So Long 2014

 

 

We said goodbye to 2014 with a journey down Church Street in the Dragon Parade.  Anders was underneath the dragon with his friends and Kuba led the dragon with a bunch of lantern carrying first graders.   We then had a small family gathering at Grandma and Grandpas.  Anders and Kuba were determined to meet the new year head on and stay up until Midnight.  Anders made it, but Kuba fell asleep with Grandpa and didn't wake up despite the loud ruckus made by the noisemakers honking and our exuberant  shouts of  "Happy New Year!"   

It was a mixed year this one.  Many good moments, many new and exciting adventures, but mixed with it was some extra special stress.  Anna's business HINGE opened in August and with its arrival ushered in a whole new family rhythm.  For nine years Anna was the flexible mom who worked from home, managing family schedules, shuffling children here and there, and pretty much holding down the fort.  Well, she has been consumed and wrapped up with her new business so this has been a 6 month period of refiguring out routine, chores, and rhythms.  I'm not sure it has been all that smooth.  I keep watching the boys looking for signs of wear and tear, and they seem to be good as gold.  In some ways I judge the effects on our life by how they are functioning...and if they seem to be off it's a big yellow flag that we need to pay attention to.  I am marveling at how steady they are when it certainly feels overwhelming to me! 

Some other highlights of the year besides HINGE, have been our family vacation to Matinicus in July; first and fourth graders; the arrival of a new nephew and a new great niece any day now; graduation from the Snelling Leadership Institute; Kuba and Anders becoming beekeeping apprentices with our neighbors; Anders first soccer league; both boys starting music lessons in piano and Anders also starting violin; and a bunch of other low key but lovely family moments.

All in all there is much to be grateful for, however I cannot help but feel a certain sense of good-riddance to a highly stressful, ultra busy year.   With its exit, I hope enters a more profound sense of peace and serenity for the mom's in this family, with not so much hard work and a more relaxed rhythm. May we also get to school on time more often, have a cleaner home, laugh a whole lot more, and truly enjoy this time we have together on this big beautiful planet earth in 2015. 
(and perhaps get a wee bit thinner says the author of this post!) 


 

Skating

Today we went roller skating for the first time.  All four of us on bright orange wheels.  Some of us did better than others of us, but I am not naming names. 

Uncle Claes

Anders got a beetle bot from Uncle Claes for Christmas.  Here they are putting it together.

Bedtime

Games

You can give me a gaggle of kids who play well together anytime.  It's fun to watch the action, the fluidity of play, the mixing and re-mixing of ages.  It was that kind of night tonight.  Six kids ranging in age from seven to twelve and the playing was smooth.  The groups kept changing,  the games kept shifting, but the ease and pleasure in playing together remained.

H O M E

We are home again!!!   Best thing ever - to return to our home, the place we love the most.
The kids had a great Christmas with their cousins, but honestly, the sound of them in the bathroom right now while one takes a bath and the other plays and sings on the floor in there is more centering than all five days away.  Dinner is cooking on the stove, the sun is just going down, and the first part of the holiday is a wrap. 

Some of the low points of the holiday were that by Christmas day I had a raging cold.  I slept most of Christmas day - which was the best gift I could have given myself - and highly unusual.  I pretty much bounced back after that.   Next low point, Anna's brother pulled out his back, so he was down for the count for most of those days as well.  Anna was a bit disappointed because he is such an active outdoorsy kind of uncle and she was looking forward to him motivating the clan to go outside.  Luckily Anna jumped in and led the pack, hide-n-seek in the woods, and an assortment of invented games made up by (her!).  Everyone else filled the time well and of course the kids just have a ball no matter what.  

It seems as if Anders has come down with the same cold I had and he slept most of the way home today.  Hence why he is taking a long hot bath right now - we are hoping to steam it out of him and get him ready for round two of the holiday week happening right here in our neck of the woods.  There's no place like home. 

Is Everything

I saw this painted on the side of an old blue pick-up truck this afternoon when we were out trucking around Conway, NH.       

