It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

BOO!

While the title of this blog may be reminiscent of that old Christmas song, it definitely doesn't pertain to that holiday.  At our house, Halloween is getting to be a big thing.  Autumn tops the list as our favorite season.  Great weather, fall foliage, fabulous food, cool nights for sound sleeping, tons of birthdays and celebrations and an exhausting list of seasonal activities...what's not to love? 

During our school day we've been preparing for the big day by reading lots of great stories and doing lots of really fun activities.  We started the week by telling the story of the Sugar Sprite Fairy, who will come visit us late on Halloween night.  She has a hard time finding sugar to feed her children with this time of year, what with the flowers gone and nectar being scarce.  So children who know about her may leave their Halloween candy (except maybe one or two special pieces) on their doorsteps so she can stock up on sugar for the coming winter months.  In exchange for this kindness, she leaves a small gift for the children.

Some of our other favorite stories for Autumn and Halloween are on the list at the bottom of this blog.  Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor is a favorite, and the children requested that their pumpkin moonshine (jack o'lantern) be a fierce one like little Sylvie Anne's in the book.  So of course, there has been pumpkin carving galore this week.  Our favorite pumpkin piece is our Pumpkin Gnome Home.  Four shepherd gnomes live there, with their two fluffy sheep.  They have a brussel sprout and berry garden and grow flowers in their sea shell window boxes.  They seem to be very happy.  I made the residents a while back with instructions from Toymaking With Children by Freya Jaffke.  We also roasted lots of delicious pumpkin seeds with this simple recipe.







Pumpkin Gnome Home



Sheep by the garden





One of the art activities we did this week was a painting story from Our Little Nature Nest.  I narrated the story, which was breif, and the children and I painted along together all the way to the surprise ending.  Here it is for your enjoyment:

Set up your paper, water, and paints as usual, but mix the yellow a bit stronger than usual.

First paint a large yellow ball, this will be your pumpkin, but do not tell the child.

Next surround the yellow with blue. Try  not to let the blue touch the yellow.

Tell the simple story as you do this. 

Gold  shines from the paper like a golden ball. Red says “let me warm you up a little”.

Paint over the yellow ball with the red. It will turn a golden orange hue.

Blue presses in from all sides, but the glowing orange will not let him touch her.

“Remember, you must leave me room to breathe”  says orange.  So blue comes soft & gentle.

Then yellow shouts out, " Please let me shine out!! I am getting too hot & feel all boxed in.”

“OK,” says orange "I will open some holes so that you can peek out.”

Then show the child how you can lift off color with a clean brush. Make sure you have removed the excess water. Lift off the color in places to look like eyes, a nose & a mouth. Then go back over those places with yellow.

The Jack-o-lantern will be complete. When you begin this activity do not let on that this will be a jack! Allow the suprise to unfold.

S's surprise jack o'lantern

We are preparing now for the day of Halloween, and I'm sure I'll have at least one post before then.  But here are some of the things we have planned, aside from trick or treating.

The night before Halloween we will be at my cousin's pumpkin carving party.  He and his family and friends usually do about a hundred pumpkins or so!  On Halloween day, we will have a little family celebration with Boo-Nilla Shakes, Chips and Guaca-moldy, and yummy Witches Fingers, all recipes from the Halloween issue of Martha Stewart.  Yeah, I know.  __GASP!___Martha and Waldorf?  Whatever.  She does some pretty cool stuff. 

Whatever you do this Halloween, have fun, maybe start a new tradition, and for crying out loud, please carve a pumpkin!

The Pumpkin Fairy's House



Ye Olde Fun Times

F with his spiffy new Robin
Hood hat and fancy
dragon face painting.

Yes!  This past weekend was the much anticipated trip to the Ren Faire!  Okay, Renaissance Fair to the non-geekish crowd.  King Richard's Faire to be precise.  Admittedly, this sort of thing is much more my husband's kind of activity.  I have a thing about people in costumes.  They freak me out.  Especially when they are role playing so sincerely that they question any 20th century word that comes out of someone's mouth.  And they call me "M' Lady."  [[shudder]]

The first time I went was about eleven years ago.  I was so freaked out by all the folks in costume that I actually shelled out a considerable sum of money to buy my own while we were there.  I figured that if I blended in, nobody would bother me.  It worked!  Well, nobody was really bothering me in the first place, but I felt like people were looking at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.  Not the case, I'm sure, but I was very self-conscious.  As it turns out, I had a really great time, and quite got into the spirit of the whole thing.  Plus my dress was fun.  Did I mention that there's a TON of cleavage showing at these things?

