?

I am planning to do a Q and A post in the near future (I saw it on another blog and it looked fun). If you have a question for me, put it in the comments and I will do my best to answer it. I already have a few, but need more to make a whole post out of it. Thanks you for your help!

Daydream Believer

When I was young, my sisters and I would play princesses. They would all go to the ball, dance with princes and live in castles with servants and riches beyond imagination. I however, would steal away from the ball in some act of rebellion (never against the parents, usually some evil uncle out to overthrow the king), ride all night with my best friend (who was always a blacksmith of some sort) to alert the neighboring kingdom of some imminent danger and save the day. I would then marry the blacksmith boy (I've always had a thing for hard working guys), giving up my crown in the process (marrying commoners was forbidden), and live in a cottage on the outskirts of town. Working hard to build a life together. That was my happily ever after. Turns out, dreams do come true. I did marry my best friend and we have been on many incredible adventures together.

I may be a dreamer, but I dream of simple things. I don't need a new car, or the latest phone. I don't want a huge house, or designer clothes. When I pick up something I like, I try to ask myself how it would improve my life. Many many times, I put it back down. If I can think of a way it makes my life better, I then ask myself how much I would pay for it. THEN I look at the price tag. If it is over my decided price, I walk away. This system seems to work well for me.

Just this Saturday, I saw a beautiful hand blacksmithed leaf necklace. The price was double what I wanted to pay for it, so I did not buy it. But when we left, I kept thinking of how lovely it was. I mentioned it to The Hubs and told him that I really liked it but there was no way I was going  to pay that kind of money for it. We made our other stops, picking up a few things we needed, then traveled home. We ate lunch and Bunny went down for her nap, I started cleaning up the kitchen and The Hubs went outside to start on some welding he was doing for work. A little while later he came inside handed me a small peice of metal. It was a leaf! My blacksmith boy made me a leaf! We strung it with some leather and tied it off. It is beautiful. Perfect. Even better because he made it for me. He is amazing like that.

My awesome new necklace.

One happy wifey (with straightened hair).

 My new necklace only cost about $2.00 and 15 minutes to make. The one I saw in the store was $19.99.  Dreams do come true!  You just have to work for them.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Joy

So... I should really cancel these email reminders of how many weeks pregnant I am... 12 weeks it says... 12 weeks... I was seven weeks when I first saw that tinge of pink that made me wonder if somthing was wrong... Seven weeks when I came down with the virus that would eventually end her little life... Eight weeks when I bled black... The color of death itself... Eight weeks when I labored for hours... When I delivered her tiny body into my hands... When I sat on the toilet and stared at my bloody feet while Mama checked everything to make sure it was all there... Eight weeks when I laid in bed moaning from the afterpains with no newborn baby to ease my heartache... Eight weeks... Tomorrow it will say 13 weeks... I really should cancel these reminders... But I won't... Not yet, anyway... Because even though It is hard sometimes... She is Joy... I love my little baby... I loved being pregnant for her... I loved being able to give birth to her at home... I love that I got to hold her... She (in my heart she is a she) will never have to feel pain or sadness... She is Joy... Pure Joy... Thank You God for giving her to me... Even if it was only for a short time... I love my life!

Chalk

What do you do with this?

  

Do you eat it?

  

Oh, I get it...

 

This is fun!

 

Hey guys, did you see this stuff?



Ha ha!



Clean up, Clean up...

 

I love chalk!

 

Revised Rhythm

Summers are always the craziest times at our Enchanted Childhood Playschool. We generally have more children. Sadly, Mama and I have found that our greatest skills really lie from ages two through four (Yes, I realize that does not include Bunny who is only 16 1/2 months. My own don't count).

Babies are getting harder and harder to fit into our rhythm. The issue is that if we are going to do something, we want to do it right. Babies need and deserve a lot of attention and we simply cannot give them what we want to give them and continue to teach Playschool the way we want. It is bitter sweet since we love babies, But we have decided that we will not be accepting any more babies (other than my own, of course) to our little group. They will have to be at least 15 months old and on one nap a day before they join us.

Older children, while still welcomed and loved here, just seem to fade more and more into the real world. Some start attending other pre-schools part time or kindergartens and only come to us on holidays. I have never once been happy to see a child go (except for a little boy whose mama decided stay at home with him). A piece of my heart goes with them as they trudge off into the haze of the big world. No child has ever come back the same way they left. They may seem the same from the outside, but their hearts change. The enchantment of childhood is replaced by the allure of big kid/grown up things. It gets harder and harder for them to see the magic. I guess this is called this growing up, but I don't like to see it happening to children so young.

With the end of summer, comes the longing to get back to where we belong. To take what we have learned and apply it to the rhythm of our day. We made new, revised, playschool sunny day and rainy day schedules.

Front

Mama's amazing artwork in the corners haha!

Back

In addition to the new rhythm, we have added various new things to our playschool. We now have stump stools at several places along our walking paths to encourage stopping to play and explore. We also just added (today in fact) an old boat to the shore of our little creek. I can't wait to see what adventure the children dream up for that. A ship wreck? A fishing trip? Who knows! Pics to come!

I am so excited to see what this new season brings. Anything is possible!

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Wordless Wednesday

Bring The Rain

(This video is for listening purposes. You don't have to watch it.)

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass... It is about learning how to dance in the rain."





"Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams."

"Let the rain kiss you.  Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.  Let the rain sing you a lullaby."

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."

Psalms 147:8

He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills.

