Joy Grows

Grade 2 Valentine Cards

rhondalavender — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:07:28 +0000

What a wonderful way to spend part of the afternoon! On Monday, I had the pleasure of spending a bit of time with Ms Crowley’s Grade 2 class making Valentine Cards. Each child made a card for their 6th Grade partner. The cards will be delivered later this week. (our school is has a winter break next week)

We started with a typical collection of paper, trims and tools…

…and then the children added their magic!

Each finished card is different and reflects some of the personality of the child.

With the focus on the Saints in the Grade 2 curriculum, this St. Valentine’s Day is especially significant for our class. However you might recognize the day, I hope you have a happy one!

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I grind loudly

rhondalavender — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:09:40 +0000

When you have done something for so long that it is just a part of your life, then it is easy to forget that is might be a novel thing for folks to hear. I grind the wheat and make bread for my family. I have been doing this for over 6 years.

I buy organic hard red and hard white wheat in bulk. I had been buying it in the 45 pound buckets, but this past year they offered it in 50 pound bags. This will last for over a year of bread and muffin making. The hard red has a bit more of a nutty flavor. I use more of it in my muffins and use equal red & white in my bread.

During our 2 years in Ms Annie’s kindergarten class, I ground wheat each week for Bread Day. I was happy to be able to help and proud to use my new grinder. You can imagine my surprise after that first week when Ms Annie said my flour was too soft and the dough was too sticky for the kids. Well the easy remedy was to use the coarse setting. I use the coarse for bread and muffins and save the finer settings (which wear out the grinder faster) for fancy treats.

So, can you picture me standing in my kitchen kneading a huge mound of bread dough? Well, I can’t! I managed through a few times of hand kneading a single loaf, but I knew I wanted to make a bigger batch. My dear, old KitchenAid tried to handle it, but she just wasn’t made to deal with 3 loaves of whole wheat. So what’s a girl to do?

I think the newer model is called Electrolux Assistant. I got this one from a breadmaker who had fallen in love with the Bosch mixer. She chatted its praises while I smiled politely about the great deal I was getting on my new mixer!

My mixer handles a double batch of my bread recipe (using about 8 cups of flour). I get 3 loaves from this. The rest of the ingredients are very simple. I do use eggs in my recipe for extra protein. Our girls are back in production after a long molting, so you can see the pretty green-blue from Rosie’s eggs. Wondering about that cloudy liquid in the mason jar? Well, it is potato water.

The trick of using potato water in bread came from my friend, Cyndi C. It adds a little starch and makes the bread smooth. I just freeze the leftover water from boiled potatoes in jars. (yes, you can freeze glass. just don’t fill more than 3/4 and tip the jar to creat more surface area.)

Sandwich anyone?

©rw 2012

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Epiphany 2012

rhondalavender — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 06:57:43 +0000

according to m-w.com . . .

epiph·a·ny

3 a (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

b : a revealing scene or moment

Well a little grey kitten was our epiphany today. We have Susan Jeffers’ Nutcracker and Stopping by Woods, so when I saw a copy of Silent Night illustrated by her at my favorite tag sale, I had to pick it up. Aside from showing a nursing newborn (yay!), Jeffers has added a wonderfully cute kitten to the nativity story. If you are looking at the book on amazon, you can see the kitten in Mary’s arm on the cover of the paperback edition. Ivie and I had a great time finding the kitten in each of the nativity scenes. So of course, we had to add a little kitten to our nativity that you can see in the Epiphany photos I took today.

This entire journey has been a process in learning . . . making a large quantity of dolls, blogging about it, keeping a photo chronology. I added one more learning opportunity for myself today by joining vimeo and making a little movie showing our journey with the dolls. Hope you enjoy!

Journey to Bethlehem slide show on vimeo, click HERE.

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12th Night

rhondalavender — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:15:33 +0000

Today is the 12th day of Christmas and the Wise Men have traveled far (all around our living room) and are almost to the manger. They are ready to greet this special child with gifts.

Tomorrow, I will post a photo chronology of our Journey To Bethlehem, but for today we will still enjoy our 12th Night.

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Happy New Year!

rhondalavender — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:53:48 +0000

We welcomed the new year quietly at home this year. I got Suzanne Down’s, Juniper Tree newsletter on Thursday that shared a neat idea of making a blessing cake. I know, I know, who needs more sweets!?! But I grabbed my Laurel’s Kitchen and found a wonderful gingerbread and pound cake recipe that could handle my freshly ground whole wheat. I made both as cupcakes and shared bags of them with neighbors as a happy new year’s wish and then in 3 of the cupcakes, I put a blessing stone.

It was really pretty easy. I wrote on the stones with a sharpie (green didn’t show up very well, but red did fine) and then wrapped each stone tightly in foil. In the cupcake cup, I put a spoon of batter, dropped in the stone and then covered with batter. This seems like a nice way to do the surprises in cakes to ensure everyone gets a treasure.

We read the story about Jack and his blessing cake from Juniper Tree on Saturday and then again on Sunday before our treat time. The story mentioned Jack’s excitement at being able to read his blessing stone himself this year. It seemed so appropriate to have the Blessing Cake with the stones this year since Ivie could read the words herself. And she did.

What will 2012 hold for us? What messages from magic stones will we carry through this year?

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4th Sunday of Advent

rhondalavender — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:16:09 +0000

Congrats again to Cambre who won our Shepherd & Sheep giveaway!