We read lots of fairy tales and stories about brave knights and my kids love to spend their time bouncing around the yard on their hoppy horses while "jousting" or "chasing dragons" with their swords and sheilds.  they were excited beyond words to be going to a fair where this sort of thing was the theme.

S goes whizzing by with her sword
as she tries to capture the ring from
the dragon's hand.

They were not disappointed!  As soon as we arrived, we hit the tournament field to watch four knights, one of whom was a woman (yay!), compete at various skills on horseback.  Knocking things over with lances, tests of good aim, etc.  All of which were duplicated the next day in our back yard and living room, minus the bawdy medieval insults from the crowd.  Then we ate some lunch.  Pizza.  Not as medieval as a giant roasted turkey leg, but, hey, we're vegetarian.  If we got hungry later, we could grab a snack at___no kidding___"The King's Nuts." We caught a great story telling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and the kids got to try out a couple of the rides, all of which were man-powered.  These are medieval times after all.  They even tested their skill at knocking over tin knights with little crossbows.  Oh, and they got their faces painted.  Total bonus there.

At this point I feel obligated to offer a few words on all the weaponry.  I am appalled at children's gun play.  I don't let my kids watch anything violent.  They don't watch any TV at all, actually, and do not use the computer.  However, somehow, I am not bothered by the play they exhibit while using their little wooden swords and shields, or even the little marshmallow shooting crossbow which technically belongs to my husband.  It all seems so noble, to be fighting a dragon, or testing their skills at some knightly game.  There seems to be a sense of honor involved, not just fighting for the sake of fighting.  I'm sure I could write a whole blog post on this topic another time.  Just thought I'd mention it.

The kids can't wait to go back next year, and they loved it so much we're thinking of staying for the whole day next time.  And we're definitely going in costume.  The kids were a little miffed that they didn't wear costumes this year.  Honestly, I was going to dress them up with some play silk capes or something, but the weather was iffy and I wasn't sure how much they'd be able to take of walking around in costumes before I ended up shlepping around their stuff.  So next year, costumes it is.  And I might even dig out my own,  cleavage and all.  ;)

S and the big wooden wizard.

On Birthdays and Toys and Things

Autumn really hits full force at our house in October.  In addition to the usual autumn activities of cleaning up the garden and yard, getting the house ready for colder weather, and raking the seemingly endless supply of leaves our neighbor's tree dumps in our yard, we have quite a few birthdays to celebrate.  And all within a few days of each other.  As with other celebrations, it has been exciting to see new traditions and rythms emerging in our family.

On each child's birthday, we celebrate as a family with a few small gifts in the morning and the child's choice of dinner and dessert.  This year, with the start of school, we added a special acknowledgement during our morning circle time. 

F looking a little suspicious
at our request to blow out his
candles.  Oh, and he really
liked his "gnome hat."

So here's how it goes on a birthday at our house:  On the day before the child's birthday we set out his/her birthday ring.  I believe this is a German tradition (which we have borrowed) and we all love it.  S and F selected where their candles would sit (there would be five and three this year!) and where the little woodland characters would sit in and out of the ring.  For those of you who are not familiar with this, the birthday ring contains 12 holes to fill with candles (one for each of the child's years up to the age of twelve) and little wooden decorations.  It's lovely to have the child set it up on her own when she's old enough, and to see the candles beginning to fill up the ring.  Plus, I have to say it always seems kind of gross to eat cake that some kid blew all over while blowing out the candles on the birthday cake.  I like to spare my guests that gesture.  This fits the bill nicely.

S at morning cirlce
with her new doll

I'll use S's recent birthday here as the example.  Before breakfast, she got to open her presents as we sang Happy Birthday to her.  During the morning circle, I read her the Birthday Story from Gateways while lighting one candle at each appropriate moment in the story.  It is quite a lovely story, and I regret only having just discovered it.  It will be part of my children's birthday rituals from here on out.  Then F and I sang to her again, and she blew out the candles on her birthday ring.  This will go similarly when it is F's birthday.