The Stolen Child(hood)

I had heard of the poem, The Stolen Child, in the past, but had never really read it through until now. While some people may find it a bit creepy, I find it enchanting. I mean, if you read the word "faery" (the European spelling for "Fairy") the same way I do. Not as someone, but something. As a word to discribe imagination and discovery. The poem becomes, not about a creature that lures children into its world, but about a daydream, a walk in the woods, a jump into a newly rain filled puddle, a dig in the dirt, an imaginary friend, a world that a child might simply get lost in. Like a Mama at supper time, it calls to them.

"Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild.
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

The world IS full of weeping. Too many times these days, our children are forced to deal with the sadness of life. Too many times are there no ways around fears and grief. How else can they escape it if not with a "fairy"? If not with a childhood that is full of love, happiness, and adventure? It seems, these days that less children are being stolen by "fairies", and more childhoods are being stolen by... us.

As a society, we are forcing more and more of the adult world on our little ones. Pushing them to grow up by allowing them to do grown up things. As parents, it is our duty to defend their innocence. To protect them from the hatred, and the filth, and the pain of this world. To say "NO"! But do we? Do we go out of our way to give them what they deserve, what every child should have? Or are they, like the rest of us, just expected to look out for themselves? And when their tiny hearts cannot take any more of the weeping of this world, we blame them. We say that there is something wrong with them. We lable them. We chemically alter their brains to accomodate this "fast pace, no grace" way of life that we have become accustomed to. To zombify then into submission. To silence their cries for help. And in the end, as our culture slips away from all things humane and decent and further into a world full of weeping, we wonder why.

I have no fear of my children being stolen by fairies (Perhaps because I have been stolen by fairies myself). It is this world I would fear (If this world were my home, that is. But I am just passing through). All I can do, all each of us can do, is to steal back our little ones' childhoods from this cruel world. To stand up for those who are too weak to stand up for them elves. To rescue them from ourselves.

Clap your hands if you beleive in fairies!

Change

Monday was our anniversary. The Hubs and I have been married for three years (together for six and a half). Despite the struggles we have gone through, they have definitely been the best years of my life. So many things have happened. So many more things to come.

I have changed so much since we got married. I was painfully shy. A very nervous person who could barely make a phone call to set up an appointment or return an item at a store without have a minor panic attack. I was very comfortable with my issues. I had learned to work around them. Avoiding people and topics that might cause me to do any more than answer yes or no. The Hubs on the other hand, is a people person. We worked well together. He didn't mind making phone calls or dealing with people for me. He was kinda like my PR person, as well as my husband. I realized when Bunny was born that sometimes not standing up means laying down and dying. These days, I am not nearly so shy. I can talk without freaking out. People that just meet me don't even know that I once would have been happy to live out my days in simple hermitage. I blame Bunny for bringing me out of my shell and into this wide world that is full of possibilities. She makes me brave. She makes me strong. Even in my weakest moment.

The Hubs (who I have recently been calling Papa) has changed some too. First of all, he now has chest hair (and a lot more facial hair). Tehehe. Secondly, it turns out that he is an amazing papa. I mean, I always knew that he would be a good dad, But he really amazes me when he is with Bunny. It kinda makes me love him even more. Thirdly, he has really let go of a lot of things that were holding him back. Taken a lot of his worries and hurts and laid them down for our happiness.

As we grow and change, I am thankful that, like two vines growing side by side, we have become entangled in each other even more. So that it is sometimes hard to determine where his heart ends and mine begins. I am also thankful that we have a God who is never changing. Never. In these three years we have been pregnant three times. While two of our tiny babies have gone home ahead of us, Bunny is our daily (sometimes several times a day) reminder the we are not done here yet. There is still work left to do (I will write more about it at some point... Not yet, but soon). I sometimes forget that I am only 21 and Papa is only 22. Children really. How is it that we have been through so much together already? How is it that we have been strong enough to make it this far? Only through Him have we climbed our mountains. Only through Him and the people He has put in our lives have we found hope for what is to come.

Papa will be starting a new job soon. A job that requires him to be out of town a lot. We have never been apart in all this time. This makes the idea of out of town work a bit disheartening. While we are praying for a job closer to home, we know that this is a good job and a good opportunity. An opportunity that we can't (at this point) turn down. We now stand on the edge of a cliff. I hold my breath, and with Bunny on my hip, I take Papa's hand and jump. Whether we end up with something solid to stand on or learning to fly has yet to be determined. All I can do for now is take one day (one step) at a time and pray that God opens and closes doors for us along this path He has set us on.

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, FAITH is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly." --Barbara J. Winter

Bunny's First Solo Day

Yesterday, Bunny's mama and papa had some errands to run, so Bunny (on her 16th month birthday) spent the morning at An Enchanted Childhood Playschool, without her mama, for the first time ever!  I hope her mama and papa enjoy this little peek into her morning!

Ut oh, CousinMonkey brought sausage on a stick (a cousin to corndog??) to share with everyone and even though Nana tried to keep Bunny from coveting it, Nana soon gave in to the sad pleas and allowed her a little bit.

Followed by her organic cheerios, organic milk, and "clean 15" bananas.

Next we stepped outside to look at the flowers and pick a Black-eyed Susan.

And catch a little butterfly to show her "friends"!

After our normal morning routine, we headed out for a nature walk.

And "CreekTime"!!

 Bunny had a good morning, but was very happy to see Mama and Papa come for lunch!

***Hannah will be back to blogging soon.  She suffered a miscarriage two weeks ago, when the baby was eight weeks along, and it still recovering physically and emotionally.  Until she returns here, please keep her and her family in your prayers.***

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.