A New Favorite

October has long been my favorite month for many reasons, our wedding anniversary being one of them. We celebrated our 26th a few weeks ago and took a day trip to hike and get dinner out. It was a perfect, quiet day together. We gathered acorns for Ambrose who was at the time working through an obsession with them. I must say this has been easier to live with than his egg obsession was. That one got messy at times. In addition to the acorns for Ambrose, I came home ready to make adorable little acorn cap candles using this tutorial.

Let’s be honest, these aren’t actually useful, but they are really cute. I love cute things.

I got inspired by another tutorial and now have a bunch of leaves in my flower presses to make little leaf notebooks with. I’m really in the mood for making things, and not necessarily practical things.

Larkspur made a dinosaur head for Ambrose’s Halloween costume that was pretty impressive, I thought. I can’t get excited about Halloween myself, so it’s good my younger kids have older siblings who are into dressing up!

I did help Mabel put her fox costume together, but that was pretty simple.

Please note Ambrose holding out two fingers for his T Rex claws.

But, back to my favorite month. I’m feeling a shift this year. Maybe it’s because by the time I noticed it was October, the month was almost over. I am loving November this year and the way it straddles fall and winter so beautifully. I love the mix of bare trees with those still hanging on to their leaves, the oaks, the beeches, and the occasional flaming yellow hickory. I love that there are still flowers blooming including this volunteer columbine that must be confused about the season. I love the white throated sparrows that recently arrived and are usually scattered about my front garden when I wake up in the morning. My bird feeders are there in my garden, just outside the window of our school room and I like to peek out the window as soon as I wake up to see who is visiting. Keats has made that room his sleeping quarters, so I have to be quiet.

We have two November birthdays at our house. First, Job turned 11. I managed to surprise him with some of his gifts and Jonny took him out to lunch and then the skatepark. Job is so sweet and easy to please.

Wanting a new birthday tradition for grandchildren, I bought wooden numbers and little animals to go with this wooden spiral that I already had. My younger kids insisted that they would need this at their birthdays as well, so I bought an extra “1” to make eleven for Job. I guess we can start a new tradition for everyone!

I’ve started knitting Christmas gifts. I got off to a really good start but I’m already falling behind schedule. I’m wanting to do more homemade this year and really hope I can get it all finished!

Beatrix turned 16 on the 16th and had a big party. We had maybe the most teenagers in our house that we ever have. It was great fun and of course I loved it partly (mostly?) because it meant the house and yard had to be cleaned up in preparation. Parties are great that way.

Beatrix insisted on the birthday spiral as well, but was so distracted by all her guests that we never actually lit the candles! She had a great birthday and that’s what matters!

I’d like to say that now things will quiet down for a bit, but in addition to fast approaching Advent and Christmas, we have Mabel’s Nutcracker performance coming up in early December (and alllllllll the rehearsals) followed by an outpatient surgery for Jonny that is going to take him out for a little while. He has torn ligaments in one of his feet and will be on crutches for two weeks following surgery and then a boot for eight weeks. He’s scrambling to finish projects, but at some point will have to call it quits for a couple of months. We are not in a good season for accomplishing projects.

Thankfully, I finished my little yarn dyeing project and these skeins will be listed in my shop tomorrow (Saturday the 23rd) at 11 am ET. There are other skeins of naturally dyed yarn as well. I also will have my Christmas Eve and other holiday favorite soaps available, handmade herbal sachets, and Jonny even made a stack of live edge cherry cutting boards that are really gorgeous! I will send out an email to subscribers tomorrow when everything goes live!