In the meantime, we had "The Big Party."  This is one of the only times of the year when we get a fairly large amount of family together (about 20 people or so).  The party has always been just for family, and I think it will remain so.  When S requested to invite a friend from the neighborhood, I explained to her that in our family, we celebreate birthdays as a family.  The kids have been to plenty of "kid" parties, and enjoyed them, but it's not something I ever think we'll do.  She seemed to understand and take it just fine, and we did make an extra party favor in case her friend happened to drop in, as she often does.

As we have only just begun our Waldorf homeschooling journey, I was faced with the expected dilemnas:  What about gifts?  Toys? The whole idea of a huge party in and of itself seems so not...well...Waldorf-y.  So we did our best.  I have seen innumerable posts on Waldorf group sites regarding the toy and gift dilemna.  It seems to be something that we all struggle with.  How can we let people know, without offending them or passing judgement, what we deem acceptable for gifts for our children?  And how do we not fall into the trap of teaching our kids to be greedy and materialistic?  I was tempted to ask people to not bring presents, but after much debating, and for several personal reasons, we decided to go with the giving of gifts.  This is how I handled it. I sent out an e-mail to most of the people who were likely to buy gifts for the kids.  And this is what it said: 

"Hello!  It's that time of year again.  Birthday season.  Some of you have already started asking about what the kids would like for their birthdays, so I have attached a wish list.  The items on the list have been chosen by the children from their very favorite catalogs.  For safety and ecological reasons, we are trying to eliminate or at least cut down vastly on plastic toys in our home.  The toys on the list also fit in nicely with the Waldorf philosophy, which is what we are using in homeschooling the children.  Thanks so much for your support (or at least tolerance!) in this!" 

Hopefully I didn't offend anyone.  If I did, no one mentioned it, and I'm happy to say, that this actually worked!  As people purchased items from the list, I sent out updates letting everyone know what had been purchased.  Seems like a lot of work, but it was so worth it to have the kids get quality toys that they wanted, will last, and fit in with our philosophy.  I should mention that there were a few pleasant surprises too, from those relatives who do really understand where we're coming from.  :)

gnome terrarium!

the cake

In keeping with all of the fairy tales we read, and my kids' (and yes, my own) slight obsession with gnomes, the kids decided they wanted an "enchanted forest" party.  What?  A themed party?  Yikes!  I decided to go with it though, and it was so fun.  For party favors, the kids and I made each child a little gnome terrarium to take home.  I made a cake in the shape of a big mushroom and made little marzipan gnomes (one boy, one girl) on top and the kids scattered leaves they had collected around the base of the mushroom.  It was pretty cute, actually.  S wore her gnome party skirt that I made for her, and F wore his gnome T-shirt that I made for him (at 11:30 the night before the party.)

S with the tree blocks
and some home made gnomes

After the party, the kids were able to sit down and enjoy their new toys, which I had already made room for in the playroom so they wouldn't be overhwelmed by choices the next day.  I have really enjoyed watching the kids' play evolve as they are using more toys from nature.  Baskets of shells, feathers, acorns, stones, and tree blocks have completely overshadowed the more "traditional" toys they used to play with.  They have had playsilks since S was less than a year old, but they are getting more use now than ever.  This comforts me in my decision to be a little more outspoken about what is okay for my kids to have.  I am truly realizing, although I always suspected, that less is so much more when it comes to children's playthings.  I'm looking forward to days ahead when I don't have to purge the playroom of things they no longer play with because the toys they do have will be enjoyed for so many years to come, and through many stages of development.  And I can't wait to see what the kids put on their wish list for next year....

Michaelmas!



Today, for the first time, we celebrated Michaelmas.  For weeks now we've been working up to our celebration of this holiday.  We've been reading stories such as St. George and the Dragon,  The Shooting Stars, The Strong Boy and other fairy tales about strength and courage.  As Autumn progresses, it is a time of inner reflection and preparing for the months ahead.  In a practical way, at least for me, it means tending the last bits of garden, doing household repairs, canning and preserving food, and otherwise getting ready for the colder months ahead.  In a spiritual way, it means a time of self-reflection and bolstering oneself with the spirit of courageousness and perseverence.

I have mentioned in my previous post, I am not a religious individual, and I don't affiliate myself with any type of organized religion at all.  But I am a spiritual person, and that is one of the reasons why I decided to include the celebration of Michaelmas (and other upcoming holidays) in our lives and curriculum.  I can find the value in the philosophies of many religions and take from these the aspects that I feel most drawn to.  I guess it's kind of a global approach. 

