Asher had a birthday recently. I’ve gone on and on about it because—well, because I love celebrating and I think he’s the bees knees. Here are some shots of his jungle birthday cake and the party we had with his friends.

This cake was so much fun to make. The most time-consuming part was baking two separate cakes in three containers: two round cake pans and one large pyrex bowl. It took me a while to figure out what to do with this, but I ultimately decided I wanted to have them placed next to each other, with one being higher than the other two. Then I realized I didn’t have any kind of serving platter big enough to do that, so I went out to the garage and found a big piece of particle board. I wrapped the top in green paper and voila!

These plastic toys are Playmobil toys (plus a mismatched hippo) that Lucas got as gifts years ago. He never much cared for Playmobil and they come with a gazillion pieces, so these were packed up in the garage as a someday/rainy day toy set. They came in very handy for decorating this cake and I think they made it look spectacular.

My real stroke of brilliance—the part I’ll take credit for—was using the veggies to make it look jungly. I went round and round my local supermarket looking for candy and cookies and things that I could use as jungle plants and trees. I didn’t find much. Then it occured to me that the best way to do plants would be to use plants. I bought one bunch of dino kale, one pot of living wheat grass, and one bunch of parsley. Oh, and a pineapple, mainly for it’s spiny top. I worried that Asher might freak out when he saw veggies on his birthday cake, but fortunately the jungle animals distracted him and he seemed pretty awed by it.

I used the Waldorf birthday cake recipe and a chocolate zucchini cake recipe. I used store-bought frosting in a can, and used Wilton brand food dye to color it. What’s kind of weird is that the sand colored frosting changed to light green when we were at the park for the party.

Anyway, it was a jungley party at the park and the weather was perfect. The five guests plus older siblings ran about like crazy and played on the play equipment most of the time. Ian took the kids on a jungle expedition through the almond orchard that is adjacent to the park and then they played parachute games.

That was tons of fun. We ate sandwiches and fruit salad and ants on logs. Asher got some fine presents that he’s excited about and all the kids got an animal mask and a plush animal in their goody bags. I wish I had a picture of them—Lucas painted an animal on each goody bag and they were beautiful.

All this started with Asher wanting to be a monkey at his birthday party. Alas, we had no monkey mask. But he was quite taken with the zebra, so the crisis was averted. Here his is with one of his best buddies. It was a great success.

We came home afterward and prepared for Party Stage Two, which was just family and was lovely.

I made these fun valentine stones for my guys last year. They’re better than sweets, in my opinion (my kids might disagree). They are very simple to make, but require a little time for drying, so give yourself a day or two.

Materials

* flat stones from your yard or the craft store (any color)

* tiny fabric scraps in valentine colors (you decide)

* mod podge glue and a paint brush

* sharpie pen

Tutorial

Wash your stones and let them dry completely. Cut out small hearts from tiny fabric scraps. I admit that if you’re a quilter, you have advantage in the scraps department. Cut hearts that will fit on your stones; you may be surprised at how small they need to be—of course, this depends on your stones. For myself, I had stones of varying sizes and I like the variation.

Dab some mod podge on your stone, then place your fabric heart on it. With your paintbrush, coat the entire top of the stone with more mod podge. Smooth out any wrinkles in the fabric heart. Set it aside to dry for several hours or overnight.

Repeat as many times as you like! Frankly, I think these valentine stones make a big impact when you have lots of them.

When the tops of your hearts are dry and shiny from the mod podge varnish, turn them over. Write a word or brief message on the other side of the stone with your sharpie pen. Remember the chalky valentine heart candies? What are those called? Conversation hearts?

If you or your child is giving these stone valentines as special gifts to friends or teachers, stock messages like “Be mine” work great. If you are making these for your family, you can get more personal. For example, I also used phrases like “I’ll always love you,” and “I’m so proud of you,” and “All we need is love.” Make a special valentine stone for each member of your family, with a message just for them. You know what they need to hear!

Do you have a meaningful family joke? A lyric to your family’s favorite song? A family motto or mission statement? Any of these would be perfect for your custom valentine stones.

Finally, paint the writing side of each stone with mod podge, too. This will give the stone a finished appearance when it dries.

