We had a little pumpkin carving party last night. It started with an impromptu play date with R. She and Lucas got in my car at the end of the school day and immediately started clamoring to play together. Why not? Luckily, R’s mother said yes!

They obliged me with this sweet photo. Both Lucas and Asher love it when R comes to play!

Meanwhile, I made vegetable soup with all kinds of goodness: butternut squash, leeks, onions, peas, garbanzos, carrots, parsnips, celery, beet greens and rice. I baked bread, too. The house smelled terrific!

Later on, more friends joined us for a potluck and some jack-o’-lantern fun. Anytime Lucas gets to use a knife, he’s happy. (He’s asking when he can have a pocket knife for whittling. Yikes!)

Here he his working on a pumpkin that we grew in our garden!

R’s ghostly pumpkin turned out great. Parnassus helped X out with his.

Asher drew his pumpkin’s face and I carved it for him. Too cute.

The talented Miss T, aka Snow, worked hard to make the grossest jack possible. She’s planning to spill the pumpkin guts out of her jack-o’-lantern’s mouth, as if it’s throwing up. Yuck

Didn’t manage to get everyone in the frame here, but I think you can tell we had some fun. Later the Blooms showed up and we all ate a yummy dinner. Much thanks to Parnassus for the yummy salad, green beans, and pumpkin pies! Frostee got to satisfy a craving for pancakes in honor of her grandfather.

And the Giants won.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Lucas and I have been working on this Halloween wreath for our door for a couple of weeks, felting one item at a time. We used a generic fall wreath of preserved leaves and pinecones that I bought, oh, two or three years ago, and started adding hand-made decorations to it. We were so casual about it that we haven’t even permanently fixed the ghosties and jack-o’-lanterns to it. We’re just letting the leaves and sticks kind of catch the wool fibers and hold our little fellows in place. Lucas made some creepy black spiders out of chenille wires and they finished the whole thing off beautifully.

I must credit Jen at Ancient Hearth for the ghost idea; she created a great tutorial to make these. Give it a try! They’re easy!

Near the end of the day of the Harvest Faire, Ian was working in the candle dipping room and Lucas was making a candle. Asher and I got to wander a bit through the school farm.

We visited the sheep, llama, chickens, cow, and pony. We watched the American River tumble by where the sheep were grazing.

It was pretty rainy at this point, but the farm didn’t mind so neither did we. We looked at the beautiful crops and flowers growing, and the artwork that graces the fields.

We also wandered back through the school, where the Faire was winding up. Here is the fruit of the paper marbling booth, hanging out to dry. Lucas and Daddy got to do this as their last activity of the day. Aren’t they beautiful? We have to pick Lucas’s paper up at the school office since it was too wet to take home that day.

Here is a pot that the potter threw during a demonstration earlier in the day. There was a huge crowd of children and parents watching him work.

Some more scenes  from our day: the xylophone and candle used during the puppet show; morning glories growing on the farm; and one shot from the horse vaulting demonstration.

This is the mermaid candle decoration I mentioned in my last post. This little girl was very patient to make such a tiny, intricate design.

This boy is making walnut-shell sailboats.

Lucas’s teacher, Ms. D, made this Welcome chalk drawing.

I wish I had photos of Lucas and X shooting bows, but alas I was elsewhere while they were doing that. All in all, it was a perfect day, lacking only blue skies. When we got home we were all exhausted and fulfilled.

We had a marvelous day Saturday at the Sacramento Waldorf School’s Harvest Faire. I was delighted to be asked to shoot photos at the festival. So many amazing and talented people worked tirelessly to pull off this community event and fundraiser. Their dedication and attention to detail is visible in every scene I shot.

Welcome to the Sacramento Waldorf School Harvest Faire!

This is Asher’s dear friend S, who goes to preschool with him. They had such fun in the Kindergarten yard, running and playing follow the leader. We saw two other dear preschool friends there, too. Asher was over the moon!

Asher got to see the puppet play of George and the Dragon, performed in the Kindergarten. It was delightful.

I was so honored to be allowed to take pictures during the puppet show performance. These dedicated women (plus the narrator who is not pictured) are the Kindergarten teachers. They infuse love and light in everything they do.

The Children’s Store was full of inexpensive treasures for the little ones to buy, either for themselves or for their loved ones. Many of the items were handmade.

The Country Store was also full of lovely items, much of them handcrafted. Jams, honey, hats, decorations, toys, games, clothing, artworks, yarns and supplies—you name it. Here’s my Harvest Mother in the foreground, who sold early and for a good price, and the room’s nature table in the background.