There is an idea that I keep coming across in my readings on Steiner's philosophy, and that is that a parent is a child's first teacher, and children learn by imitation, especially in their younger years.  It is up to us to be worthy of imitation and surround them with others who are also worthy.  This applies to other areas of a child's life too, like choosing what a child sees, hears, and reads.  So much of what children are exposed to today through media and even school, is very much unworthy of imitation.  Nonetheless, children act on what they take in, and even undesirable behaviors are imitated.  As a parent, it is a constant process for me to remember this and make myself worthy of imitation.  I'm not perfect, and neither are my kids, but we're all working on it.

The stories surrounding Michaelmas are those of courage, healing, and strength.  Admirable qualities that are definitely worthy of imitation.  And I have noticed that the kids are catching on.  I "catch" them doing "good deeds" throughout the day, give a little praise (and I mean a little, I don't believe in over-praising kids for doing what is expected and right) and a thank you, and feel incredibly proud of my fine, upstanding little citizens. 

Quick story here:  a couple of days ago, the kids had each gotten a balloon somewhere, I don't even remember where.  Since they were tied to the kids' wrists, we let them bring them in to a store.  F's ballon broke off of the string and floated up to the top of an impossibly high ceiling.  Surprisingly, there was no breakdown of tears or anything, but he was very sad.  A few minutes later we were continuing with our shopping and S turned to me and said, "I'd like to give F my balloon."  I could've cried, I was so proud.  Like I said before, my kids aren't perfect, and there's the usual amount of sibling rivalry.  But this gesture was so self-less and thoughtful (and probably meant more to me than it did to F.  Although he was very thankful to his big sister.

This event gave me a much needed boost in the self-reflection department.  Here was the evidence of something I did right.  Yay me!  Too often, when looking inward, we find flaws first.  Now I know there are other things to find in there, maybe even some things worthy of imitation, if I look hard enough.

How We Spent Michaelmas:

freshly baked pumpkin bread for breakfast

a morning at the park playing games, "jousting", and chasing dragons

an afternoon of stories and songs followed by the

making of our Dragon Bread

a lovely dinnder of pea soup and dragon bread





my brave knights ready to do good deeds






jousting at the park

dragon bread before the oven





dragon bread after the oven



Celebrating Mabon

Autumn is definitely the favored season in our family.  It's a busy, sometimes chaotic, and eventful time of year.  We celebrate many birthdays, all within a couple weeks of each other, have fairs to go to, apples to pick, pumpkins to carve, food to can, garden work to be done, and various other activities to enjoy together.  So to introduce the kids to Mabon, the autumn equinox, was a special treat.  We celebrated all day with food, songs, crafts, and of course, enjoying the outdoors. 

I do like holidays, but although I consider myself to be a spiritual person, I am not religious.  The marking of the seasons and changes of the natural world hold more meaning to me than special dates imposed on us by religious protocol.  Having said that, we do celebrate some Christian holidays, like Christmas and Easter, and starting this year with our foray into Waldorf-dom, the holidays of the saints, like Michaelmas.  At first, I considered omitting these from our studies, but after further research I found that I loved the meaning behind the stories associated with them.  The basic messages of hope, courage, love, and strength they have to offer are universal and certainly of value in teaching young children.  I'm finding it really easy to include this element without having it seem like a religious education.

But I digress.  I was able to dig back through all my pagan-y books, some of which I haven't read in years, and find some really great stuff to do with the kids.  We started each day that week with songs and finger plays about the usual assortment of autumn things:  leaves, apples, squirrels, nuts, and the harvest.  All week we read great stories, all having to do with the turning of the wheel of the year and changing of the seasons:  When the Root Children Wake Up, In the Land of Elves, Fall is Not Easy, Leaf Man, The Stranger (not really Waldorf, but a great story), Around the Oak Tree and Autumn by Gerda Muller.  (All of these are on the book list at the bottom of my page.)

S's leaf man gardener with
rake, spade, and rows
of "vegetables"



 On the day when we do paper crafts, the kids made leaf collages ala Lois Elhert.  I should say however, that due to the astonishing lack of variety of fallen leaves in the neighborhood, we used some fantastic double sided leaf paper I had on hand.  Tons of different shapes of leaves and nuts and seed pods that were printed on both sides so they could be used any way the kids wanted.  We'll do plenty of projects with real leaves later.