Now arrange the valentine stones artfully for Valentine’s Day, or wrap them as a Valentine’s gift. Your family will have fun holding the stones and turning them over to read all the messages. Mine did!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Asher is 5! We have been celebrating in simple and joyful ways for several days now. This is how we celebrated his special day at home. Since it was a Tuesday and a school day, we had our normal rhythms to fit in, also.

“Is I’m 5?” was the first thing we heard that morning. Daddy told him he was a big boy and Asher said, “No. I’m a medium boy.” Very well, then. Our breakfast table had a special place setting for Asher, flowers, rainbows, our Family Candle, and a beautiful bell. In our house, the birthday boy gets to wear his Birthday Crown and ring the bell as loud as he likes on his birthday morning. Asher got to open one gift, his mama-made fleece dragon mittens and hat.

After school, I picked him up and we went for a nature walk with Solstice the dog. We walked to the huge fallen oak tree that we call the Bee Tree because it has an active beehive way up high. You can see the bees going in and out. It’s a magical place with woods all around and the bike trail. Walking Solstice is not nearly as easy as walking with 5-year-old Asher.

In the afternoon, we snuggled and he napped, we picked up Lucas from school, and then the boys played outside. Asher rode on Lucas’s old bike—we put the training wheels on it just the other day. Mama baked a cake using the Waldorf Birthday Cake recipe. Yum! It’s made with honey and yogurt—dense and moist. When Daddy came home, he made Asher’s requested dinner of stir fry with Chinese noodles.

And then we had cake!

I’m pretty sure he felt special.

The kids got ready for bed, then Asher opened his birthday gifts—two story books (Miss Rumphius and Runya, the Fire Fairy) …

… and a LEGO idea book. And a build-your-own kaleidoscope kit and sun print paper.

He opened his new Stockmar crayons and the crayon holder I made him …

… and the alphabet stones, which we played with a bit.

(I kind of love these. They are nice to touch.)

And the marvelous evening culminated in this: Lucas GAVE Asher his old bike. Lucas washed it and polished it nicely and tied a big bow on it. Now Asher has a big-boy bike to ride outside with brother! What a perfect, thoughtful gift. Lucas got to be the hero. And that suits us just fine.

My mother has done it again—produced a beautiful, perfect sweater for Lucas in less than two weeks. It’s his favorite color, turquoise. She used an acrylic yarn by Caron “Simply Soft” because she likes the way it washes and dries in the dryer. I like that, too, for my ever-muddy boys.

She used a seed stitch and a basketweave stitch—both of which are completely beyond my understanding and skill.

It’s wonderful having a grandma who make such beautiful things. My sons have drawers-full of handknit socks and a closet-full (they have to share one) full to bursting with grandma’s sweaters. Now if only I could convince the little guy that “fuzzy” is a good quality in a sweater.

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Last night we celebrated Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year. It was the first time for us, and it was a bit last-minute, but we had enough red construction paper on hand to make it fun.

We made these sweet and simple paper lanterns and lit candles. They were very festive. I did some reading about Chinese paper cutting arts and watched a couple of YouTube videos (like this simple tutorial). I didn’t know about this beautiful art form before. Go to Google and search for “Chinese paper cutting” and then click “Images.” The examples you’ll see there are amazing. I fell in love.

These are just two examples I found and I’m sorry I can’t credit the artists who made them. This year is the Year of the Dragon, but you already know that.

So while Daddy made us a gorgeous chicken and stir-fried vegetable dinner over brown rice, we started cutting. Our paper lanterns glowed merrily beside us.

To make this yourself, simply trim your paper into a square, fold in half and fold in half again. Now fold it into a triangle, just like you would if you were making a paper snowflake. Now begin cutting. Chevrons, parallel lines, swirls, squares, triangles, hearts, diamonds, etc. are all good shapes to cut. When you are finished cutting, simply unfold your paper. Voila!

It is always such a delight when the children decide to go along with one of my harebrained crafting schemes. Lucas and I both enjoyed this “paper flower” making a lot and we decided to make enough  flags to create a banner. We made seven square flags.

Lucas also made his own good luck envelope and filled it with an origami swan, some coins, and a blessing. He used his special fountain pen that he got from Santa. It seems he knows rather more about Chinese New Year than I realized, with some cultural mixing at play.

Asher helped a bit, too, but he doesn’t like to be told how to make things. Mostly he wants a chance to use the scissors. To make our banner, we just threaded a piece of red yarn through the holes along the top of each flag.