The third grade parents offered beeswax candle dipping to Harvest Faire guests. (I got to help with setup on Friday, and Ian did two shifts on Saturday.) Candle dippers walked in a large circle, dipping their candlewicks in warm beeswax and then walking a few paces to let it cool, dipping in cool water, walking a few paces and then repeating. After a while, you have a nice candle that you can decorate. I saw one little girl pressing tiny seed beads into her fresh candle, to make a little mermaid design.

Paints for gourd painting: I’m kind of sorry I didn’t get more shots of this booth, as I’m sure some colorful gourds were made.

There was a whole room dedicated to showing off Waldorf students’ schoolwork. Every grade was represented, including high school subjects like chemistry and humanities.

The vendors were terrific this year and I’m sorry I didn’t have the funds for serious shopping. These carved Halloween gourds are the work of a friend, Miss Katy. They’re boo-tiful.

One booth was decorating a fairy scene. Children could make a little fairy doll and then glue special trinkets like shells, jewels, and tiny pumpkins onto the scene.

Basket of fairy wreaths. You could make your own!

Asher had a wonderful time! He was my little Acorn Boy that day, sporting grandma’s knits.

The ninth grade sold produce from the school farm and other local organic farms—a kind of mini farmers’ market in the Faire.

This is the Festivals Room, which was a display of all the seasons of the year and the various festivals celebrated in Waldorf schools and homes. Some loving volunteers put this together and it was magical.

Autumn scene from the Festivals Room.

Lucas and X got to play tag and be rowdy for a while. These two get along so beautifully. Later, they got to shoot a bow!

There was so much more. I might just indulge in another post.

My son wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween. He’s been adamant about it for several months, and frankly, Harry’s cool, so we’re down with this idea. In early October, much to our surprise, Lucas approached his grandmother and asked, “Grandma, will you please knit me a gray sweater for my Harry Potter costume?”

Nine days and three yarn shops later (looking for the right gray yarn), Grandma Sydney showed up with this gem. How’s that for grandmotherly love and kickass knitting skillz? If only Harry himself were so lucky as to have such a grandma.

Ian found this super Gryffindor House tie at a thrift shop and it goes perfectly. We still have more work to do on this costume, but this is a magnificent start!

I will have more precious autumn picture books to share and recommend in the coming weeks, but since Halloween is fast approaching, I thought I’d do a roundup of some of our favorite Halloween stories. Beware when shopping for Halloween books. There’s a lot of junk out there. Seriously, if it’s a TV or movie character starring in a Halloween book, skip it.

I promise none of these books are scary. My older son is too sensitive (thus far) for scary Halloween stories. And Asher really doesn’t like “keepy guys.”

Clockwise:

Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom — This comical story, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, about a friendly witch who drops one thing after another off her broom while she’s flying is full of fun rhymes and cutsey animals. Each time she drops an item, such as her wand or hat, a friendly creature finds it and returns it, and thereafter becomes a traveling companion. The group does finally meet a scary dragon, but through their adventures, broom-riding friends become fearsome enough themselves to frighten that dragon away. As this book is fairly wordy for a picture book, I’d say it’s perfect for 4- to 8-year-olds. This is a Nice Witch Book, of which I am in favor, speaking as a grown woman who had many, many nightmares about witches when I was a small girl.

Kevin Lewis’s The Runaway Pumpkin — This Halloween picture book illustrated by S. D. Schindler is an all-time favorite in our house. Lewis has a gift for rhythm, and his refrain robustly beats off the page predictably and dramatically. I challenge you to read this book to your kids without slapping your thigh or tapping your toe in time. After finding the most giant pumpkin ever grown and rolling it homeward, the three children of this extended family get more than they bargained for! It’s all good in the end, because grandma cooks up delicious pumpkin goodies—just in time for Halloween.

Mary Serfozo’s Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin — Illustrated by Valerie Petrone, this book is great book for toddlers. It’s simple and sweet, and full of yumpcious, made-up words. The tiger goes looking for the perfect pumpkin for his jack-o’-lantern, and finds it, of course.

Norman Bridwell’s The Witch Next Door and Other Stories — This collection of four Witch Next Door stories by the creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog is a classic. It must be, right?—because I read these stories when I was a kid. A good witch moves into a “normal” neighborhood and quickly teaches everyone a thing or two about being good and neighborly. It gets my approval because it’s another Nice Witch Book and always has my boys (3 and 8 ) laughing.

