Yarn Along - Preparing for Spring

I'm joining with Ginny at Small Things again for the Yarn Along. This week my reading has largely been continuing to read Sanctuaries of Childhood, and as I look forward towards spring I've been consulting with Wynstoes Press's Spring book. We've started doing a story and a few circle verses each morning after breakfast again and I'd like to keep it up as we move into spring so I'm going through my resources.

I'm continuing working on the picky pants that I wrote about last week. I've finished the short rows in them so just a little bit more till I start the gussets and legs. My new project this week has been getting more of my attention. I started working on another Autumn Leaves sweater for Rosebud. This time I'm knitting it in white to go over her Easter Dress and Baptism gown. With Easter being so early this year I'm going to make this one with long sleeves since it's likely to be a bit chilly. I LOVE this pattern. It's absolutely one of my favorites and was even more enjoyable to knit the second time.

Ash Wednesday and Lent

I wasn't sure how much we as a family would do this year for Lent.  I didn't have much planned besides Toadstool and I giving something up for the forty days and planning to attend an Ash Wednesday service at our church this evening.  We did have buckwheat pancakes last night for dinner (yum) but beyond that I just hadn't planned much.

However, today, I decided we needed to do a little more.  I struggle however with exactly how to bring Lent to a four year old in a gentle age appropriate way.  I think after consulting some of my resource books and a few blogs I have figured it out.  

We as a family never got around to Candlemas this year.  We were all sick and have a still relatively new baby in the house and it just didn't happen.     So today Toadstool and I melted down our Advent candles from this year and the remnants of last year's Lenten Candle and poured some candles for Lent this year.  I'm not sure where I came across this idea, but it's our third year making a purple  beeswax candle for Lent from our Advent wreath candles and I think it's a lovely idea.  

We made two candles...the larger will be used on our dinning room table. The smaller will sit in a little bowl of sand on our nature table to be used as a  prayer garden for Lent.  I was inspired by this lovely post from Thoughts From the Sheepfold.  Each member of our family has a smooth stone to put in the garden  to represent a joy or prayer concern each day.

For the rest of the nature table we removed everything (we left a few hearts around the tree till after Valentine's Day tomorrow) and put down purple silks.  On top of that we placed our prayer garden, a pile of 4 little rocks, a piece of wood and a small bowl of water.  Explore and Express had some very nice ideas for the Lenten Nature Table here.  

Tomorrow, once we have some clay, we will make a Prayer Pot to also go on the nature table following these instructions, also from Explore and Express.  

I have also decided to tell a story to Toadstool each day during Lent, as we did with the Mother Mary story at Advent.  The Authors of All Year Round recommend  a quiet moment with young children each day.  That is not something my darling Toadstool does well with, however, he will sit a listen to a story and we looked forward to the Mother Mary story so much each day and I felt it really helped to give that season more meaning to Toadstool.  I decided that The Hare from Wynstone Press's Spring book hit the right tone for Lent with its' focus on Christ bringing light and hope to the world and the importance of staying on our course.

Now I just need to find my devotional book for Lent and I think we'll be set for a lovely meaningful period as we look towards Holy Week and Easter.

Checking In

I haven't been to regular on here for a while.  Honestly, I haven't even been keeping up with reading blogs like I used to.  Today I took a few minutes to catch up on a few favorites and it feels like I've been really out of the loop for a while...lots of reading to do.  So fun to see what others have been doing and creating.  So, it seems like it's time for me to just check in quickly, share some big news and maybe  some photos of our spring so far.

We've been busy with lots of school and other commitments.  I've also been doing a good bit creatively, just not always documenting what we've been doing either in writing or in photographs.  I need to get better about that again. I really do miss blogging and the community around it.

W is continuing to grow into quite an amazing little guy and is such a blessing.  Our family is expecting another blessing this fall as W is going to be a big brother.  I had a really rough first trimester (good for getting some knitting done, but not much else) and I am slowly starting to feel more like myself so maybe I'll actually be up to   writing and photographing what we have going on in our lives more now.

Here are a few photos of our Easter and  a recent trip to Mount Vernon.

Easter Magic

Happy Easter everyone!  We are finally back online on the other side of our move and settling in (more about that in a later post).  The only word I know to use to describe our Easter morning this year is magical.  I don't know if it is just having a two year old, or the new traditions we incorporated into our celebration this year or a combination of the two, but it was amazing!

In the weeks leading up to Easter, W and I worked hard on blowing out and decorating eggs and making preparations.  We were also working really hard to get all of those boxes unpacked and get the house ready for my IL's to come visit for the holiday. We put up a few spring decorations.

 W was very excited about Easter for about two weeks before the actual day.  We enjoyed a neighborhood egg hunt and we went back to our previous town and our old church for a visit which happened to be on the day of the egg hunt there.  I think this helped to build up the excitement for the actual day for W.

Also, during Holy Week we set up a Lenten garden as suggested in the book All Year Round.

We also followed the authors' suggestion to make chervil soup and had a simple but lovely Maundy Thursday meal.

The night before Easter W and I put a "nest" out in our balcony garden for the Easter Bunny.  It was just a small basket lined with some lovely unprocessed wool that a friend had brought to me from New Zealand (beautiful wool).  We placed some carrots in the nest as well (sorry I forgot to take pictures of this).

I got up about a half hour before W did on Easter morning and had just enough time to put breakfast in the oven and hide our dyed Easter eggs before he woke up. It was perfect timing!

W woke up to find his Lenten garden transformed into a beautiful Easter garden and he was just mesmerized by it.

For several moments he just stood at the edge of the sofa and gazed at the transformation.

Then he decided to get a closer look...

 ...and the excitement on his face was just beautiful...

I actually had to remind him about the nest we had left for the Easter Bunny.  I also handed him a basket and told him to check to see if the Easter Bunny had hid any eggs on the balcony.

Then the egg hunt moved into the playroom...

Admiring his collection.

  ...and then ended in the living room with some more hidden eggs and finally his Easter basket (which he had walked by at least a dozen times before noticing...lol).

And how he enjoyed the surprises inside!

He looked at his new Gerda Muller Spring book...

...snacked on some bunny crackers...

....played with his lamb marionette...

 ....and played with his new wood and (mama-made) knit chickens on his new (again mama-made) farm play mat.  He deiced the animals were all tired and needed to go to sleep!

We then had a nice breakfast of scotch eggs and hot cross buns with Nana and Granddad and got ready to go to church, which was truly lovely.  It was a blessed and magical morning.

W and I cooked for much of the rest of the day and we enjoyed an Easter feast with family and one of Daddy's co-worker friends. Unfortunately my camera battery died and I have yet to find the charger since the move so I wasn't able to photograph the rest of the day.

All in all though, it was one of the best Easters I can remember.