picture Robin drew for Elsa. He put in as many "R"s as he could from the story Rapunzel. Elsa had a great time finding them all!

Grade One, G & K

Letters G & K
Waldorf Alphabet Book
A Journey Through Waldorf First Grade

Stories:
The Golden Goose - Grimm
King Thrushbeard - Grimm

Activities:
Gardening
Autumn Nature Walk


Elsa in the golden early autumn light in Payson, AZ. We took a little trip to visit my sister in Gallup, NM the first weekend of October and stopped at my parents' cabin. The woods were so beautiful and golden!

For some reason, Elsa had a difficult time with G. She loved the story, but did not think she could draw the picture. She started and then was so frustrated that we had to put it on hold. It took her about three weeks of letting it settle before she was ready to revisit it and make her MLB entry. That's ok. It is why homeschooling is so wonderful! It was no problem to move on with other things and come back to it when she was ready. I did not make a big issue of it, so she did not feel stupid.

The story of King Thrushbeard is adorable! Elsa loved the Princess' silly descriptions of the Princes, and was glad when she learned her lesson to be less proud and selfish. She had great fun acting this one out with me, and really enjoyed the drawing of the King and Princess dancing at thier wedding!