Peter Glassman’s My Working Mom — OK, I admit I bought this one on lark when Lucas was less than a year old. Yes, it’s another Nice Witch Book. The little girl in the story explains how it can sometimes be challenging when you have a mom who works, especially when Mom’s busy and her job is kinda weird. Yes, it appeals to me on so many levels. Eventually, the little girl in the story comes to realize it’s kinda cool to have such an interesting mom, who has her hands in so many … cauldrons. Cute and funny. Not scary, although Mom’s cooking is … adventurous, and Career Day at school has never been so fun.

Two more favorites:

Tasha Tudor’s Pumpkin Moonshine — First copyrighted in 1938, this is a sweet story about a Sylvie Ann who picks a fine pumpkin to make a pumpkin moonshine, but it rolls out of control down the hill! Perhaps this book was Lewis’s inspiration for The Runaway Pumpkin. If you’re fond of books set in “simpler times,” this is a lovely addition to any young child’s library.

Lauren Thompson’s Mouse’s First Halloween — A great first Halloween book for babies and preschoolers. Illustrated by Buket Erdogan, this book explores all kinds of things Mouse thinks are spooky, only to find that they are really “Not so scary after all.” We have the board book edition and it has served us well.

If you have read all this way, you might be asking yourself why we have so many Halloween books. (My husband might be asking that also.) Here’s part of the reason: In our home, after Halloween, the Candy Fairy visits in the night. If we leave out candy for the Candy Fairy to feed to her children, she leaves a little gift in its place.

Happy reading!

With a Twist …

“We thank you for our day,
We thank you for our friends and family,—”

“—Especially Daddy!”

“Yes. We thank you for each other,—”

“—Especially Daddy!”

“We thank you for our good health,—”

“—Especially Daddy!”

“We thank you for our big, beautiful earth,—”

“—Especially Daddy!”

“And we thank you for our rest.”

“Especially Daddy!”

“Especially Daddy. Blessed be.”

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

My baby left this morning wearing Ian’s 20-year-old backpack covered in European country patches. It was stuffed with his gear and bigger than him.

“I feel like the tortoise who won the race. No wonder he went slowly!” Lucas said, staggering under its weight.

He’s off with his third-grade class for a first-ever overnight camping trip. They are going to Full Belly Farm, an organic farm in Capay (which must be really close to the farm we went to last weekend). The whole class will be sleeping in tents. It’s going to be awesome.

I am so proud of Lucas. Today, I truly feel that the time does fly by. Wasn’t it only a few months ago that I was holding his hand as we marched for the first time into the Kindergarten?

The anticipation of this class trip was hard on him. Lucas was pretty nervous and asked me more than once, “Do I have to go?” He cried and worried. It’s so hard to find the right balance between being compassionate about his emotional turmoil and being encouraging yet firm. No, I’m not going to let him skip this amazing class trip because he’s afraid of it. He is ready, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Does that make me mean? That’s mothering for you—I’m part Mom, part Sensei.

I just kept telling him how much fun he was going to have, how busy he and his classmates would be, and how it’s OK to feel nervous about things. “You’ll be fine! Lots of people will be there to take care of you,” I told him. I also know that Lucas is a wonderful caregiver, and so we role-played how he would act if he found one of his classmates was having a hard time and feeling sad and homesick. He came up with wonderful strategies for making that friend feel better. I think that made him feel empowered and competent.

I made sure Lucas has both phone numbers so he can call home if he needs to. The teachers said that would be fine. We packed a little lavender-scented pillow I made him for Valentine’s Day; something he can sleep with if he’s feeling homesick.

The worry he has been feeling the last couple of days seemed this morning to have been outstripped by his excitement. He happily trudged out the door—no tears, no bargaining, no hesitation. Just an 8 1/2-year-old boy with places to go and friends to meet.

Courage is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway. This trip seems to me to have just the right degree of challenge, the right ratio of fear to reward. And of course, it has everything to do with their third-grade curriculum, studying gardening and grains.

(These are partial-page scans from his Gardening and Grains lesson book. My scanner isn’t big enough to capture the whole page.)

I love this Waldorf curriculum. I love that my son gets to spend a day and a night on a working farm that is using sustainable practices and raising sheep for wool. I love that he knows where his food comes from. I love that part of school for him is fresh air and sunshine, digging in the mud and planting seeds, and swimming in a pond. I love that his physical and spiritual development are carefully considered in addition to his academic aptitude and achievement; that the health and unity of the class as a whole is considered. I love that he is challenged with tasks that are a trifle scary and difficult, and supported while he faces his fears and overcomes obstacles. I feel he is being nourished every day by these qualities and so many more that I can’t even put into words.

I’m just so full of gratitude, and hoping he has a wonderful time.