mamaroots

all full of wiggles

we lucked out with a windy but nice day today for Root Children!  Thanks to everyone for coming today and celebrating both the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the 6th birthday of our friend Kai!  We all enjoyed making some clothespin caterpillars and eating one of The Very Hungry Caterpillars favorite foods- strawberries!

 

 

Download Spring Cocoons

As mentioned a bit earlier in March- The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the inspiration for both the Root Children and the Once Upon a Table Story Project.  The project this month is pretty fiber arts centered.  The Spring Cocoon is a fun project to do with your kiddos.  Jasper loves the knitting tower and both boys enjoy wet felting.  This project includes a caterpillar and butterfly that snuggly fit inside a nice cocoon!  I have had alot of fun developing this pattern over the past few weeks in stages.  Needless to say there has been bits and pieces of wool left around and about the house!  But this is all done in time for the switch to spring on our Story Table.

 

 

I hope you enjoy it and I was having fun with some new stamps I got a few months ago that I have been waiting to use, this is a wee little giveaway for you.  This is a little wooden card set of the transformation of the butterfly cycle.  Wood stamped with the same fantastic ink I have been using for for a long time specially made for wood and fabric and all non-toxic and kid safe.  It is simple little set to go with your story cocoon! Just leave me a comment and let me know how you like the new Once Upon A Table pattern and you will be entered into the drawing.  Break out the wool and have fun!

Entries until midnight April 4, boys will do the honors of drawing a name- winner will be announced April 6- good luck!

mystery and light for mama earth

Last night during Earth Hour we got home from a dinner just in time to turn out all the lights and illuminate the house with candles for bedtime reading.  It reminded me how strong the shadows are when you use candles and how I was actually quite afraid of the dark when I was little.  The boys have gotten this from me as they seemed a bit nervous with the darkness in the house.  But we all huddled close together for our chapter from Edward Tulane and we got to the chapter where Edward become Susanna and it seemed to bring humor to the darkness.  I am really intrigued by the character development of Edward- what an interesting rabbit.

I fell asleep for the remaining of Earth Hour but my hubby said it best, he thought it sent a good message to the worlds leaders about energy consumption, but it really had its most effect as a subtle reminder to us as the worlds people to just turn our lights off more often.

I awoke from a lovely long nights sleep to a call from a friend in labor and was able to light one more candle this morning.  A tradition of blessingways is that candles can be lite by women in attendance to continue support for the mama.  In joy I lite the candle this morning next to a sculpture I made a few years ago along with my healing bracelet from my first birth.  As she rides in the mystery of birth today it reminds me of the those powerful common roots of becoming a mama . . .

8:30 pm

Break out the candles- tonight is Earth Hour- what will you be doing??

wooden toes!

It is probably no surprise to you that I love wood!  The feel, the smell, the weight, the earthiness of it.  I am also a bit of a sentamental gal and hold onto objects and their associations with them.  Last year I just about missed out on an opportunity to have a really special piece of wood.  There is this table that was given to my older sis when she married her hubby wow almost 19 years ago.  This table was my grandma and grandpapa's table.  My grandpapa died a few months after my sister got married and my grandma sold the family farm and many of the objects with it.  I was single and in college at the time so not as interested in family furniture.

Fast forward to a couple years ago and my sis who had moved away was moving back and had a different dining room that the table did not fit.  It sat in her garage for a while and then she talked to me about giving it to us.  Can you believe I hesitated, I am so happy she gave it to us.  Especially when I found out this was not just my grandma's table, but my great grandma's table whom I was named after!  Now we have had the table since last summer and I love curling my toes on the wooden lion toes just as much as I did when I was little, they are just easier to reach now that I am the mama, and my son's join me as we all love to be bare foot!

Sometimes I sit there amazed at just what this old table has experienced and heard from my family- that is some serious roots! 

calling home

I came across this really interesting story about a gal and her dream house.  It was really interesting to read about this "small house" movement.  I don't think I could leave my house, which is actually a fairly small vintage ranch style house.  But this definitely led me on the hunt of looking at this style of house for making my plans for our wood and pottery workshop for the future.  I love the simplicity and style of this movement.

Here is an awesome blog about small houses which then lead me to this other spot with actual plans for small houses- gotta love the internet!

All of this house energy reminded me that I wanted to share some house sweetness the I got from Etsy, these are some incredibly fun buttons that came all the way from Italy- I am still not quite sure what we will make with these, but a fun tapestry is calling with them!  They are from Etsy shop popcorn tree.

Our other house was a sweet gift from woodmouse.  I was fortunate to get a couple of her great cell phones for the boys Easter baskets before she takes an extended family break for her growing family- these are fantastic and we love our sweet house!  She has just a couple phones left before- get them while you can they are so fun!

clearing it out . .

Spring cleaning definitely is done for a reason- the season makes me want to throw open all the windows now that I have all functioning windows in my house and sweep out the winter and usher in the fresh and new! 

We finishing adjusting and rearranging from our remodel and getting ready to redo the boys rooms finally with new paint and curtains!   I was excited to come across this new paint by Benjamin Moore that I am going to use in their rooms.  I found it in this new magazine boho that I have been enjoying.  It is a kinda an eco-chic mag with a green edge to it.  The paint is a waterborne, non-toxic VOC free paint called Nutra!  I think we finally decided on a blue/green color scheme on alternating walls in their rooms and I found some fun polka dot fabric that picks up both the red and green of their antique beds!

