This is what the Sacramento Waldorf School Harvest Faire (held October 13) looked like to me. In all of these photos I’ve tried to capture a small glimpse into the tremendous effort and creativity required to bring off this wonderful school fundraiser festival. Each year I am inspired by the depth of commitment and strength of community that this event represents.

Many families cooked and baked goodies to be sold at Cafe Waldorf.

Each class sang the songs they’ve been working on in music class, and some brave performers took to the stage for fun and to entertain the diners. Many other performers took to the main stage. We heard a terrific young man playing violin.

Kids (and kittens) made fairy gardens with clothespin fairies and gems. And plenty of glitter glue.

The campus was decorated beautifully with fall pumpkins, cornstalks, flowers, scarecrows, and more.

The Country Store sold handmade items and housewares, children’s toys, edibles, bath and body items, holiday items, and lots of crafting and handwork supplies. I’m a little sorry I didn’t buy a bag of raw wool, but I knew I’d have difficulty finding time to use it.

This gorgeous Autumn Fairy Mother was handmade. I’m sorry I never got the name of the artist. I thought she was just beautiful.

The sixth grade’s Michaelmas dragon was on hand and perfectly tame. He posed with knights and ladies for photographs.

Amazing vendors were present, like The Puppenstube‘s own Christine Schreier. We had a lovely chat about mermaids and heavy baby dolls and I took her photo as she sewed on a doll, but she’s shy. Here is her collection of Buntsprecht wooden figures for sale.

And here is the spooky and charming work of our own Mrs. Passie. She carves these beautiful gourds and makes amazing gourd lamps that cast lovely stars and patterns on the walls of a dark room. My son tells me that he’s been making a gourd lamp at school with Mrs. Passie’s instruction.

Food vendors were terrific, and our class did a wildly successful tri-tip and mushrooms sandwiches booth. I’m told that the line was long and constant. Many thanks to our parent volunteers who manned the booth, but especially to Sean and Heather for spearheading this effort and procuring all the supplies. I even heard Sean say, “next year when we do this, we’ll …” so I guess he feels pretty great about it, too.

This year Katie and I worked on the Archery booth. We both expressed a strong opinion at a meeting last spring that archery just had to be at the faire. Thus, it became our problem to make it so. Katie did absolutely all the legwork and communications before the faire. I showed up the day before to set up, and then Ian and I worked most of the day of to make sure the booth ran smoothly, safely, and had happy customers.  We had great parent volunteers from our fifth grade class, thank goodness. And even the fifth graders played a huge part in setting everything up. Did you know a small group of 10s and 11s can move 15 hay bales? They can! One of the grandpas donated new arrows and six children’s bows to the Harvest Faire, which means that the archery booth can appear at Harvest Faire year after year. Which is great because it did a very brisk business all day long and we had archers ranging from 3 to 75 shooting that day!

Asher and Lucas loved archery and spent most of our faire money on arrows for another chance to shoot.

The cake walk was popular as always.

Beautiful colors, beautiful children, beautiful families were everywhere. The weather was warm and lovely. I think the whole thing was a huge success.

My kids loved having their parents busy and committed all day. It meant that they could run around campus with their friends! They love having the opportunity to be independent, to go where they like and not have to ask. Although this event was open to the public, I feel safe knowing our community is there and everyone is watching out.

And then, at the very end of a long, tiring, and happy day, we all flopped out. It was worth it!

Last Friday night I had a feverish dream inspired by a blog I just discovered: Twig and Toadstool (http://twigandtoadstool.blogspot.com/), where they spent a lot of time preparing for and celebrating the Summer Solstice. I was feverish because I was ill with a virus, but the inspiration worked its way into my dreams all night long. All night I wove a sun; each time I woke and fell asleep again, I slipped right back into the weaving. I could feel the yarn in my fingers, the sticks, the wool. And so, when I awoke, I knew we had to MAKE this thing I had dreamed about.

I gathered some sticks from the local schoolyard and supplies from home, and did some shopping on Monday. I fastened the center together by wrapping it with floral wire. I also wired the edges in an effort to keep the sticks from shifting during the weaving. I think it worked well.

And then before and after our Solstice dinner outdoors, Lucas and I worked on our giant sunburst, which is a lot like a Ojo de Dios (God’s eye), but has eight rays and not four.

Lucas was a big help with weaving the center, especially. Isn’t it beautiful?

We took a break to eat my yummy corn salad, spinach salad, and Daddy’s amazing tri tip.

Sunshiny squashes, organic tomatoes, and iced tea graced our table. Must be summer!

Here comes the SUN! The art project took all evening, but we finished before the sun went down. Lucas held it up high in the sky so I could photograph it. Then we hung our sunburst on our house, where we can see it from the patio. We spend a lot of time there when it’s warm, and our boring beige paint looks better with some colorful art.

We used $1 ribbon spools in red and orange, a bit of mama’s thick cotton rug yarn, raffia, yellow fabric scraps (with rocket ship pattern that you can’t see) tied into a long strip, and acrylic yarns in yellows, gold, and orange. I wish I had had an excess of yellow or gold wool roving on hand to use in our sunburst, but I didn’t. We also had on hand several colors of nylon twine (including safety orange) but elected not to use them.

