Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween 2011


Happy Halloween! Here are some pictures I took of Alison in her ballerina costume. Chris took some really great pictures of Alison with his camera, I will try and hop on his computer and add some of his pictures as well.
We went trick or treating at the shopping center near our house, we also trick or treated a few houses in our neighborhood. Alison really liked picking out a piece of candy from a bowl offered to her. She would carefully looked, sometimes riffled through a little, and then carefully picked one out. How she picked which one she wanted I have no idea as she doesn't have much experience with candy lol. It was really cute!

We got her to say "trick or treat", "Happy Halloween" and "Thank you" Mommy and Daddy were of course very proud of our tiny dancer.
We didn't do too much decorating this year, we had a few pumpkins and I made this to hang above our dining room table. I got the pattern out of the book "All Year Round"  

Trick or Treat!
 Once Alison knew that the bag was for 'snacks' she wanted to carry it!


Chris got me a really nice witch hat in my favorite color, green!


 Carefully selecting her candy
This is our favorite picture




 We trick or treated at a few houses in our neighborhood too
 We put a flashing light on Alison so she would be easier to see in the dark
 Alison was so brave and got pretty good at saying "trick or treat"

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Choo choo!

                       
Ali this morning in the playroom letting her horse eat some 'hay' (aka a yellow block)




Ali loves her wooden train set (from Ikea!)

"Choo choo!"


 We pulled some of Alison's toys: a fairy, a baby, a pig, and a rooster (they are all great friends), around in her sled (she actually spotted it at Michaels. Its one of those "ready to finish" items, it was under $2) I just tied some ribbon into it. Waldorf toys can be expensive (check out the toy links under 'links I like') so I always keep my eyes out for a good deal on natural toys (wood, metal, natural fibers) and try to make little things for Alison as well.
I made the fairy doll and the baby sitting next to her. I need to make a new fairy doll though...we took two little handmade dolls with us to Oklahoma and my folk's dogs thought they were chew toys, completely distroyed the little girl doll and there are teeth marks all over this one's head...Alison doesn't seem to mind though bless her little heart!

We went to the Hillcrest Farmer's Market today! Its open every Sunday 9am to 2pm. I didn't take any pictures, we were busy gathering food for the week. I really like being able to get a pound of organic fruit for $1.50. We always try to eat healthy but since we starting shopping there we have been eating a lot more fresh foods and boy are they good!
There are prepared food vendors as well and Chris and I always get an herbal tea and Alison gets an organic lemon aid. We don't usually let her have fruit drinks during the week (or sweets really) so lemon aid is a really special treat. She loves going to the farmers market, being pushed around in her comfy stroller, checking things out, getting to try samples of fruits and sipping her special drink!

Bonus!!

Jessie sent me this wonderful picture of the kids! Thanks Jessie!!
Jessie and Ryan invited Alison and I out for breakfast at Mimi's cafe this past Tuesday. Alison and Grady (10 weeks apart and look like they could be fraternal twins) had a really great time! Us adults did too! It was really great to catch up and watch the little ones play together. We haven't seen them since July of last year! WOW!
Want to see these two a year ago? click here!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Baby Shower for Jessie!

I was very happy to attend a surprise baby shower for one of my very dear friends today. Jessie is expecting her second son and is in San Diego to visit her in-laws before the baby comes. (She used to live here before her husband got a new billet, they are a Marine family too). Her extremely thoughtful mother-in-law planned the whole thing and sent out invitations a month ago and somehow kept Jessie from having any idea!

After the baby shower I went home (Chris and Alison stayed home while the new water heater was being installed, yea Home Depot same day installation!) and picked up my little family and went back for some post baby shower play time. Little Grady and another friends son J were there and Alison had a blast playing with them. I have known these kids since they were born and its amazing to see how much they have grown!! Both my friends Jessie and Gilda are pregnant again! I am so excited for them both. AND Gilda is going to have a little girl! Most of our friends seem to have boys so it will be nice to have another little girl around!
Kandy, Jessie's mother-in-law, has a GREAT backyard! It's nice and flat with plenty of room for three little kids to run around.


Grady playing peek-a-boo with his grandma Kandy and Alison chewing on her hands.
Oh yes we are teething again. Hopefully it will subside soon, poor little Alison.
There were lots of toys but all the kids seemed to like playing with the balls the best!

"Hi Mommy!"