I usually don't cleanse or fast until summer, but I am feeling the need this spring.   I found this tonic on Etsy that I am going to order for physical cleanse and then this weekend some friends and I are doing checking into some past life intuitive reports for a more spiritual cleansing.  Break out those brooms it is time to sweep! 

Only a mama could love . . .

We enjoyed springing into action this weekend!  The boys were both so helpful on Saturday as we went to The Womb Room and they helped me pick up the winter trash from the yard and ready the space for our Spring Swap we did yesterday.  They both were great helpers and even found a couple cool old bottles in the woods!

The swap yesterday was just so lovely!  The sun peaked out and I had a great time hanging out and sharing in some spring swaping with great friends.  Jasper had worked so hard in the morning finishing up his goodies to swap.  He discovered speckling his wood toys he was making!  As we were making toys together it meant a few of my toys got some "freckles" also!  We use a big table in our art area to work on- here is a tip get a used dining room table and cut those legs down and presto you have a sturdy art table kid sized!  I was fortunate to have one given to me a few years ago when my big sis moved back to this area. 

As I watched Jasper work on this "eggy monster" I secretly was hoping that no one would swap him for it, as I secretly wanted it!  Joined with our friends we shared lemonaid, laughs, and hugs and I was able to swap for a family photo shot from my friend Amy, some super cutie crochet cupcakes from my friend Kim, a pedicure from my friend Mikayla (yay!) and when it was all said an done and we were back home cheering on my Alma Mata Tigers play b-ball I asked Jasper to swap an elf for his Eggy Monster- I think it was something only this mama could love and I adore it!

   

 

Thanks all for such a great time!  Wish our culture swaped more, a very wise woman shared story with me about a shift in some areas of Mexico where money was being paid for services instead of goods, "now why not just take some chickens and eggs - what are you going to do with the money except buy some chickens and eggs"- wise words indeed!

Here are some more pictures from the Swap and our first week in spring!  I will be updating the shop this week with a few rabbits with freckles and more birthday candle holders!

Tweet Tangle!

The boys were up just about as fast as a Christmas morning today to run to the beautiful walnut tree that hangs over our deck we affectionately named "Tangle's Tree". Squeals of joy as my barefoot boys in their jammies run out and retrieve their tweet presents! 6:30 in the morning and the boys are shouting "thank you Tangle" into our woods!
 

For those of you who are new to reading mamaroots Tangle Goblinwand is our resident fairy that lives in our woods and helps us celebrate the seasonal change with small presents. This was a tradition we brought into our family when Jasper was just a baby and by the joy of fairy dust he is still believing just as much now at 7 and half as he did at 2! Here in lies the tricky part- my boys recognize my wooden toys so I often will buy other wonderful wood animals for me-err I mean Tangle to give- these cuties are Ostheimer birds.   I hope your first day was just as lovely as ours! Tweet spring tidings to you!!

 

read in the season!

Good bye old man winter- welcome in Mrs. Thaw!  The snow and winter props are leaving the story and nature tables tomorrow.  I am slipping into my fairy guise and getting ready to sneak out the sweet wood gifties from Tangle.  Weather forecast looks good- I think the presents can hang from Tangle's tree tonight!

Download Springreading

 

Before I go to bed as Tangle I wanted to share a spring reading list with you.  I started the list last year, but added some fresh fun books from this year.  Okay seriously I promise that my PDF's will get better for you.  I spent a couple hours trying to get the hyperlinks to work on each title but to no avail so just a fun list to print off and take to the library on a spring walk tomorrow.  T minus 1 month,2 days till my Adobe class!  Thanks for your patience!

Enjoy the seasonal change, take a walk and read under a tree for me!  I highly recommend The Princess in the Forest- such a sweet refreshing alternative to Disney princess stories.  So sweet! 

belly songs . . .

I wanted to take another post and reflect on a recent experience I had at The Womb Room.  Two beautiful first time mama's to be started coming to The Womb Room last month- it was so joyous to see these amazing bellies together!  A couple weeks ago we planned a henna blessings for these mamas and was only able to done one belly as one of the little new babies made an early entrance into the world!

Doing the henna on the belly was just fantastic- I feel the need and urge to continue you this in my life and feel so blessed that I was asked to help with this event!  Not to mention that the henna she had was great quality.  I found a great e-book that we used for the pattern and it is really fun.  Any local mamas want to volunteer for me to henna your belly holler!

The love and excitement was full and beautiful there!  Here are some amazing photos that my very talented friend Amy took- they bring tears to my eyes!

The following week after the henna blessing at crafty mamas I had the joy of seeing the henna belly again and also the complete joy of meeting the wee baby of the other beautiful mama.  What a treat!  To have recently met these 2 young women both pregnant and to then be in the presence of now one of those mothers with her baby in arms and then the other so close to her birth journey was fantastic! 

Another belly caught my eye, actually through music- I was listening to another fantastic children's music CD and looking at the picture and remembered that one of the musicians has these fantastic belly pictures while she is composing song- check out the media link on her website and look at that belly!

It certainly is a big ol beautiful world, though my pregnant days are done, I love basking in the beauty of the belly song!