Holiday Gift Picks

Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things....

It's that time of year when we share our gift picks for 2011. Each year we like to highlight gifts that are creative, imaginative, and inspiring. We are certain that they bring joy to the wee folks in your life. Our selections are geared towards children in my son's age bracket, if you are looking for gift ideas for younger children, you can look back at my archived lists. They are as wonderful today as they were when I posted them.

Lets Make Some Great Art by Marion Deuchars! This a wonderfully imaginative coloring book full of creativity prompts for drawing, painting, cutting, and pasting for artists of ALL ages!!! A perfect boredom buster for harsh weather days or long car rides. Highly recommend!





How to draw a simple bird from Marion Deuchars
Each holiday we add a few more picture books to our seasonal book basket, this year we recommend the following beautifully illustrated and inspiring wintry tales...

Snow Moon by Nicholas Brunelle


Night Tree by Eve Bunting


Snowflake Bentley by Jaqueline Briggs Martin

For the inventors in the family, we recommend Snap Circuits! We discovered these beauties at the Smithsonian Museum and fell in love with them.


Some fun with squishy circuits here...and a TED talk to inspire you and your children...



We also love K'Nex! A building set that explores the use of pulleys & levers, wheels & axles and gears. A terrific alternative to legos.

A copy of the book, Simple Machines, would be a wonderful pairing gift with these sets.

For nature loving "unplugged" families, for mudpie mixing wild things, or the little potion making wizards in your life, we highly recommend Wildcraft, an extraordinary cooperative game that teaches edible and medicinal plants!

And we think "Walking the World in Wonder: A Children's Herbal" is the perfect book to go with it...

And speaking of all things herbal...we are WILD about these mini flower essence mists by Lotus Wei. You can split them up and give one to each person on your list. My son likes a spritz of Inner Peace before bedtime. He has SPD and he says that it helps him feel "less jumpy". I can't seem to get enough of Infinite Love and Inspired Action. I spritz my studio with Joy Juice before teaching Mighty Girl Art and the atmosphere is always joyful.
And for stocking stuffers, we like...

Glow in the dark ceiling stars...

Wacky Wall Walkers

Fascinating Geodes to break open! You can buy them by the box and drop one into each stocking.

Holiday Smencils are a delightful gift for sensory kids...

Candy Cane flavored Pop Rocks are another awesome sensory treat!

Reindeer by Wild Safari

Why I Wake Early

“There is room in the human heart for all the divinities.” - Isabel Allende

this morning in the dark
while everyone was sleeping,
i ran out to the vista in my pajamas.
i sang up the sun, joined
by a robin and a chickadee.
the sky applauded.
i tiptoed back in the house
with cold, wet feet
and a warm, grateful heart.

Ordinary Magic

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.” ― Isabel Allende

There was a power outage so we ordered a pizza, ate dinner by candlelight and burned some java logs in the fireplace.


There was a vegetarian Thanksgiving Feast with dear friends.

















There was a magical holiday parade with balloons...


























































and unicycles...






















and hoopers...

















and horns...

















and Santa!

















"Mama", he said, "my favorite part of the parade was when you yelled, WALKIE TALKIES FOR SATCH, to Santa...and I think he was the real Santa too!"

What more is there to say?

Satch November 2011

Thinkering

Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~Dr. Seuss

LEGO family day at the Smithsonian is Nirvana for Satch...

It was surprisingly quiet in the Luce with all the thinkering and tinkering, imagining and inventing.

During our stroll through the museum, Satch was drawn to Nam June Paik's piece. "LOOK at THAT" he exclaimed.

















Later, I told him how I met Nam June and what a character he was. How he invited me to his reception at the Guggenheim. How I practiced saying congratulations in his native language. It sounds like "choook hah hop nee dah", I said, "and I remember how he hugged me for that. I remember his laugh".

For a moment, I felt as though Nam June was standing right behind us and as my son looked at me with wide eyed rapt, I imagined I heard a distinct laugh.

Before we left, Satch spotted a guest book on a stand near the wall and decided to draw a picture in it instead of writing his name.

Feeling inspired by the magnificent art, the following day Satch went to work on a painting in my studio. "Mama", he said, "scan this and give a copy to the art museum, but keep the original, okay?"

Accept All Happiness

"I listen closer,
I find its purpose and place
up there toward the November sky."
- Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)

The Great Robinsky left for work very early, so that he could be home before dark to take his boy fishing.

Catch and release with a bamboo pole...

13 Bluegills and one beaming little boy.

We returned home to find a message scrawled on our sidewalk with pink chalk. Friends came by to play while he was out following his latest bliss.

DARE

About a year or so ago, I was having recurrent wolf dreams so a friend sent me this video. I recently lost the link and was heartbroken as neither of us could remember the source of the vid. Today a kindred spirit posted it on fb, and I tracked it back to the source where they offer a download option to this beautiful, soulful, artful ad for SAGA Falabella.

An All Hallows Eve Ball

"Now is the time to free the heart
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life." - John O'Donohue


It began with carving. This was the first year S did the carving.

His carving looked exactly like his drawing, but a snackish squirrel chewed away some of the mouth. Naughty squirrel!






















A snow pumpkin from the flurry on Saturday.






















We hung the papel picado that I made when S was a tot....

















and some Fall leaves, collected by S and his friends, then strung on nylon thread so they looked as though they were floating...

















A feast for wild things was prepared...






















there were chocolate beet-root cupcakes, caramel apples, apple cider & clementine jack-o-lanterns. And lots of glow sticks...















































































Then the first guests arrived which included a Spider Queen...






















Treats were devoured and there was a WILD RUMPUS!



Before the wild things went trick or treating, we put the fog machine in our fire pit and placed our cauldron of candy upon it so that the ghouls who visited our nest while we were out would not go empty handed.






















Then we ran off into the night in search of treats...






















and perused the loot before going to bed.