Feeding Our Backyard Birds

On December 14, the fairies left pine cones outside our fairy door with a note telling us to make bird feeders.


















We started by placing the pine cones in the oven to dry and open them. I put the peanut butter in as well to make it easier to spread.



She spread the peanut butter on the pine cones and then sprinkled on the bird seed.


Then I figured out the hard way that it's best to wrap the pipe cleaner on before covering the pine cone with peanut butter and bird seed! LOL!








She really enjoyed going outside and hanging them as well as making them. We were hoping to see the birds flock to the tree, but it took some time for them to find the food.

Stamped Thank You Notes

The fairies came back in January and suggested we start the year in gratitude by making and writing thank you notes for all the gifts we had received over the holidays. Well, it took us a few weeks to do it, but it was a fun way to practice a bit of gratitude.

It also taught me that I can be a bit of a perfectionist (no surprise there!) when it comes to making things for other people. I did a lot of breathing and cutting myself off mid sentence to get through it. LOL! In the end, they are really charming and full of character and something she enjoyed.

My favorite part was taking dictation from her about her gifts. She has such a sweet heart, and it's fun to give her an opportunity to express it!
















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Breaking In Our "New" Colored Pencils

One thing I love about working with children is that they inspire so much creativity! It was true for me as a Waldorf teacher, and it is definitely true of me as a homeschooling mom...when I allow it! And today was that day!




I bought myself a set of nice colored pencils back in May as kind of a Mother's Day gift to myself...ok, it's January, and I haven't used them yet! I bought her a pad of paper for us to draw together back in August as part of our homeschool supplies...hadn't used that yet. I gave her a set of colored pencils over the holidays...because she has not alternate to-do list or other agenda, those puppies have been used! But today, we finally drew together, like I have been aching to do since I bought those pencils in May.



She wanted to draw a beautiful girl in a pink and black dress and wanted help. So I set us up on the kitchen table and threw out the to-do list, because this felt like it needed to be a priority. And then I just started drawing. I told her a little bit about what I was doing, and she drew right alongside me. Once we had finished drawing our beautiful girls, I asked where we wanted her to be. She said at a wedding. So we added in a red carpet for her to walk down and put flowers in her hand. Then we decided it should be outside and added grass and sky. Viola! We were done. She was ready to move on to the next drawing, but dinner time had arrived. I took the time to date and title the back of each of our drawings. Then we took the time to lovingly put away our drawing materials so they would be ready for us again. I really want to keep doing this with her. It felt so good to sit down and be creative together!


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