Natural Playgarden

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Seven Years Old

"When I have said my evening prayer

And my clothes are folded on the chair

And Mother switches of the light

I'll still be 6 years old tonight.

But from the very break of day,

Before the children rise and play,

Before the darkness turns to gold

Tomorrow I'll be 7 years old,

7 kisses when I wake

7 candles on my cake."

Traditional Waldorf Birthday Verse

I can hardly believe that my little Ryan is now 7 years old and not so little anymore. I feel blessed everyday that he is a part of our lives. This year we took a road trip to celebrate his birthday and headed down to Florida to see his grandmom and grandpa and have a party with our friends down there. We had the added bonus of a Waldorf Fall Festival and Ryan was able to play a baseball game with his team.

On sunday morning we had a combined birthday party with his friend Addison who has the same birthday as him - except she is a year older. Actually Ryan and Addison planned this party while we ere still living down there and her mom and I just executed it. Addison wanted a gnome and fairy party - so we set to work.

Climbing trees in search of fairies

Dyeing pouches. If you notice Ryan is the green one and he also has a gnome hat that he wanted to dye green so that he can be the addition math gnome.

The kids built fairy and gnome houses. After which we spotted a note that told the children to take a journey and find some treasure.

Their first clue was to "find a boat and bring it to the fairy of the pond. There she will have a treasure waiting"

Off the kids ran to find the fairy by the pond :

The fairy of the pond left the first note in the pic below. The kids took off to the garden and found the gnome and his treasures. The gnome also had the next clue in the second note in the picture:

And they found her and the treasures. She had the next clue which led the kids back to where they built their fairy and gnome houses.

There was the final treasure with a special gift for each birthday child.

The treasure : jewels to make a necklace.

The gang.

Cake!!!yumm . Unfortunatly it was oo windy to light the candles but we are blessed to have children who can use their imagination and enjoy the candles anyway.

One little glitch in all our planning - we forgot forks!! thanks to Jill who lived near by and hopped on Susan's bike, who also lives near by, and grabbed some forks from her house. So while we waited the kids tried their luck on the pinata.

yeah goodies -

Present time. Great gifts from our friends - thank you everyone.

I have to say this guy is my favorite (no offense to anyone else though). Addison's mom made him - isn't he too cute.!! I love the marshmellows!

We had a wonderful time in Florida. Sat night we went out to dinner at the mexican resturant with my parents and they gave him their gift. An awesome doctor's kit complete with working stethascope . Then the resturant sang happy birthday to him and he got to keep a sombrero. I would say he had a nice birthday.!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Well we are moved in and just about settled. I have unpacked everything that I think we need and left the rest in boxes. Our little house is cute (I deleted the pics of the house by mistake so I will have to retake them tomorrow in the daylight.) The neighbors seem nice and the boys have already made friends. I know to some this seems perfect and for now it is great - but I still want to move to a more rural area eventually where we are not so close to our neighbors. I want those chickens! and a big garden! For now we are exploring our new town

Yesterday was a Columbus day fair up at the park behind the library. It was alot of fun and I talked with a woman and her family. She is originally from Italy and has only been here since March. We started talking when she was asking me about my sling and has one for her 3 month daughter but is not sure how to use it . My sling has gotten a lot of attention around here. Not too many have seen any thing like it.

We saw the tail end of a magic show and a bellydancing show. The library is huge here. It has a cafe and a preforming arts theater inside the building. With the park right behind it - I see many days spent here.

Today we went to the Savannah River old canal lock. It was a beautiful day and we discovered this great place only minutes from the house.

The river

family photo

The old Canal lock operator's house which is now a visitors center

sweet sleepy baby

the canal

we found an area off the canal with a small waterfall and lots of rocks to play on.

There is also a small playground that we checked out. Adeline loved the swing

and fun on the slide with big bro - sorry for the sideways video.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Our little sanctuary

Wow - so much has happened these last couple months. We left the beautiful state of Ct and all our wonderful,amazing friends behind. Headed to Florida where my awesome parents let us stay with them while Tony looked for a job. Not 1 and 1/2 weeks after we left CT he landed a great job in Augusta,GA. We were all pleasantly surprised to say the least. Being unemployed for a year was taking its toll on everyone and we were not sure what was going to happen to our little family. Tony went ahead of us to GA and for the past month had been commuting back down to Florida on the weekends. After searching he found us a cute little house to rent just outside Augusta (more on that in the next post), we packed up again this time saying goodbye to my awesome family and wonderful friends to head to an unkown place.

In Florida we were lucky to be a part of a Waldorf co-op that met 2x a week. We learned some new songs, made blackboards and knitting needles, learned the recorder and did some watercolor paintings. We were also lucky to take part in some programs at the local Waldorf school that only goes up to K. They offer a first grade Fairy Ring" that I dropped Ryan off at on Thursday and Friday. It was wonderful to see him take to it so well. His teacher had good things to say - his teacher by the way was his playgroup leader when he was 2 and is also a part of the co-op. We had such a wonderful community our short time there. Needless to say it was most difficult to leave it all behind to head to an area where there are no Waldorf schools in site. Finding homeschool groups has been a challenge here. I will keep my eyes out and in the meantime look forward to heading back down to Florida to see my parents and attend the Waldorf festivals that are so important to me.

I will always have my little sanctuary though - well at least as long as my parents do not sell their little condo on the beach:

Good bye Florida - Hello Georgia.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Learning a Little about Florida History

Last Monday we headed back to St. Augustine for homeschool day at the Old Florida History Musuem. It is a living musuem that takes you through a Timicuan long house, a Spanish house and Colonial times - A walking time line of Florida history.

At the spanish house we tried our luck at one of thier games. It is very similar to checkers. Ryan also got to dip candles. It reminded me that I want to do that at home sometime soon! We use many candles throughout the year.

Ryan dressed as a Spanish Conquistador .

Digging for fossils.

Ryan the leader of the Timicuans : )

Grinding corn before he became head of the tribe. Gotta pay your dues.

Despite the incredible heat that day, we had a lot of fun.

Monday, September 21, 2009

For Daddy - see you soon

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Baseball in the Fall?

Yep! down here in the south, you can do that. Ryan was so excited to be on a team and this Sat was his first game. He is on the Yankees and is number 3, which I found out was Babe Ruth's number when he was on the team.

1st base man