Honeydew melon with mint and lemon sorbet served as a delicious dessert. I don’t know how that watermelon ball sneaked in there. Chef Daddy deserves the credit, I presume. He’s brilliant, as always.

Asher didn’t care for the art project much, but enjoyed snipping bits and pieces of yarn with scissors, and running around with sticks (guns/weapons/swords/knives. Can’t stop him despite my pacifist leanings!) Besides preparing dinner, Ian made a finger-woven chain to add to our sunburst, but for a while, it was “Action Inja” Asher’s headband.

So, welcome Summer! May it be full of frolicking, fun, fiestas, and good fortune. May it be full of right action, deep breathing, generosity, and abundance. May it be patient, low-stress, and l a z y -good. Blessed Be.

Too busy to write lately, I suppose. Actually, I think I’m stuck on something I want to write about, but here’s a brief recap of some recent stuff.

* I finally have some editing work and a deadline coming this Wednesday. One project is a copyedit for a book on Syria for the 6th-12th grade market. It’s got me hoppin’ a bit and doesn’t pay well, but hey. I took it. It’s been good dusting off my brain a bit. Arabic naming conventions are puzzling—either that or my two authors are wildly inconsistent.

* Had a crisis last Monday related to being sick. I have a big post about that brewing, but suffice it to say it has a happy ending. I have learned a lot recently.

* Lucas is back in school, Thank God! He seems to be all better now. We’re starting the probiotics.

* Despite being busy with my projects and working a fair piece of it, I’ve had a terrific weekend. Yesterday we got to meet up and picnic with sundayhangover, foseelovechild, and grlfury. I ate strawberries and bits of apple (heaven!) and drank champagne. The weather was perfect both yesterday and today. Today, we were invited to go kayaking with my brother and his girlfriend, Boo. We are so getting into kayaking as soon as the boys are a tad bit older. Actually, Lucas is ready now. Asher may have to stay home for a while yet. My dad came out to the lake with us and stayed with Asher on shore so the rest of us could go paddling under the Folsom Rainbow bridge. It was so cool and beautiful on the water. I always feel so much better about life when I can get out under the sky, breathe deeply, and remember that my problems are small in comparison with the great, big, beautiful world.

* My hubby is super handy! He fixed a switch and two outdoor light boxes on our house that have never worked. He installed two new fixtures and they’re really pretty. We have more to put up that will all match and our backyard patio will be ready for summer nights. (Now we must get the hot tub fixed!)

Welcome to my new blog! I’ve got tons to learn about this platform, but I’m excited to do it. Up until now, I’ve been blogging on LiveJournal as SarabellaE.

Thank you, Mars, for pointing this out to me!

Eating a steak and salad dinner
Drinking a glass of red wine for dessert
Reading to Lucas about dinosaurs before bed

He is so completely 5. It's beautiful. Sometimes I just want to freeze him because he is so completely perfect. I hope I can remember moments like this when I am old.

Asher is 11 months old! I know! It's just as amazing to me as it is to you!

He is into everything now, just as expected. He especially loves the wires under my desk, the Christmas tree ornaments and lights, and his brother's teensy-tiny stuff. The Holy Grail of household items is the cordless phone, which lights up with blue light when you press any button to activate it. This is the Be All and End All of Things Asher Shouldn't Play With. I worry that he'll call 911 or China or something. If you take the phone away from him, he screams at you. If he knows it's nearby, he's unstoppable like a Sherman tank: He slowly bowls over anything in the way to get at the coveted phone.

We are very happy to see that Asher is indeed signing now. It was kind of hard to tell at first whether his gestures were intentional or random, but we are now certain that he is signing “more,” “milk,” which for Asher doubles for “mama,” and “eat.” (These are typically the first signs to appear.) We think that he is also signing “all done” and maybe “water,” too. It's exciting to see this communication happening! There's so much we have to talk about. I've expanded my signing in our daily interactions to include many other signs, including (and here I'll dispense with those pesky quotation marks), play, help, please, boy, girl, baby, sleep, diaper change, mama, daddy, grandma, grandpa, apple, lion, bird, dog, and others that I'm forgetting to mention here. Asher's signing will come gradually for a few more months, then at around 14 months or so, it should ramp up to dozens and dozens of signs. Then we'll really be able to discuss the meaning of life!

Christmas was exciting and a little challenging for Asher, as his normal routine was knocked out of whack. However, having Ian home for a week and a half was wonderful. Asher really enjoys daddy's being around.  We have lots of new and groovy toys for him. Unfortunately, a number of them make music/noise. Those toys may find their way over to the grandmas' houses. I'm not cruel for taking toys away from my baby: I'm actually saving him from the part of my personality that goes batshit crazy listening to the same badly executed toy jingle. That mommy isn't the nice mommy. Better to keep her appeased.

