Happy Saint Nicholas Day

It was still dark and I'm pretty sure I was in a deep sleep when the first footsteps came padding into my bedroom this morning to alert me that Saint Nicholas had come in the night and had filled their shoes with goodies. I think after that I may have even been covered in a few wet kisses and squeals of delight before I tried to sneak in a few more minutes of sleep instead of getting out of bed *grin*. That didn't last long as more footsteps followed and there was a special treat from mama to be prepared as well :)

Saint Nicholas had been most generous and had stuffed their shoes to the brim with oranges and nuts, a couple of golden coins, a chocolate St. Nick figure...

and a little brown paper package for each of them.

As the aroma of cinnamon and fresh bread filled the air we sat at the dining room table with hot cocoa to unwrap the little packages :) Last year the children received christmas themed books but this year I found some lovely classics for the older children....

and a copy of a Magic School Bus book for M. He was thrilled to have a copy that he could call his very own :)

After that things got mighty quiet as book pages were turned and mouths were filled with warm bites of the marzipan, almond and cinnamon kringel that I had made for the occasion :)

The children must have all been very good this year because there was no visit from the Krampus thank goodness and Opa had a good time retelling tales of when he was a child in Austria and Sankt Nikolaus would visit his house.

We had made some special cookies using our favorite speculaas recipe and shaped them as Saint Nicholas but unfortunately my red gel icing didn't make them red but instead a deep shade of pink :( Oh well they still tasted delicious...

And were cute packed inside our little tins that were going to be dropped off as secret gifts to unsuspecting friends and family. You should hear the children giggle as they try to sneak up quietly to a house to ring the doorbell and then run away as fast as the can *grin*. I don't think they got caught once this year :)

 Do you celebrate St. Nicholas? I would love if you would leave a comment or a link to your blog letting me know what your family did today :)

Hugs,

Rosina

First Week of Advent

 We light one candle shining bright
Upon this Holy Advent night
Fill our hearts with loving might
Lead us to Christmas Day's brilliant light!

 - M. T. Schunemann

I love this time of year as our excitement for the Christmas season grows with each candle that we light :) 

This morning the children and I pulled out the box deep in the back of my closet with our advent candle holder and beeswax candles and brought it to the coffee table. We cleared off the miscellaneous school books that were scattered all over it so that we would have lots of space to set it up in its special spot for the holiday season where it will be joined in the coming weeks by our nativity scene and St. Nicholas.

 Rudolph Steiner incorporates the four kingdoms into the four weeks of advent as well and for the first week he shares:

 The first light of Advent is the light of stones,
Light that lives in seashells, in crystals and in bones.

So the kids picked through their stash of favorite stones and shells and I brought out the special hour glass crystals that were gifted to us from a fellow waldorf family earlier this spring and for the bones we thought maybe our dried starfish might qualify since it's just the skeleton of it left *grin*.

Our tradition is that the youngest child gets to light the first candle and then the middle and so on so little M had the honor of holding the match all on his own to light his candle tonight and then we turned out all of the lights and sat under the glow of our star lanterns from Martinmas and watched the light of the candle grow as the wick burned down and the flame grew larger. This went on for a little while until Hubby and I were the last ones left enjoying one anothers quiet company :)

 Over the next couple of days we'll start to pull out all of our favorite Christmas books including  Celebrate with Joy by Sondra Burnett  which is full of inspiration on scriptures to read, craft ideas and ways to make Christmas even more special and our library wish list is overflowing with seasonal favorites. Each trip into town finds us with a few more that are waiting for us to be picked up and brought home. I think I might even grab a few paper whites to plant for next week's light of plants. I can't wait :)

What are your plans for advent and the coming weeks?

Hugs,

Rosina

Celebrating Michaelmas

 So many wonderful things have been happening this month!

Yesterday was the celebration of Michaelmas and we have all been looking forward to it for weeks. We've been reading all sorts of dragon stories, our favorite being The Knight and The Dragon by Tomie dePaola, and the children have been re-enacting the stories with the felt dragon and knight that make up part of our nature table this month :)

 I found this cute dragon craft on pinterest that we just had to make to *grin*. When you blow through the paper tube the streamers blow up like the dragon is breathing fire. It was a hit with my 6 year old and the added touch of googly eyes made it even more fun for him as he attempted to make the dragon make silly faces as he blew fire :)

 With all of the apples we had we saved a special basket of them for making a pie to go along with dinner and the kids made light work of all the peeling for me with this great little peeling gadget that peels, cores...

  and slices all of the apples into uniform pieces.

