Busy Hands Homestead

Our snowman is buried in a fresh layer of snow.  The view from our neighborhood sledding hill.  Adam and Sylvan heading down the hill.  Going, going... ... gone.  Snow ice cream in front of the furnace.  After our fingers and toes warmed up, we got an early start on valentines for Ivory's class mates.  Heart shaped bird seed cakes, ready to be hung in branches, on porches or in front of windows. Our Sunday in Snapshots. 

Sylvan's arms are wrapped around my head. He hugs me tight. I dread the day he no longer cradles my head against his head. It is nap time. "I'm not a baby anymore." He giggles. We have so many benchmarks behind us. Sylvan has been out of day time diapers since last summer. I never even carry extra clothes for anymore. I had been staring at the present shaped sticker on the calendar that denotes his third birthday. I have been nursing for a better part of six years.  First Ivory, then Ivory and Sylvan and then just Sylvan...  and I was ready to move on to a new routine.  One that didn't require me nursing at bedtime, at night, in the morning.  In six years I have had two complete nights of sleep. I look at the calendar.  "We will ween then," I think, but as we neared the date I decided that weening on his birthday would be too sad for him and me.  Then Adam went out of town for a week and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to ween...

An Empty Gym.  Gallon jugs of tempera paint. Rolls of colored paper.   Scissors. Glue.  A closet of voting booths lined with canvas. Satin Banners.  A few busy kiddo's after school and busy mama's that stayed on for late nights and  Ready. Set. Go.  The backdrop for the Lowell Elementary Christmas show:   All the windows line up for one continuous scene.  Notice the snow flakes?   Snow flake crystals are formed on multiples of three... thee pointed stars, six pointed, nine, twelve etc...  I think it has something to do with the angle of the water molecules.  So,  I folded them on 30 or 60 degree angle resulting in stars that have either 6 or 12 points.  A super late school night for Ivory and Sylvan who patiently looked at Christmas books while Adam picked up our new stacked washer...  My coordinating skills are lacking sometimes - but then I thought that this back drop ...

of Maple Leaves A cold front blew the golden leaves off of the trees.   The branches of the maple trees dark against the sky.  The branches of other maple trees are bare against the sky.   Our maple is a silver maple.  (A lesser maple.) Its leaves yellowing, curling, most still clinging to the branches and some still stubbornly green.   What leaves have fallen are curled, mixed with sticks, not the sort of leaves that beg to be piled and jumped into.  So we rake the golden drifts that have blown into our drive way from across the street, down the alley, all across our neighborhood and pile then in our yard.  Ivory and Sylvan laugh and shriek and jump into the pile and toss leaves into the air. They run back and forth bringing more leaves by the arm full, the wagon full, balanced on the rakes. Their cheeks flush and eyes shine.  I try to remember the last time I heard this much laughter and marvel at the simplicity of...