Spring flowers seemed to come and go in a week this year with yo-yo weather making the flowers bloom early, and over quickly. We were lucky that the week of Spring break was the peak of the cherry trees blooming and so we made a trip to Branch Brook Park to enjoy the blossoms. This […]
We have a favorite toy in our home at the moment that is the source of much creative play and so I am going to introduce you to our unicorn. I designed and needle felted this unicorn from scratch and since finishing it the unicorn has been within reach more often than not. Currently unicorn […]
Happy May Day! One of my favorite times of year, the celebration of fertility, and of new life. Our May Day began with rising early and dressing quickly so we could go out and pick flowers to fill May Day baskets. Last night we made some simple cone shaped baskets out of cereal boxes from the […]
It has been a quiet week here on the blog…last week was Spring break for Maya’s school and so our days were busy. Now a rainy and cold Monday morning, with Maya back to school, it is the perfect moment to sit and re-cap. We were very lucky with the weather for Spring break with […]
Have you heard the news, yep we are getting chickens! Chickens, chickens, CHICKENS! Can you detect my excitement? I have been dreaming of raising chickens for a while, and now that we are settled we can finally commit to them. You might remember during the first weeks of moving to Montclair we found ourselves chicken […]
So hear we are back to the beach again…this time visitng Evans Head. Evans, as locals call it is a small coastal town half hour drive south of Ballina. It is about the same distance as driving to Byron from Ballina, but the other direction – heading south down the coast. It is sandwiched between two […]
This time last week we were celebrating Spring with an Easter party. I invited the families in our street with small children and some of our friends. We could not have asked for a nicer day, the sun shone brightly, and our Easter party was lovely in so many ways. I decorated the dogwood tree […]
A few weeks ago our family became a part of something special that has changed our life. That something special was Sparkle Stories. We are often looking for calm and gentle ways teach our children, and we are often looking for ways to teach or children to be calm and gentle – Sparkle Stories does […]
Some things I make for decoration, some things I make for utility…this falls into the later category. Any parent I know is familiar with the perfectly timed phrase “I’m thirsty”…once you are more than a block from home…sometimes you will quench this thirst with a water bottle dug from deep inside a bag, but other […]
Here is one of the ways we are celebrating Spring…with a painted window garden. Painting on the windows is one of my favorite ways to personalise our home. You might recall the painted toadstools on our dining room windows I did for Elle’s Birthday party last year, or the Seasons Trees I painted on Maya’s […]
I am popping in to wish you a happy Easter and spread a little more Easter cheer before Easter morn arrives. We have been counting down the sleeps and now with both girls tucked away in bed, we are down to one, one more sleep until the bunny arrives to fill our baskets with sweet […]
I am not sure where the days have gone, but my goodness they slip away….Not last Thursday, but the Thursday before, Thursday March 22nd…we spent the day at the New Jersey Botanical Gardens, which is also the site of Skyland Manor. This was an exceptionally warm day of early Spring, with the predicted temperature to climb […]
After making the easter block prints, I had used up my last block of speedy-cut and was down to a pile of odd shaped cut offs. Not wanting to waste these small bits and pieces I was inspired to make a few tiny random shaped stamps…and a little bird too. I had so much fun […]
Lake Ainsworth is a fresh water lake at Lennox Head, the next beach town North of Ballina. It is a 15 minute drive along the ocean from Grandmda’s house, and half way to Byron Bay from Ballina. The Girls and I went to Lennox Head a few times while we were in Australia as it […]
The week before last we were busy printing and I showed you the Easter basket tags we made for Maya’s class, but that was only part of our printing production. We also made Easter cards for friends and family and Easter invitations for the street Easter Egg Hunt we are hosting on Easter Saturday. Our […]
I mentioned Bangalow in my last post – specifically about the Bangalow market, and while looking through my photos I realised I also had lots of images of the Bangalow boutiques. I mentioned that Bangalow has fantastic shops, and so you can see what I was talking about, I am going to show you…I know […]
If I were living my parallel life (meaning the life we left behind in Australia) today I would be going to the Bangalow Markets. Held on the fourth Sunday of each month at Bangalow show-grounds, of all the North Coast markets, Lismore, Nimbin, Byron, Ballina, Lennox Head, and the Channon, Bangalow market is my favorite. […]
To celebrate vernal equinox I organized a spring planting project for Maya’s class. I was inspired by the wheat grass baskets the teachers from Maya’s Waldorf Playgroup had done in the past and decided I wanted to carry on this tradition with Maya’s Montessori Kindergarten class. It is a lovely project to do with young […]
Sometimes I question my life direction…I think we all do. One question that comes up for me, is “Why do we live here?”. Mostly this question arises from being on the other side of the world to our family, but sometime it comes up because of other personal values. For example, I like rural country, […]
Thursday the Girls and I spent the day in the city. I planned on taking them to the Whitney Museum to see the 2012 Biennial, and part of this plan was that afterwards we would walk in Central Park. Once finished looking at the exhibition we bought some pastries from an upper east side bakery […]