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.

Today is my baby boy’s fifth birthday. I am over the moon with excitement for him. I live for this stuff, I think. Anyway, over the last several days, I’ve been scrambling to make some gifts for him.

I made these alphabet stones for him using rocks from my yard and my paints. I got this idea from a photo I saw on Pinterest, which I believe is originally from this blog. I am grateful for the fun idea. Asher is five, so I don’t know how or if he will connect with these letters yet, but even if he doesn’t, they are still fun to hold and look at. I think manipulating them to make short words will be fun, and that’s all that matters at this age.

Each stone has its lowercase letter on the other side.

Thanks to a lot of help from my mother and her nifty, first-class serger, I made this fleece dragon hat and a matching pair of mittens. I’ve never done anything like this before and the mittens in particular were challenging for me. But a more accomplished sewist (“sewer” just doesn’t look that great even though it’s correct, does it?) would have an easy time of it, I think. I just traced Asher’s hands and made a paper pattern, adding a good 1/2 inch for the seem. I also made the wrist portion wider to ensure that he could get his hand into the mittens. Fortunately, fleece is slightly stretchy and it’s pretty dreamy to sew because it doesn’t fray, so you don’t have to be as nitpicky as with other fabrics. BUT—like I said, we serged these! And my goodness, what a dream of a machine that is! This was the very first time my mama let me touch her serger. (Machines and I don’t always see eye to eye.)

OK, the back of the mittens look best. Anyway, he went off to school this morning wearing them!

And finally, here is a crayon holder I made for his brand-new birthday block crayons. We have block crayons in this house, but technically they belong to Lucas. I thought Asher might like to have his own and a special place to keep them safe. (I don’t know if he WILL keep them safe, but with the crayon holder’s pockets he COULD.)

This item has 22 wee pockets, with six that are empty now so he could add to it later. And to be honest, I still have to sew a ribbon tie on one end of the crayon holder before I can wrap this up. So, I’d better go do that.

Today is for writing, wrapping, baking a cake, and baking a class set of muffins for tomorrow’s Kindergarten celebration. Tonight we’ll have a small family celebration with Asher’s choice of dinners—Daddy’s stir fry with Chinese noodles.

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.

Ian

I am grateful for …

your humor

your smile

your ceaseless, devoted love

your boundless curiosity and need to know

your intelligence and courage

the way you hold me at night and I melt into you

how I can always find safety in your arms

your tireless caretaking and delicious cooking

the way you will play Legos for hours, create movies and games, build with, cook with, read to

and otherwise spend time with our children

they soak up every moment with you

the way you do the things I don’t want to do because you want to spare me

the way shield me from news or stories that will hurt me

our sweet children,

with all their random noises and sticky fingers and smelly feet

how they are intense and playful

learn every moment,

and trust that their world is safe and beautiful

because it is

they are the gifts we gave to and share with each other

and they crack open my heart to make it bigger every day

our health

and healthy relationships

our community of creative darlings

and loving family

how we are nestled in among all these loving people

who share with us their stories and wisdom and passions

our beautiful, wacky home

with its hundreds of colors and clutter of goofy, artistic treasures

its happy memeories

its fullness and warmth

its laughter and chaos and rhythms

how it always has enough

the way we are always filling it up with our friends

the garden, which is our labor of love

that pleases me with each blossom and every leaf

and reminds me to celebrate small things

These things, and so many more, are my blessings and I’m grateful for all that we are and all that we have built together—for so many of my blessings circle back to you, my love.

These photos are glorious shots taken my my dear friend Tate at Ian’s 40th birthday hike—at the beginning of last month. I’m grateful to Tate for taking them and letting me share them here.

Acorn led us on a local hike to Lake Natomas, created by the Nimbus Dam along the American River. He haunts this area a lot and knows where to find the Indian grinding rocks and sunbathing turtles.

It was a warm October day and both the kids and Suki the dog enjoyed brief splashes in the water.

Several friends were able to join us and it was a fun way to spend the day. It felt great to get outside and picnic together.

Sun hats for everyone!

Any day the kids get to wear their camelbaks is a good one in their view.

If I forgot to say it before, many thanks to those that came to celebrate Ian’s birthday with us. We had an epic weekend of fun and friends.

These are my fellas in their Halloween costumes: the all-colorful Rainbow Dragon and the Invisible-Like-the-Night Ninja. They were both pleased as punch with their costumes.

This Rainbow Dragon costume is a great triumph for me. I sprayed with fabric paint a white sweat suit (used for last year’s Hedwig the owl costume!). It was slow-going with little pump-spray bottles and I did it over many days to let all the sections dry in between.

The day of Halloween — heaps of work and a family wedding prevented me from doing this any sooner — I sewed the tail, spine plates, and wings from a yard and a half of rainbow batik cotton. It was quite a feat of engineering for me and I was very happy to be able to show my design plan to my dear Ritsa, a magnificent professional costumer, and get her OK and encouragement. I feel like my spatial thinking and ability to plan in 3D is somewhat lacking.

Anyway, the tricky sewing parts for me were 1) threading the machine (as always), and 2) figuring out how to sew the spines into the single dorsal seam of the tail so that all the fabric was right side out. The spines/plates are stuffed with wool to make them puffy. To make the tail stand out from Asher’s body, I bent a coat hanger into an oval to set against his back with a long wire to hold the tail up. Thanks for the suggestion, Ritsa! Then I stuffed the tip of the tail with wool roving and the rest with plastic air pillows that are used for shipping. The result was full and delightfully lightweight, and I love that the tail curls at the end. The whole rig just ties around his waist.