And this is how our lucky banner looks this morning, hanging near our kitchen. I think it looks terrific and feel that it’s going to do great double duty for Valentine’s Day, too. I can’t help but cut hearts, I guess. (Now I see I’d better cut that extra long piece of yarn.)

I think I’m going to try making some “window flowers” out of translucent red kite paper. Maybe I can try making one that isn’t symmetrical, as most examples I see from this Chinese art form are not. I’ll let you know how that goes. Also, I found that you can buy pieces of Chinese paper art on Amazon.com if you want something authentic.

This is Lucas’s most recent invention: Star Wars “origami,” aka paper dolls. He started with Yoda first on Thursday night. Then proceeded to make nine more lickety-split. It helped that we had a much-admired adult friend over for dinner that night, I think. Lucas enjoys impressing her.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” (I love her hair!)

Luke and the droids: I suppose we should have used a sand-colored Tatooine backdrop for this one.

C-3PO is funny. You can almost hear him lecturing R2.

Lucas is proud of these paper creations. He helped pose them for these photos.

Here’s Darth Vader fighting Luke.

The bad guys: Storm Trooper and Darth Vader. You might not be able to see it, but the Storm Trooper has a blaster in his hand.

Somehow, these two, Han Solo and Chewbacca, have the most personality—just as in the film.

Lucas has seen only the first Star Wars film (Espisode 4). Nevertheless, Star Wars mythology features heavily in this 9-almost-10-year-old’s world. I think it’s beyond awesome that he makes his own Star Wars stuff to play with, since his stingy mama doesn’t buy SW toys.

<rubs hands wickedly like evil supervillain>

Lucas and I have a shared knitting project going right now. Back before Christmas, we went to the yarn shop one day and he asked for gold and scarlet yarn to knit a Harry Potter Gryffindor House scarf for himself. (I know for a fact that Lucas makes a terrific Harry Potter.) I said no at the time, but went back later and bought him the yarn he wanted and gave it to him as a Christmas present. Then I suggested it might be fun for us to knit the scarf together, sharing the project as much or as little as he wants.

He jumped at the idea. He decided how wide it would be and what the stripes would look like: “Even, Mom. Even all the way.” We are just knitting garter stitch—nothing fancy. Although we started with 30 stitches, we now have 34. We have a couple of holes, too. None of that matters, though. What matters is that we are doing it.

So, we press onward despite mistakes and whatever.

The reason I suggested we share the project is so that he can have the experience of working on it and watching it grow. Lucas knits for a row or two and then puts it down. I knit to hopefully keep his interest in the project. I am thinking it will be rewarding and reinforcing to see the scarf coming along at a faster clip than he could do on his own. And he’ll be getting lots of practice.

We’ll file this under Experiments in Parenting, shall we?

Monday morning. The boys went back to school today after a two-week winter vacation. Suddenly the house is quiet and the little dog is wandering around. He’s gone back to Asher’s bed to snooze five times now.

It has been a marvelous two weeks. Plenty of rest and play, plenty of knitting and painting and gardening, plenty of little brown dog.  We have also had plenty of bickering, having to share, and learning how to get along and what to do/not do when you’re not getting along. Although this part isn’t sweet and peaceful and the stuff of most blogs, it’s also important family work.

Lucas bravely walked out the door this morning with all his fourth-grade animal report and two eager helpers (Daddy and Asher) to carry it all. It is a paper report, a 16 by 20 acrylic painting and a diorama of the fennec fox in its habitat. It turns out the report is actually due tomorrow, but I think he’s so happy and relieved to have it done.

For his diorama he used brown paper (which came to us in a package as packing material) to simulate desert sand dunes of the Sahara Desert in Africa and a fennec fox burrow. He sprayed the paper with spray adhesive and then carefully sprinkled sand over the whole thing and a little bit of sawdust. The fennec foxes are made from Sculpey clay and painted with craft acrylics. More (unbaked) Sculpey clay and some grasses complete the environment. I think it looks great!