Autumn colored God's eye.

On the day we do fiber crafts we made God's eyes.  Remember those?  Popsicle sticks glued into an X by your art teacher and then you got to wind string around them?  We used real sticks that we collected on one of our walks.  I was amazed at how well S did winding hers all by herself.  I had to help F with his, because at not even three years of age, he didn't quite have the coordination to make the yarn go quite where he wanted it.  He did enjoy wrapping some sticks with it though.  While we wound the yarn around, we talked about how the four sticks represented the four seasonal changes; the equinoxes and solstices.

My kids love to have candlelight at just about every meal, and even request it at snack time.  So we made a beautiful Autumn centerpiece together.  I scooped out a bit of the middle from three apples and popped some candles in.  The kids decorated the rest of the plate with things they collected from around our home; maple leaves, bittersweet, and acorns.  It came out great, and a week later, we're still using it at mealtimes.  It was an especially nice Autumn dinner by candlelight.  Our usual blessing was said, but seemed to take on a special meaning for the day:  Earth who gives to us this food, Sun who makes it ripe and good, Dear Sun, Dear Earth, by you we live, and loving thanks to you we give.

I hope you all enjoy this Autumn and all the bounty it has to offer.  I'd love for you to share some of your own traditions for these holidays!  The more the merrier!

A Bushel and a Peck

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
        ~from After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

F finds his perfect apple

What a way to spend the last weekend of summer!  A textbook New England late summer day, warm sun, cool air, and the smell of ripe apples all around.  After eating our Baked French Toast (the very same one mentioned in my previous post), we took a trip up to our new favorite orchard, Quonquont Farm in Whately MA.  Just a little plug for them here:  it is the most beautiful little orchard I have ever been to.  After driving by the amazingly restored farm house, you're right in the middle of a well organized orchard of apples, pears, peaches and berries.  The apples looked fake they were so gorgeous!  Seriously.  Perfectly round and red on all sides.  Like someone went around airbrushing them for a magazine photo shoot.  S called them "Snow White apples" because they appeared to be something right out of a fairy tale.

After trekking up and down the rows and amassing large quantities of perfect apples of at least five varieties, we decided not to get too carried away and we called it quits for the day.  We left with a bushel and a peck (heehee, just like that song) of apples to be eaten as is and transformed into a number of tasty desserts. 

seven quarts of apple sauce
and many more to come!

Picking apples, while very enjoyable, can be a bit much for some kids.  There's a lot of walking, heavy bags to carry, and you can't always reach the apple you want.  But S and F were troopers.  They lugged those bags the whole time without one complaint.  In fact, they wouldn't relenquish them to us until we paid for them and brought them to the car.  There was some hard work in picking so many apples, but they were rewarded, as they usually are, by all their efforts.

Sometimes, when my husband asks the kids about what they did during the day, they tell him about the housework they did, or the yard work, or what we cooked together.  He laughingly commented the other day, "You're not homeschooling them, you're running a sweat shop!"

I think that so many people underestimate the value of work as a child's play.  Children learn through imitation, especially for the first seven years.  How wonderful for them to learn that there can be joy in the simple and necessary tasks of every day life!  Children want to do what we're doing.  They want their little and important lives to be filled with purpose just like ours are.  So many people at dinner time usher their kids out of the kitchen and plop them in front of the TV so they can "get [whatever] done."  While I acknowledge that toward the end of the day, patience is running thinner and the task of meal preperation can be a bit of a chore, I try to see this time as an opportunity for togetherness and learning.

Now I am admittedly what many people would consider a "Type A" personality.  You know the ones.  Neat freaks, lists of things to do, organized closets, and dust-free bookshelves.  It has taken my having children to loosen me up a bit.  Don't get me wrong, I still have to do lists (that actually get done), organized closets, and dust-free bookshelves, as well as a small business I'm trying to keep afloat, but I can slow myself down when I need to so I can include my kids in whatever I'm doing.  Taking the time to find the fun in work has given me a whole new perspective on how I spend my days.  I'm reminded of the opening to that Mary Poppins song, A Spoonful of Sugar: 

In ev'ry job that must be done
There is an element of fun
you find the fun and snap!
The job's a game

planting bulbs

This time of year is so full of opportunities for meaningful and fun work.  Planting bulbs, baking, canning, preparations for upcoming holidays.  All of these can be so joyful for children to participate in.  So go now and do something useful with your kids.  Unless you're reading this while they're in bed.  In that case, let them sleep or you'll be sorry in the morning.  :) 

That room where we cook

Beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup so rich So green,
Waiting in a hot tureen
Who for such dainties would not stoop.
Soup of the evening
Beautiful Soup!