Last week I worked three and a half days at the magazine. Due to Asher's proclivity to investigate his environment so thoroughly as to taste everything he comes across, I thought it best to leave him with babysitters instead of taking him with me. Sadly, those days halcyon take-baby-to-work days are done. Ian stayed home with him and Lucas one day (Ian's last vacation day), Grandma VoVo had the boys the next day, and the Bs watched them for a while on Friday. Then, on Monday, Grandma had them again for a half day. All reports indicate that Asher really doesn't give a damn about the breast milk that I conscientiously pump for him. All he does is chew on the bottle's nipple, grasping it in his incisors and pulling it out until it goes snap! (Fortunately, this is not something he does to my nipples.) Basically, the bottle is a novelty, a game—not an acceptable conveyance for yummy and nutritious mama milk. Nor is the cup any better. He just doesn't want it. He's eating plenty of other foods to make it through the day without the milk, but if I don't continue to pump when we're apart, then my milk supply will reduce, which isn't what I want yet because Asher still nurses before each nap and once or twice throughout the day and at least twice in the night. Anyway, the good news is that he reportedly does fine without me when I've gone to work, which is a relief to hear. He doesn't sleep too well, though.

Asher really likes music. He rocks back and forth any time he hears music of any type, for any duration. Today we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The music was peppy and fast, and Asher doubled-timed his rocking. We all laughed and he laughed too and kept right on boogying. 

He's up to five teeth now. A few days after Christmas he got his second top middle incisor, making four teeth. Last Saturday we noticed that the one beside it had popped through too. Yay, Baby! Only 15 more to go! He only rarely bites me while nursing now; he seems to have gotten the idea that doing so is verboten. The only time I have ever yelled at him was for biting my nipple. It seems to have done the trick. However, Asher will happily gnaw on another body part if I (or anyone else) sit still long enough. For a while, we heard him grinding the top and bottom teeth together, which was a creepy sound to say the least. He would grind and grind, and then look up at you and grin. 

Thanks in part to the teeth (even though they are all in the front), he is able to eat more foods. He occasionally eats small clumps of scrambled eggs. Last night he ate a whole green bean. Sometimes I get a bit of tofu down his throat. I've made him nutritious and yummy baby food that he absolutely cannot abide. The beautiful beet puree didn't go over well. Nor did the parsnip, tilapia, and chedder concoction. (That kinda bummed me out. I really thought it was tasty!) He resists many other foods still, and yet, I catch him crawling around on the floor picking up nuggets of who-knows-what and eating them. Babies are gross, did I mention that before? I just sigh, try to ensure that it's not glass or metal or choky beads or something equally dangerous, and then pray that it was some foodlike substance. 

People sometimes tease me, saying “Ah! It's the second kid. Anything goes now! You're not running around sanitizing everything!” Which is not exactly fair because I didn't sanitize much when Lucas was small either—not because I wasn't a nervous mommy. I certainly was a WRECK of a nervous mommy. But I am still and was then generally opposed to cleaning on principle. I used to clean off Lucas's dropped pacifiers by popping them in my own mouth. I don't do that for Asher. I know better now. Now I just dust it off on my jeans and pop it back in his mouth. (I can justify my behavior: My Uncle Dentist says that if you can keep your child's mouth from being inoculated with the germs that cause caries that are present in adult mouths, you might prevent tooth decay.)

I probably have more to say, but I can't think of it right now. I'm pooped and ready for bed—at 8:30 p.m.
     

Hello Darlings!

We will be throwing a Fabulous First Birthday Party for the Littlest Wilson at 11 a.m. on Sunday, February 3. Friends and family are invited, so by all means, if you feel like watching a silly baby boy eat cake for the very first time, please come and share this special celebration with us! We will serve lunch and punch, and other stuff that doesn’t rhyme with lunch.

Who: All our beautiful peeps and family members who like our kiddos

What: First Birthday Party for Asher Donovan

Where: Villa Wilsonia

When: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Why: Because Asher is super cute, and because we had a big party when Baby Lucas turned 1 back in ’03

Wishes: We would be excited and grateful if guests would bring a poem, blessing, message, prophesy, or observation to/about Baby Asher to write in his special Blessing Book. No other gifts are needed. All we need is LOVE!

Please RSVP by January 30!:   Nine One Six, Nine Six Seven, Seven Zero Four Six, or email me via Sarabella at comcast dot net

K, Bye! XXOOXOXO

My boys got me the PINKEST BIKE in the WHOLE WORLD for Christmas! It's awesome. It's called Roxie. It's a baby-girl pink Schwinn cruiser with whitewall tires. Ian and Lucas added a pink basket, a pink horn, and pinkish handlebar streamers, just to make it extra girly. To top it off, they got me a matching pink helmet to go with it.

Then Ian put Asher's baby seat on the back. It's not pink, which is probably good. I wouldn't want Asher to be embarassed about having to ride in a pink seat on a pink bike.

I'm looking forward to TONS of Good Family Fun on Bikes in the coming years. I'm anticipating lots of time on the American River Bike Trail. Picnics on the trail this spring, anyone?