Love is everything.   

Dear Santa

Dear Santa 

thank you for all the presents so we gave you cookies and cards.  This is the card that I am giving you!  I hope you have a great year and merry Christmas!!!  

to Santa Sincerely Anders

to Santa  love Kuba   

I love Santa because you are grat Mr Santa. I love you.  We have cookies for you.  I hope you like them! xo

The Art of Hand Shadows

One of the gifts the boys got for the holiday was a book called The Art of Hand Shadows.  Before going to bed last night, we found a flashlight and the boys set about making their first round of hand shadows.  Quite fun, definitely harder than it looks, and to be sure this is to be continued. I am hoping the 4 cousins will create a hand shadow puppet show before this holiday is over. 

Ho Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas!

This year our holiday centered around Uncle Claes and Aunt Vikki's house in New Hampshire.  We left home early in the morning of Christmas eve and drove more than three hours to get here.  Our cousins have a new house and this was our first time visiting as a whole family.  We had our traditional Swedish smogarsbord for dinner last night and then spent time exchanging gifts between cousins and siblings.  We all went to bed a little later than normal and the boys fell asleep quickly - thank god.  The morning arrived and at around 7:30 we all went down to see what Santa had brought.  Probably one of my most favorite moments of Christmas is this one.  The boys- so excited about stockings and gifts - patiently wait for everyone, and then as they opened,  were completely and utterly grateful for everything.  No whining, no disappointment, just happiness.  This is so remarkable to me because I feel like my holiday memories as a kid around gifts are filled with disappointment.  I don't think with five kids, my mom could keep track of what we desired, and I think I was always a little sad that I didn't get what I had hoped for.  I pay attention to this as a mom.  To see my kid's delight makes me so happy.  Their joy and kindness, their gratitude and generosity is more than beautiful - it is the best gift of all.  

The Stockings Were Hung

Without a doubt, stockings are my favorite part of the holiday.  LOVE everything about them.  

Cousins 2014

              Kuba 7, Anders 9, Hannah 13, and Lea 15!  

GET OUTSIDE!

A little rainy, a little slushy on the eve of Christmas eve, and we need more than ever to get outside.  The excitement is mounting and predictably, even with the wet snow and the impending holiday, the boys got into their element and had a blast sledding down the whale tails.  It's imperative that they get out in the fresh air and play, just play,  everyday.  Especially right now.  Using their bodies in big kinesthetic ways just to help move the energy they have packed into their little frames.  And it worked!  Well, at least for a while. 
About an hour after we got home, they remembered again that tomorrow! is Christmas Eve and ZOOooM!  Their brilliant anticipation shot up again like a firework - higher, higher, and higher.  I think it's about ready to explode.  Can we make it one more day until Christmas?

Best Messages of the Year

 

 

 

Up, Up, and Away

four young boys with snow

fragile chunks of frozen joy

up up and away

Polish Dumpling Makers

Every year my family celebrates Christmas on the 24th of December with a traditional Polish meal.  We spend time in the weeks before the holiday preparing the food.  Pierogi and Uszka are really the highlights of the meal.  Pierogi (or pierożki) are dumplings made of unleavened dough.  The dough, which is made by mixing flour, sour cream, egg, and warm water, is rolled flat and then cut into circles.  The filling is placed in the middle and the dough folded over to form a half circle. The pierogi are boiled until they float, then drained and fried in butter on Christmas Eve.  We always make cheese and sauerkraut pierogi, but this year we made a potato one.   

 

Uszka, (meaning "little ears" in Polish), are small dumplings (a very small and twisted version of pierogi) and are filled with wild forest mushrooms.  These little dumplings (which remind me of little crowns) are added to our annual mushroom soup.  The soup is made only once a year, the uszka only once a year, which of course makes the experience almost divine.  Quite honestly - these dumplings and this soup is hands down my favorite food of the year.  After decades of pierogi making my sister and I have become quite the experts at filling, folding and crimping.   I love that this tradition is so deeply rooted in our family culture.  I love the magic that is held within these little dumplings.  The magic of history, tradition, and love that is built into these little pockets along with the other ingredients.       