I did a fair amount of inelegant hand-sewing, too. The wings are tacked on in four places each with sloppy stitches.The spines on the back of the sweatshirt are attached by running stitches almost an inch long. I really had to hurry to finish! I painted the mask with my trusty craft acrylics and stuck on sticky rainbow jewels. I literally finished this costume 20 minutes before we had to leave for our visit to the Pumpkin Path.

We had just enough time to get a few photos before leaving. I was so thrilled to see that Asher loved it!

Lucas had mentioned several times over the last year that he wanted to be a ninja for Halloween. As we got closer to the date, that decision wavered a few times. We looked at costumes in the Halloween store and he felt they were all kind of creepy. But then we found the ninja kit: Lucas got to buy a kit with a plastic sword and sais, a throwing star, and a fancy hood. We cobbled the other pieces of his costume together from his wardrobe and the thrift store. Ian dyed the belt blackish on the stovetop. I tell you, in the night, that kid disappeared!

The Sacramento Waldorf School Pumpkin Path this year was fun as always. The children went on a quest to find the pirates who had stolen King Neptune’s treasure. Along the way, they encountered mermaids, the Lady of the Lake, sea dragons, an explorer, a shark, and more. Some of Lucas’s and Asher’s classmates were in our group, so that was fun.

At each story station, the kids received a gift, such as a gem or a bit of soap or a seashell. There are few things in the world cuter than a bunch of kids in costumes.

The path was lined with jacks of all types and paper luminaries that glowed in the dusk. There were yummy treats to eat at the end.

Then we met up with Grandma and our newlywed aunt and uncle and some friends and trick-or-treated in our neighborhood. Lots of neighbors get into the spirit of Halloween and decorate with lights and creepy things. We finally visited a giant Frankenstein statue that Asher has been obsessed with for weeks. Yes, it is indeed a giant doll. Only a doll.

Sweet X was a shiny, sparkly dragon. Two dragons and a ninja!

The kids scored loads of candy, which we will soon be giving up to the Halloween Fairy. Asher couldn’t walk all the way home and fell asleep on Daddy’s back and shoulders.

We were greeted at home by our three Jacks and fell into bed, satisfied and happy.

[Shared with Saturday’s Artist on Ordinary Life Magic.]

Darling boy, I usually reserve these letters for birthdays. But I feel the need to write you today, on your first day of fourth grade, and tell you how proud I am of you. You are embarking on what I’m certain is going to be an amazing year. I see your skills blooming every day, and I know that you are ready to take on the world. I am delighted in your many interests. I am astounded by your can-do attitude. I think you have wowed me every day of your life.

I know that some things come easily for you—being creative and solving problems are your superpowers, I think. I also know that you’re going to have to learn some new skills, new discipline, and good habits that will carry your natural talents to the next level. You will be tasked with bigger projects and more involved work. Homework is part of our journey this year. Spelling tests will continue. I am not sure how to teach you to care about these things; I hope that you will automatically, now that you’re older. I am not saying that it’s good to live or die by these things (certainly my own obsession with grades often worked against my best interests). But I do want you to strive. How does a parent teach that?

I don’t know. We’ll be learning together, that much is sure. Our collective brilliance will need some focus this year, of that I am certain. My hope is that we can learn to work effectively together in this new way.

I love you. Here we go!

Mama

The boys and I made another batch of jam last week, which was Week 11 of summer vacation. You see, we mamas must be creative to survive summertime. We must also do our best to create and squeeze sweet moments out of these long, warm days at home.

I wish I could say we plucked all of these strawberries from our garden, but we don’t grow enough berries to make that possible. I also wish I could say they were organic berries, but alas, they weren’t. They were the next best thing: on sale!

What is absolutely wonderful, however, is that my kiddos and I worked together on this project. Lucas and Asher were great about chopping all the strawberries. (Getting to use real knives is a thrill for them.) Their cooperation and good natures made this such a fun activity. I just love how capable and helpful they are these days! They got to decide on the sweetener for our low-sugar jam—they picked honey!

The chickens benefited, too.

We call this Mama and Sons’ Strawberry Honey Love Jam. Good name, no?

I’ve already written about how my gorgeous, generous friends gave me oil painting classes for my birthday here and here. I figured I’d better report on how things are going.

I LOVE IT.

This was my first setup, in a too-dark shot taken by my cell phone, which doesn’t capture even half the necessary composition, beauty, perspective, color, or light that made up these sunflowers.

This is my finished painting (and a detail is at the very top). See how I avoided those wicked stripes? Too hard!

In class, my makeshift palette box (glass from my fridge shelf that broke in a pizza box) stands near my borrowed easel. I try really hard not to knock stuff onto the floor. I have a new brush cleaning jar with a fancy coil thingy that’s supposed to keep my brushes in good shape. I used some old cadmium yellow light paint that my Nana had; I had to squeeze hard to get it out of the tube, then it squirted everywhere. So far, there’s little grace involved. Still, painting is challenging and thought-provoking in the most delicious way.

Here is my second painting in progress; the photo was taken at the end of the third class. I had too much solvent on my canvas by the middle of this class, so my paint wouldn’t stick properly, especially on the vase. I was still working out my background color. During the second session working on this painting (fourth class), that wasn’t the case and I was able to finish it.

This is what the studio looks like. There’s my second (silk flower) setup in the lower middle.

My teacher and my classmates are very supportive and said kind things. I’m very happy with this painting, all things considered! Can’t wait to do more. I think my brain is growing and my eyes are seeing more.