This weekend we did a lot of project work and also quite a bit of household reorganization. We weeded out some books for the used book store and Ian tackled the craft/game closet and reorganized it. It’s lovely that he did that because I sometimes have a hard time letting go of things “that we might someday need.” My office needs the same kind of attention. I worked in the garden a bit, pruning the roses and other shrubs, watering, etc. We’re having such a warm winter (I guess to balance our cool 2011 summer?) that I’ve had to water. No rains have come yet and we have roses blooming in January. I have some more planting to do and hope to pick up a few bare-root roses that typically appear in the shops this time of year.

I’m starting a new work project today. The timing couldn’t be better. The quiet of today feels blissful. I can hear myself think again.

These holy, family days have been so full. We are enjoying. Resting.

Coloring.

Playing with so, so many wonderful gifts.

We have had long, luxurious visits from friends, and a sweet party that we are very honored to host.

The little dog, Solstice, is a great joy to us all. We still don’t know where he is from. We haven’t had even a single nibble on the ads we placed, hoping to find his owners. In the meantime, whatever the outcome, we are enjoying him ever so much. And now I have someone new and fluffy to point my camera at.

We’ve been reading new books in our leisure and drinking too much delicious coffee. Nursing head colds.

Experimenting with magical ice … to see what we can make, of course.

Cutting snowflakes and folding window stars. (LOVE!)

After all the working>making>striving>doing>going> leading up to and including Christmas day, we are now fully and happily settled into our hibernation days, our holy, family days. There is plenty to do—very little of it is urgent. So perhaps we’ll do some laundry. Or cook. Or play more Legos or a game. Or go for another walk instead …

Or climb a tree …

while we learn more about each other …

and see what we can find along the way.

This is my mantel for Christmas. Although I don’t buy new decorations every year, I do try to think of new ways to display them. I’m pretty happy with this one; it’s simple and sweet and repurposes some old items in a new way. In front of this hearth is where my children draw and play with Legos nearly every day.

I used an old store-bought (plastic?) garland of “greenery” and added our collection of Waldorf woolen angels. I think we’ve received one wool angel per year for the last six years or so. They didn’t go up on our tree this year because our tree is smaller than usual. But I couldn’t not put them out. I think they look terrific in a group this way.

I indulged in buying one new Christmas decoration this year: a box of 15 straw star ornaments for $7.99. I adore them. They are so intricate and pretty, and look just right here.

The truth is I have materials for making such straw star ornaments, which are a traditional German Christmas decoration, but I haven’t had time to sit down and try to figure out how. I have a package of natural color straw and red straw. I have gold thread and red thread for tying off intersections in the stars. I secretly hope to have a few free hours to play with this, however, I admit I’m doubting I will. It looks really hard to me.

This is the nativity scene that my grandmother bought me about ten years ago. It’s porcelain and fancy and very colorful and, although I never would have bought it,  I love it. Each year when I unwrap it, I say a silent prayer and hope that we don’t accidentally break it. After Christmas I carefully pack it back into the original box in the hopes that it will be safe another year. It is sitting on a cloth I wove myself.

These are my “Waldorf” resin angels. I bought them at a craft fair a few years back for $6 each. I call them Waldorf because they are faceless. In the vase are dried daylily stems from my garden. I collect them as they dry out because they’re interesting to me and I’m always trying to use found natural items in my crafting. Ian thinks I’m nuts because I save these, especially as I usually don’t have any idea how I’m going to use them. The group on the right is still merely rubberbanded together. I like that they are so tall and so bleached out.

Today I saw a blog with the most amazing Christmas decorations I have ever seen. The home that was featured was so exquisitely beautiful it looked like a whole team of stylists were on staff full-time and that no one lived there at all. There wasn’t a single item out of place or bit of evidence that a child even walked through. It was glitzy and glamorous and completely soulless. It also looked like entire villages of people could be fed for months on what was spent to decorate that home, and that realization made me feel rather ill. Frankly, it was obscene—a word I don’t use lightly. That display of wealth and glitter made me feel so weird and conflicted that I almost didn’t write this post about my nifty mantel that I hodgepodged together. I mean, isn’t this the same kind of thing on a “poor-girl” scale?

Aesthetics are highly individual. Surrounding ourselves with art and beauty is one of the pleasures of life. Doing so lifts my spirits and helps me to feel like I’m raising children in a happy, intentional home. The creation of and appreciation for art is a celebration of our humanness, one of the crowing jewels of humanity. I don’t need or desire to be judgmental about the way that other people express themselves. I just know that if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be using it that way. I’d be feeding people.