       ~C.S. Lewis, Alice in Wonderland

I couldn't resist quoting one of my favorite books here.  With the cooler weather finally settling in, we've been finding ourselves back in our kitchen.  Anyone who knows me knows I love to cook.  Baking especially.  And although I am loathe to eat anything even remotely warm during the summer, I usually manage to produce pretty decent meals for my family. 

But now...now...I am back in that room where we cook.  My beloved and fairly recently renovated (thanks, Dad!) kitchen.  My shiny stainless steel stove, having rested peacefully and spotlessly for much of the summer, is now speckled with the crusty evidence of the start of an all out cooking binge.  Yeah, I'll clean it up tonight.



This is the way we knead the dough...



It all started a couple of weeks ago with an unexpected cold snap.  Baked apples for breakfast.  A rather large batch of applesauce.  I was just getting warmed up here.  And then I was forced to make sauce with the bags and bags of frozen tomatoes I had from our garden.  I literally could not fit anything else in my freezer.  Let's just say it snowballed from there.  Yesterday we made several loaves of cinnamon-raisin bread,  today it was Stone Soup and biscuits.  Tomorrow (although I made it ahead tonight) we'll be having baked french toast for breakfast. 

And did I mention we're going apple picking tomorrow?  I'm envisioning the back seat of our station wagon filled with bushels of lovely, ripe apples.  Not likely to happen, but I can dream, can't I?  Gallons of applesauce, apple butter, apple pies, apple strudel, baked apples.....*sigh*...

My kids, of course love to get in on the action.  Part of our homeschooling day always includes some sort of food related activity.  And on Fridays, during our housework time (yes, we have a designated housework time) we make soup.  We happen to have read Stone Soup, so we made some of our own.  The kids had a blast, as they always do when we cook.  Yesterday, after having read many farm and grain-related stories (The Little Red Hen etc.)  We made our rasin bread.  It all fits into our curriculum quite nicely.  Real hands on learning and all.

I'd like to mention here that part of Waldorf schooling is establishing daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms.  For example, on Monays we paint.  On Fridays we make soup, and so forth.  We have assigned each day a color, which is relfected in our calendar ring and again in the color of the cloth napkins (yes, I made those too) that my kids use at mealtimes.  We also have a grain of the day:  Wednesday is Quinoa, Thursday is wheat, Friday is Barley and so on.  This may all sound odd and restrictive at first, but I'm finding that (just like all the Waldorf books say) it is comforting and in a way freeing to have these things established.  Not only does it help the kids feel secure in what's coming next, but I have found it to be extremely helpful in planning snacks and meals this way.  We always eat pretty well; we're vegetarian and eat a lot of whole foods.  But this way I can be sure that our diet doesn't get hung up around one particular thing.  Rice and pasta are just too easy to duplicate during the week.

I digress here a bit.  My kids are total foodies, and always have been.  They love to eat out, when we get the chance to, and I love to see them discover something new that becomes their "new favorite".  For example, tomorrow we will be away from home for the whole day, and although I could pack a picnic lunch that would save us a ton of money, frankly, I'm too lazy. Plus, we're just about out of food here (except for all that left over soup and raisin bread) and desperately require a trip to the grocery store.  So I'm sure we'll be eating out.  And I'm sure the kids will request dumplings at their favorite Chinese resaurant (the owners grow much of their own produce, how cool is that?) followed by crepes right down the street from there. 

I am so happy that S and F are exposed to the world of growing, cooking, and eating their own food.  I did a lot of that with my grandparents when I was young, and it really stuck with me in a way I never expected.  Passing these things along to my own children is, for me, a way of honoring them and all they taught me.  I don't see a lot of people doing this kind of thing with their children these days.  Honestly it makes me a little sad.  What kind of knowledge are people passing along to future generations?  Will it help them feel connected to their past, the earth, or their familiy?  It is my hope that in the future, my children will pass along their childhood experiences to their own children in such a way that makes them remember not only how to do something useful, but how enjoyable it can be when done in the context of family and tradition.