 

Moon, Moon, Moon

 

 

Kuba has been studying the moon in school, a long and comprehensive unit about the moon phases.  Words like waning and gibbous and crescent and rotate have become a new part of his vocabulary.  They danced the moon, made prints of the moon, and even wrote science reports about the lunar cycle.  They had a special moon party to show off their work complete with frosted full moon cookies and star lights.  Like all units in these primary grades it was pretty involved and very exciting to him.  In honor of the moon (and his teacher) Kuba and I crafted a pair of sterling silver moon earrings to give her for Christmas.  Here he is hammering the silver crescent with a small cross peen hammer.  One crescent was textured, one crescent was shiny show the dark and light phases. He is a great little metalsmith.   

 

Teacher Gifts

Teacher gifts for the season are packed up and ready to go.  Simple gifts, homemade Swedish pepparkakor, and a mug.  When I was a classroom teacher I loved getting little gifts from my students.  The simpler the better.  It was a moment of pause when I felt appreciated and loved.  I think about this each year when I help the boys get things ready for all their teachers at school.   Even the lunch ladies get something! 

All is Bright

Pepper in the Sky

In our family we have a saying, "Pepper in the sky!".  We say this whenever we see a flock of black birds fluttering across the sky, like flecks of pepper.   There was a murder of crows the other night in a corn field.  I noticed them as I was driving home from my mothers house and when I stopped the car they all took off, cawing as they escaped.    I thought of the boys and their excitement and shouting of "Pepper in the sky!  Pepper in the sky!"  whenever they would see this.  As if an invisible hand with a giant peppermill was grinding a little spice across the landscape.   I wanted to shout this phrase out loud to the snow and to the field, but my boys weren't there to hear.  So instead, I thought about them and about how much enthusiasm they have about pretty much everything, even a large sprinkling of crows. 

Windowsill

Tops

 

"A top (also called spinning top or spin top) is a toy designed to be spun rapidly on the ground, the motion of which causes it to remain precisely balanced on its tip because of inertia.  Such toys have existed since antiquity.  Traditionally tops were constructed of wood, sometimes with an iron tip, and would be set in motion by aid of a string or rope coiled around its axis which, when pulled quickly, caused a rapid unwinding that would set the top in motion. Today they are often built of plastic, and modern materials and manufacturing processes allows tops to be constructed with such precise balance that they can be set in motion by a simple twist of the fingers and twirl of the wrist without need for string or rope."                                  Wikipedia

We have all kinds of tops in our collection... big, little, plastic, wooden, string powered as well as human powered.  They are beautiful, fun, and always the source of many hours of concentrated effort to decide which spins best, which looks best when spinning, and which one can bump out the others by battling each other as they spin. 

Family Night

It seems like family night is happening in the bathroom tonight. 

 

Making Whoopie Pies

I won a baking class for 2 kids at a silent auction.  Today was the day that we got to use it.  A lovely local bakery owner welcomed my youngest son and his friend for a private baking lesson.  Anders got to help too!  They made chocolate whoopee pies with peppermint whipped cream centers.   It was more than a spectacular experience - it was a dream come true for my little baker.  Here is Kuba filling his whoopie pies, one at a time, and then nestling them into a bakery box- all eight of those yummy chocolate desserts. 

Roar!

                        

Kuba drew a lion in art class this week.  A beautiful big lion, roaring in the night.   

A perfect image for my little Scorpio with the Leo moon.  

Stormy Night Outside

 

 

There was a snow storm the other night, and we were all out late playing in the snow.  We built a few snowmen in the park, then walked around looking at all the frosty and beautiful snow laden trees.  Inside the house it was a different story.  Through the window pane we could see the tree ablaze with light (not snow) and it was beckoning us to return to the warmth inside.  We did.  





 

 

Tree Hunting