On this 4th Sunday of Advent we bring out the people. Joseph joins Mary in the journey to Bethlehem. The Shepherds tend their sheep and far away on a tall shelf across the room are the Wise Men. Watch for photos of the Wise Men and the rest of the figures next week.

® RW 2011

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Shepherds’ story & giveaway announcement

rhondalavender — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:38:34 +0000

Well, we are not having a Shepherds’ Play at WSA this year, but I have found a wonderful story to use at home with our new nativity figures. All Year Round has a sweet story on page 301 called The Little Lamb (an advent story for children between four and ten years). It tells the story of a young shepherd who goes out searching for a lost lamb and encounters a lady with a deep blue cloak and red gown who is preparing her son for his journey to Bethlehem.

Lindsey got some great shepherd photos the other day.

Remember, we promised one of these cute guys to you . . .

We are going to giveaway of one of our shepherd figures and his little lamb. Just leave a comment here on this blog before Sunday, December 18th when we will draw the name of our lucky winner.

Best of luck!

And the winner is . . . Cambre Hogoboom

cambre hogoboom said:

December 17, 2011 at 2:59 pm

Hello and Thanks. My daughter has only two things on her x-mas list this year: some corduroy to make a dress like Mama’s and a Nativity set. Sweet, huh? She would LOVE this shepherd:)

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Annunciation

rhondalavender — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:55:48 +0000

The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So as much as I might like to throw around the word annunciation on this blog. It is not the word I use when describing this event to my 7-year old. I don’t even use its etymological cousin, announcement. When we see Mary together with the Angel having a chat, we see Mary agree to take on this mantle. She decides to make this journey. She opts in to becoming the Queen of Heaven.

After the busy & crowded nature table of late fall, we have enjoyed this first week of Advent with our table covered in a collection of blue silks and a few precious crystals and stones. It is a perfect time to focus on Mary and her making a choice to carry the light. In this time of the year when it feels as if the light is slipping away, we can all choose to carry and share light.

Tomorrow begins the second week of Advent and we will add things from the plant kingdom to our table. This will include our wooden stable, which is Mary’s destination for this trip. But for tonight, we will have Mary on her journey alone.

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

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,
Roots, stem, leaf, flower and fruit by whom we live and grow.

The third light of Advent, it is the light of the beasts,

The light of hope that we may see in greatest and in least.

The fourth light of Advent, it is the light of man,
The light of love, the light of thought, to give and understand.

(I don’t know the source of the verse, but i got this version from our school newsletter last year)

©rw 2011

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mary and angel

rhondalavender — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:56:24 +0000

It was Thanksgiving week. The first Sunday of Advent was just a few days away. Could we finish the Marys and the Angels to go out on our tables? Yes We Can!

Two Holy Mothers

Two Angels coming to chat.

Mary and the Angel are ready to take their places on Sunday!

Stay tuned for photos Lindsey took of the Annunciation. I take great liberties with the timing.

The Josephs and all the Shepherds are finished. I plan to have the Wise Men finished by next week. We can just see the completion of this huge project we began almost a year ago!

©rw 2011

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Still on our Journey to Bethlehem

rhondalavender — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:31:15 +0000

If you have been following the progress of our nativity dolls you may see the photo below and at first miss the change. Look again. Remember the post Headless Bodies? These dolls are made from 2 separate pieces of wire. see instructions in The Nature Corner on page 41. I do love these pose-able bodies, but I did not love the sharp end of wire that could pop out when the dolls are bent. So I wrapped the dolls in wool yarn. I started at an ankle with a slip knot and just a drop of tacky glue and wrapped up a leg and then over the abdomen (making sure to add a little wool around the middle where the wire ends were), then wrapped up to the opposite arm and ended in the hand weaving the yarn back through the wraps so it would stay tight. Then I started over again with the other ankle. This step took quite a while and now some of my hand skin pieces are too small, but I think it will add to the kid-friendly-ness and longevity of these dolls.

Now we get to dress! I started with the shepherds and modeled the from the puppet garment in Toymaking with Children (page 131). Then I made 2 kinds of wool-ish (I think it is actually a cloth used to wash cars, but it looks wooly) covers. I made vests, based on the patterns in Kinder Dolls and I made a robe based on the puppet instructions in Toymaking with Children. All the shepherd clothes are just pulled on and will need to be stitched.

I couldn’t resist making them some sheep! And I wanted small, light-weight sheep that these guys could carry. I used the instructions on page 59 of Toymaking with Children, but I used 6 inch pipe cleaners to make the sheep smaller. I was able to skip wrapping the legs since these sheep are so small.

I’ve been collecting fabric for quite a while with these nativity figures in mind, but now I really needed to go through my stash to make sure I had the colors for the Wise Men. So while they look a bit like geisha girls right now, these will eventually be the 3 kings that travel to see Mary and the child. I’m using the traditional colors (see The Nature Corner page 77)

I have roughly sewed the white under garments for the kings and will need to hem & sew the beautiful outer robes. The red & green guys already have rich embroidery and I will just need to sew some trim & beads onto the blue.

If you have read this far in our journey, then you know I love Casey’s Wood Products! I especially love their sales and I’m thrilled over the moon when I find a use for something I bought on a whim! Well these little doll house sized milk bottles, barrels and books (2 ‘books’ glued together to make a square) may not look like much now, but just wait till I get a hold of them with my glitter paint. You too will believe you are seeing gold, frankincense and myrrh.

So there is still lots to do, but with only a month to go till the start of advent . . . yikes . . . I’d better get busy!

Thanks Lindsey for the great photos!

©rw 2011

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