Seen here with George/Jorge, my darling Cuban cousin whom I adore, with whom we mourned the loss of his wife with, recovering and living life to the fullest again. Happy. And gorgeous. And successful.
Now on the to meat of the daily matter, life back in Chez Barnas and the homeschool groove getting up and running. And It Is Good. Yes, it is. As part of our regular weekly co-op, we've joined a children's studio. Frida and Augustus take a ballet/tap/jazz class and I tell you tap has been a revelation. Is there anything as powerful as making music with your feet? Behold the hoofers~
Augustus in all his dance glory
Frida has recently taken to watching dance videos on YouTube, and interpretive dancing her way through life. Then we put her in dance and gymnastics classes and well, now she interpretive and studied dances her way through life. From the first second of the first class, Frida has been committed. I mean C-O-M-M-I-T-T-E-D. She does exactly what the instructor says to do, and watches herself do it to make sure she is doing it correctly, and her determination is visible. Last week the instructor, miss Alexandra said, Frida is a natural. She's going to be a wonderful dancer, you can see it already. Right I said?And now, may I present to you, our most fabulous newly minted four year old, flanked by his sister and cousin, wearing their oh-so-fabulous aprons from Grandma Fran? Perfection.
At our darling Eleanor's house, celebrating Augustus' birthday with the crew, simultaneously making a double batch of cupcakes for later celebrations and Allie's birthday the following day.
Magdalena opened her very delightful Princess flower garden from Uncle Neil, Aunt Tam, and the darling Ariella and is awaiting the blossoming of her flowers as we speak. And Augustus had a very astro oriented day!
We had our family celebration at our favorite park on the river, complete with magical silver stars, cake, ice cream, pressies, and much fun. It was so windy, the only way to light the special Happy Birthday candles was to do so under the table, protected from the wind. And here we are! Happy Birthday my darling son!
After an epic game of hide and seek, with some brilliant statistical maneuvering from Tita Jeanna - she used a ladder to climb a tree to hide and while not so successful because no one move the ladder, it was a very creative and innovative move; she also hid in plain sight in a group of people enjoying the park right across the sidewalk from us, brilliant and totally successful, I never saw her - hot coco with whipped cream, and a brisk fall day, we thanked the universe for a perfect day at the park and went on home.
Celebrating Allie's seven year birthday at her ballerina themed b.d. party with our regular crew.Being a homeschooling mama, I will admit that most of Magdalena's friendships have been the arranged kind, as in, I meet a mama I like, we start hanging out and homeschooling together, and tell our children - here are your friends! We are so so soooo lucky that a park very close to our house offers homeschool p.e. once a week for preschoolers, and then separated age groups of boys and girls. So there we were, on Tuesday, present for Frida and Augustus's pre-school p.e. class, and Magdalena said, but mama, who am I going to play with? Enter Marlena. Sparklie, beautiful, middle child of a family of eight children, all boys save for her, and you could practically see the sparks fly! Magdalena and Marlena hit it off bigtime. They came to me and Marlena's mama and said, y'all need to put each others phone numbers in your mobile phones because we really like each other and have sooooo much in common and want to hang out. Where's your phone? Did you get her number? Okay okay, yes darling I got it. I present Marlena, Magdalena's first made-on-her-own-friend, at their first playdate together at the zoo. And a lovely time was had by all.
Have I raved about our homeschool group lately? I mean, have I really and truly gushed about these families, these women, these children? Have I really and truly put to words the unbelievable creativity, love, respect and rhythm that these mamas provide to our children? I haven't? No, you're right, I haven't because I've been too busy living it to write about it. So let me gush. Every Monday we gather, and the rhythm begins. Led by Waldorf mama extraordinaire Jen and hosted by amazing young mama extraordinaire Eleanor, we gather. We have a few minutes of hang out and get re-acquainted after the weekend, sit and give thanks and snack on delicious wholesome protein, veggies and fruit. After a teeny bit of free time time later, the littles - four of them -get dressed out for dance class and off we go to the studio. While we're gone, the big girls do a specific art or craft or handwork project, related to whichever seasonal celebration we're acknowledging. Then the big girls dress out, go to the studio for an afternoon of ballet/tap/jazz or Spanish class, ballet, and musical theater and the little ones regroup at E's house, do the same craft or art or handwork stepped down for their little hands, and then have lots of free play time outside while us mamas hang out and usually knit, sew, cook, work on whichever project we have going on, until supper.
Here they are, working on their gorgeous wonderful quality wet-on-wet water colors of resist-wax pumpkins for our All Hallows Eve fall festival.After supper, we round up the littles, go pick up our respective bigs, and head home after a full day of creativity, community, love and learning. It is beyond words, how wonderful our day is, how beautiful the rhythm and flow, and how easily everything moves along with song and gentle words when the children have a knowledge of what is expected of them.
Earlier today I received one of the most dear phone calls I've ever gotten in my life. The phone rang, and I heard, ya know, I wanted to tell you that I realized you are one of my favorite people on the planet. And the person telling me that happened to be one of my favorite people on the planet. And she happens to be my sister, bonus.
Which got me thinking of so many of my favorite people on the earth. And got me thinking about how blessed we truly truly are. I mean, if you had told me, about 15 years ago that this would be my life, I would have probably thought you totally coo-coo. Who knew I'd be so blessed? Who knew I'd be so blissed? Who knew I'd find my way? Who knew I'd be blessed with such an amazing husband and such delicious children? Who could have predicted that one? Maybe the Magical King of Neverland, Augustus aka Peter Pan aka King Fancy Pants. And I'll leave it at that.