Thursday, October 27, 2011

So Pretty



Today was a very normal day at home. The next four days are going to be busy so we just took it easy today. Tomorrow we have the parent-child class at the Waldorf School of San Diego and right after class we pick up daddy from the airport.

 
Today I let Alison use her child's knife. As you can see lots of concentration was going on.
 


Ali eventually ate a few bites of chicken and spit out the asparagus and green bean.


 


My current project. A little dress with a subtle Peter Rabbit print. It still needs the little sleeves, the zipper, and the bottom hemmed but Alison was, surprisingly, really excited about 'pretty dress' and wanted to try it on. I'm guessing it was more that it was something mommy was interested in and so she was interested in it too. There is also a pretty little apron that goes with it, I am just going to make it a nice plain white one.


As soon as she had the dress on she went to her book shelf, grabbed a book and sat down to read. It looks like the dress will be a little loose on her when I'm finished which is what I was hoping for so she can get some wear out of it.


Here  is our nature table, really its a little shelf that Alison can easily access. This is the first season we've had a nature table and I really enjoy looking at it. It changes every now and then with the addition or subtraction of something (destroyed things get removed). I had a little mat down but Alison kept pulling if off causing half the stuff to crash onto the floor, maybe next year we will use a play silk or mat. This year we are using leaves from our back yard. The 'big' pumpkin we picked up when we spent a family day at Oma's Pumpkin Patch. We have been trying to do something as a family every Saturday. A few weeks ago we went to a rodeo in Poway for our family day. 
The only things not from outside are the little autumn gnome, which I made with a little wooden figure and some felt, the little wooden trees which were actually wooden Christmas ornaments I picked up at Michaels. I painted them with some water colors and cut the hanging loop off, I still need to sand the bottoms a little so they can stand on their own (right now I just prop them against something) but they look pretty good!
Here is a really beautiful nature table from another Waldorf family's home off the blog Frontier Dreams:  
I enjoyed looking at her fall decorations so much I actually left a comment! Its the very first one so you can't miss it!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

More Please!

 
Alison is a picky picky eater. It's not that she doesn't like things but rather she doesn't like trying new things, even though it seems 9 times out of 10 she enjoys it.
I giver her cheese every now and then for snack but normally she ignores it. Today mommy was munching on some cheese and Alison thought she might have a bit too and ended up wanting her own slice of cheese!

The cheese is Spring Hill Jersey Cheese, we buy it at the farmers market and love it!
It's organic and 'estate cheese' which means that from start to finish the cheese is made in one location, the cows eat the grass there and their milk is turned into delicious cheese!
I wish we lived closer to their farm (which is in Petaluma, close to Sacramento) because they have Cheese Tours where you can see the cows and sample some cheese!






Sorry about the cell phone picture but oh well!
Alison is playing her xylophone and singing the "ABC" song. Occasionally we get the nesting blocks out and pretend their drums and play simple songs on her xylophone and sing together. We sing all the time around here. Alison knows so many songs and I am running out of new ones to teach her!
She finds so much joy in simple things that it makes me realize what a blessing they really are. She loves singing of course, but also running and snuggling. She LOVES snuggling and sometimes I have to remind myself that I will always have laundry to do, and there will be plenty of dishes in my future but Alison won't always be my little baby who just wants mommy to play with her, sing and read books with.

I am thinking about getting "This is the Way We Wash-a-Day"  OR "The Singing Day" and "The Wonder of Lullabies". They are books filled with songs to sing with children (and an audio CD to help teach you). The first ones are full of daily songs to sing while you are doing little tasks around your house and of course the second is lullabies, something which I really don't know very many of and I am getting kind of tired of singing the sames ones over and over again. I'm kind of bummed that the San Diego Public Library doesn't carry any of these *sigh*.

We are steadily getting more of a weekly and daily rhythm in our house. We are working on one thing at a time. So far we have a regular routine for night time and eating and on Saturday we do a family activity and Sunday is Farmers Market and more time just being a family.

.

First post from my smart phone

Let's see if this works! As many of you already know my camera quit on me, not to thrilled about that but Chris or 'daddy pants' as he's known around here is getting me a new camera for my birthday/ Christmas present and I am really excited! But in the meantime I do have my handy dandy camera phone!

These pictures I took yesterday while we were playing outside in the backyard. We gathered some lavender and picked some flowers to bring in the house. Of course we can't pick flowers without playing with them and one of the flowers had such a long stem I couldn't resist cutting it and giving it to Ali for a wand!