The Second & Third Lights of Advent

 Oh how the days of this year's advent are flying!

My mom has been in the hospital after having had an operation and now that she has returned home only just a few days ago it feels like I can finally play a bit of catch up on my blog and share how our advent table is growing :)

In the second week of Rudolph Steiner's four kingdoms during advent it says:

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

So we filled our table with plants. I had purchased some paperwhite bulbs at a local garden supply store to force and found the white bowl at the dollar store. We then filled it with stones to act as anchors to hold our bulbs in place as they start to grow and to keep them just a smidge above the water in the bottom of the bowl so they won't rot. It's amazing how quickly they sprang to life and their shoots are already quite a few inches high!

 I just adore Amaryllis flowers in the dark months of winter with their tall green stems and bright blooms the size of your hand so I splurged a little and bought one special bulb to plant for our table as well :)

I had seen somewhere on the web that they had planted their bulb in a tall vase to help support their long stems as they grow so I found a glass pasta jar and thought it would work. Perhaps not quite as pretty but more in my price range *grin*. We laid a couple of inches of stones in the bottom of the jar and then placed the bulb on top making sure that it had a little room around it so it wasn't quite pressed up against the glass, filled jar with water till the roots were submerged (about an inch below the base of the bulb) and then added a few ornamental red cranberries for more color. It won't bloom in time for Christmas but it sure will be pretty when it does :)

Tonight is the third week of advent and in the third week of Rudolph Steiner's four kingdoms it says:

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts,
Light of hope that shines in the greatest and the least .

And all of our barnyard animals have finally made their way to the crèche :) 

Up until now we had only had our little manger that the children have been filling with little bits of hay each morning and an empty crèche so they were very excited to finally pull out all of the animals that belong with our nativity set plus a few more that they rounded up around the house *grin*. Next Sunday we will bring Mary and Joseph out as well and then Baby Jesus on the eve followed by the three wise men as they visit with their gifts :)

I have a few little crafts I want to make this week with the children to feed our feathered friends. Each year we pick a tree in the front yard that we can see from our family room window and fill it with all sorts of goodies for the birds and squirrels :) So this year I like this apple treat feeder and if we get enough snow we'll make some snow sculpture feeders again and these are always fun to make to :)

How about you, what are you doing this week?

Hugs,

Rosina