 

Not one part of the apples from our trees went to waste except for maybe the core but even then the chickens got those. L has a serious addiction to peelings LOL. 

 With the apples peeled and sliced it was time to make pie and legend has it that after Michaelmas you shouldn't eat fresh blackberries so of course we had to add blackberries to our apple pie which made it all the sweeter :)

 I had to time it right to get all of our baking done before the roast chicken had to go into the oven for dinner but we managed to bake the pie, sculpt and bake a ferocious looking dragon and even make a set of bread shaped swords to go along with dinner.

 This year I wanted to make our dinner extra special so we had my parents over and just before we ate I had everyone raise their bread swords and we recited the following poem.

 "Brave and true will I be,

Each good deed sets me free,

Each kind word makes me strong,

I will fight for the right,

I will conquer the wrong."

Since St. Michael is the saint of courage I thought this was perfect. I found it on one of the waldorf yahoo groups I'm on and don't know who to credit the poem to so if you happen to know where this is originally from I would love to know.

So after a little mock sword fighting with our bread swords we ate heartily and enjoyed the company of family :) 

Did you celebrate Michaelmas? I would love to know what you and your family did :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Goodbye 2011... Hello 2012

Well I guess it's all over... 2011 that is *grin*.

Last night we pulled out a fancy table cloth for the coffee table, covered it with delicious finger foods for our annual new year's eve party and invited my mom and dad to join us :) We had cheese and crackers, hummus and veggie chips, fresh oysters that I breaded and fried, black Alaskan cod which is seriously to die for when you steam it in the oven....

and poached pears in a merlot and grand marnier sauce. I've been wanting to make these for a long time and thought it would make a lovely dessert to eat at the stroke of midnight :) I made a syrupy reduction out of the poaching liquid and then drizzled it over the warm pears and vanilla bean ice cream. So yummy and a lovely way to ring in the new year!

My dad just happens to be a new year's baby as well so today we got to have another party for his birthday with homemade sushi. We made California rolls and others with smoked sockeye salmon, shrimp croissants and my mom made cherry cheesecake for his birthday cake. I think I've eaten enough for an entire week in the last 24 hours LOL.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions usually as I tend to break them but last January I had vowed to live life more intentionally and 2011 lived up to what I had envisioned so I plan to do a whole lot more intentional living in 2012!

But when I read this lovely excerpt below from Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience a few days ago it just made me say 'YES'!

“I don’t really want more time;
I just want enough time.
Time to breathe deep & time to see real & time to laugh long, time to give You glory & rest deep & sing joy…
I just want time to do my one life well."
{read more here}

I can't agree more whole heartedly with what she wrote and I am looking forward to everything this brand new year brings my way :)

Happy New Year,
Rosina

Merry Christmas to All

May the blessings of Joy abide within you,
May the blessings of Peace rest upon you,
May the blessings of Love flow through you.
Wishing you every blessing Jesus came to give.

Merry Christmas from our home to yours.

Hugs,
Rosina

O Tannenbaum

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

Hubby is finally home for the holidays so we all hopped into the truck and headed out into the forest in search of the perfect Christmas tree :)

As we drove we climbed higher and higher up the mountain and our view overlooking the lake below became more beautiful...

and we even found some snow *grin*.

We finally picked the perfect tree and the children each took a turn sawing through its trunk and off home we went with our tannenbaum :) We've set it outside the front door for the night to dry off a bit and tomorrow it will make its way into our family room where we can get it all decorated up just in time for Christmas eve!

Sunday saw us light our fourth candle for advent and you should have heard the squeals of delight as the youngest two realized that we were only days from Christmas :) We made our last trip into the city this morning to pick up a few last minute things we needed and now we're ready to snuggle down in our home for the rest of the holidays.

Hubby is home until the day after boxing day and I couldn't have wished for a better Christmas present! We're all together and what a special time we will have :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Advent and a Birthday

It's been a busy couple of days :)
We had family visiting from out of town, a special outing to listen to the Christmas choir singing at one of the churches in the city which was such a treat, catching a few last minute craft fairs and a few trips transporting Hubby to and from his tug boat for work.

It's okay though because today was my birthday and I got to sleep in and catch up on some rest and relaxation *grin*. The children made me the cutest little handmade birthday cards and my mom had all of us for cake. A delicious hazelnut torte filled with apricot jam and brushed with Austrian rum... so yummy! So good in fact that it disappeared much to quickly as we sipped our coffee that we had to splurge and have a second slice :)

The days leading up to Christmas eve seem to be zipping by really quickly and I've been working on making a list of all the things that still need to be done. I've been spending an hour each evening working on a few fabric Finnish stars that I want to give to my mom and my mother in-law and the children requested felt dragons earlier in the year after seeing the one I had made for Michaelmas so they have been cut out and are waiting to be sewn...

but when we lit our three candles last night for advent it reminded me of the peace and joy of the season that we are embracing and that I need to focus less again on the hustle and bustle of 'getting it all done' and more on family and togetherness. I found that in the past I get very caught up in doing and this year is all about the enjoying *grin*.

So far I think I'm doing a pretty good job at it and the sparkle in the children's eyes has never been so bright :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Oh the joy that filled our house this morning as sleepy children raced to the front door to see what Saint Nicholas had left in their shoes!

Waiting for each of them was a little burlap sack and a brown paper bundle tied with string.

There was a special Christmas book enclosed for each of them and all sorts of nuts and oranges to eat along with a delicious chocolate St. Nicholas for later :)

We made Nicholas shaped cookies using this speculaas recipe which is so yummy with its ground almonds in the dough and lots of spice and the children had fun decorating him with raisins, chocolate chips and sunflower seeds :)

One of the things that we really wanted to do was pack a little tin full and surprise someone with it in secret but since our closest neighbor is my mother we thought it would be fun to see if we could get away with dropping it off at her door and not getting caught!

So with the cookie tin in hand all three of the children raced up to her house as fast as they could and then snuck as quietly as they could to the door, banged on it hard and then ran for their lives LOL.

A few minutes later the phone rang of course asking if it had been us and we denied it *grin*. She had no idea where they had come from so it was a very successful ding dong ditch LOL.

Did you celebrate Saint Nicholas' Day? I would love to pop over and see what you did to make it special :)

Hugs,
Rosina

St. Nicholas Eve & The Krampus

Today we spent some time drawing in our lesson books little pictures of Saint Nicholas as we wait for his arrival tonight :)

Every year on December 5th Saint Nicholas returns to earth on his white horse and visits the homes of children leaving them gifts in their shoes that have been set out by the door.

When I was a little girl my father would tell us tales of St. Nicholas from when he was a little boy in Austria and of how St. Nicholas would visit their house in the evening and occasionally with him came the Krampus. A devil like beast with chains that would chase them around if they were found to have been bad until they promised that they would behave better from then on. Of course the chase was frightening but if they promised to be good they were rewarded with treats from St. Nicholas :)

Now the Krampus never visited us thank goodness but that definitely puts a new spin on the old 'you better watch out, you better be good' saying for old Santa Claus. If I knew the scary man with the chains was coming I would have been on my best behavior a lot more *grin*.

So with their shoes out, filled with carrots for for St. Nicholas' horse and a little note, the children all went to bed dreaming of what surprise they will find in the morning :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Advent and Love

Tonight we lit two candles for advent starting with the one we lit last week and then the lighting of a second one to symbolize love and family. We spent the entire day reading Christmas books, baking and just enjoying one anothers company. I couldn't help but think how blessed I am to have three beautiful children and how homeschooling allows us to spend so much time together :)

Rudolph Steiner incorporates the four kingdoms into the four weeks of advent and for the second week he shares:

“The second light of Advent is the light of plants–
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.”

So this week we will plant our paper whites which I have been sprouting in the dark pantry and we will gather and bring in pinecones along with some fresh cedar boughs from the cedar tree in the back yard. I can't wait. They are going to smell so good!

Our nativity set has made its way to our table as well and the children have been happily arranging and rearranging all of the figures. This week we will have an empty barn and manger and the angels singing but for now I'm letting everyone have a little play time *grin*.

One of the lovely ideas in our Celebrate the Joy holiday book is the filling of an empty manger all month long with bits of straw, string and what not so the kids built a little manger out of popsicle sticks and I found a bunch of natural colored raffia that looks like hay for them to cut and place inside of it. Each morning they pull a little bit out of the top of the mason jar, snip it off and then put it in our manger. By the 24th it should be overflowing and ready for our little baby Jesus to be placed within :)

May you all enjoy joy and love this week.

Hugs,
Rosina