Celebrating the Spring Equinox 2018

I always seem to find myself at the last moment whipping together a way to celebrate all the holidays.  I knew the Spring Equinox was coming up but up until that morning I had no idea how I wanted to celebrate with my kiddos.  It was actually their first day back at school since spring break, ironic really, and I wasn't sure what we would even have time for.  But on my way home from work I stopped at the store and picked up a bouquet of flowers, two small herbs and some spring treats.  I rarely buy candy and some treats are only allowed on certain holidays like these candy covered almonds.  Spring Equinox only and sometimes on Easter at their Nonnie's house.

Luckily, we had some flower crown bases to start with from the Renaissance Festival and from birthday gifts so I was just adding fresh flowers to wire crowns we already had using hemp sting I already had at home as well.

 I left the stems on the flowers to give me something to tie to the crown, and had the girls place them out where they wanted them, then I just wrapped the hemp around and around until all the flowers were attached,

Vera snapped this one of me and I actually love it.

As for our plants we have super invasive grass so we just dig holes and trim back the grass/weeds as the plants grow.  For the Equinox we added thyme.

mint.

 and we watered our parsley which has been taking over!

 and our sage.

and since I was picking up Spring treats I opted for these organic coconut cookies, as I'm trying to avoid gluten and processed sugars.  but more on that in another post.

What are your favorite ways to celebrate Spring?

 

Top 10 Falliday Traditions

As originally published on North Phoenix Mom's Blog:

I love this time of year, especially in Phoenix, it's the time when most people actually want to be outside.  It's cool enough to actually touch the playground equipment, yet warm enough for jeans and a tee shirt.  It's sunny and breezy and its the beginning of the holidays.  I find myself most productive this time of year and often have lots of activities and projects planned with my kids, so I thought it would be a good time to share some of my favorite  Falliday traditions.

1. Hiking.  Once the weather here cools off enough, our first adventure is always to go hiking.  We love to get the kids outside and explore.  I used to be very uncomfortable outside, I didn't really enjoy camping all that much, I'd rather be inside doing something like shopping or eating, something less dirty.  And then I realized that if I didn't get my kids outside they would grow up feeling that way too. So now we go on hikes and camping trips so they're comfortable with nature.  And now that we've been doing it for so long I'm more comfortable outside and while I've always thought nature was beautiful now I appreciate it even more and find peace in the wild.  I'm always excited when we find a wild animal {I might even get more excited than my kids}, and there's just something special about reconnecting with nature, and the fall weather always reminds me to go outside!

2. Campfires.  Hand in hand with camping, especially in cooler weather, are campfires! The kids, of course, enjoy it because I always pack s'mores ingredients.  But I love the community that is created around a fire.  Like, this is how people lived, huddled around warmth, and stories were told and songs were sung.  I love bringing back a little of that community to our family whenever we travel with family and friends.  I hope my kids take away those memories and continue that tradition with their kids and their community.

3. Finding colorful leaves and collecting them to craft with.  You might think you've missed this because the colors have changed in Flagstaff, and Northern Arizona, but if you drive down Central from Northern to Camelback you might notice the leave here are just starting to change.  A perfect excuse to walk down the Central Corridor and find your favorite leaves.

4. Finding leaves leads me to my next favorite tradition, a Thanksgiving Day Scavenger Hunt!  You can find my current list here.  I'm still working on adding to it, but feel free to print it out and add to it with your kids.

5. Cooking with my kids on Thanksgiving day. We love to make this Sweet Potato Recipe together. My daughter loves to crush all the toppings and then help me perfectly arrange the marshmallows into little lines before baking it in the oven. I love this recipe because I prefer some variety in texture on my sweet potatoes.

This recipe is also easily modified for Vegans and Vegetarians, just swap out the traditional marshmallows for vegan ones {like these}, and use an egg substitute for the sweet potato mash.

6. Sharing what we're thankful for, in a new fun way.  I always try to get the family involved in sharing what we're thankful or grateful for, one of my favorite ways is to write on our pumpkins on our dinning room table.  This year I think I'll make the table cloth something everyone can draw on.

7.  Thanksgiving day games.  This year I'm going to add in butternut squash bowling! Have you seen heard of it?  You use the butternut squash like pins and knock them over with a pumpkin bowling ball!  I just know my kids are going to love it and I'm excited to craft with them using the print out from this blog.

8. Homemade Hot Apple Cider. I always make sure to have extra cinnamon sticks this time of year, cloves and oranges fresh from our tree.  My recipe is pretty simple.  I just mix a gallon of apple juice with 3 cinnamon sticks, 2 cardamom pods, 1 orange cut in half including the peels, a dozen cloves spiked into the peel of the oranges, and you could even add some ginger for and extra bold flavor.

9. Gluhwein.  I really fell in love with gluhwein on our last adventure in Germany, and now I want it for all my fall and winter holidays.  It's a mulled wine, spiced with all the traditional fall spices.  You can find a common recipe here.

10. Hanging up Holiday lights {we celebrate aspects of Chanukah, Winter Wolstice and Christmas}! I always make my family wait until after thanksgiving to set up our lights, I love being in the moment with each holiday, so I really like to wait until one holiday is complete before anticipating another.  I always remember helping my dad hang our lights and it's something I've always held special for me and my daughters.  Our girls love helping decide where we should put our lights and handing them to me as I hang them, it's just great to be outside with them and decorating. Decorating our home might be my favorite part of all the holidays!

just kidding.  Food. Food is my favorite part of the holidays, but decorating comes close.

What are your favorite traditions?  How do you include your kids in the Fallidays?  

Happy Halloween 2016!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  I love the slightly cooler Fall weather and the creativity of costumes and Autumn projects.  As an a mom I thought it would be so fun to do family costumes and would plan elaborate costumes, but the day would come and go and I would scramble to get something together last minute.  And as the kids got older, and I actually considered making their costumes, they'd change their mind a million times and eventually I would just let them pick whatever Hissyfit's had in stock.  This works for us, the kids pick out whatever they can see and feel and be excited about in the moment.  I've abandoned the idea of family costumes - as Husband can't be bothered to participate in my silly ideas and the kids have a mind of their own.  Every year I promise myself I'm going to start the next year's costume in January but never do.  This year is no different.  This year, Sonja changed her mind at least three times, from a rainbow spider (which I was less than hours away from buying fabric for) to a ghost, to "something scary" to a vampire costume we found at Hissyfit's because I remembered that she changes her birthday party themes and costumes with the wind and the investment of making things only for her to change her mind is exhausting and then again after her dress snagged at school and our housemate gave her tiger ears.  Vera had at least three changes as well, in the end, she got excited about a flamenco dancer costume also at Hissyfit's and thanks to some store credit I actually got both for free.  Husband still didn't know what he was going to be just hours out from trick or treating on Halloween.  He remembered at the last minute we had a skeleton onesies he could wear - yes an adult sized onesie. I decided that I would go as a witch, not too much of a stretch from my daily wardrobe and just needed a hat - thanks to my mom for being a hoarder because one text message later and my witches hat was en route.  Maybe next year I'll have something epic or maybe not, it's still one of my favorite holidays no matter what we go as, or how good our costumes are.

 we tried using a soldering iron to carve Sonja's pumpkin this year so I could just trace what she dres, I like my wood block carving tools more.

 skeleton and candles alter

organic lollipops with vitamin c so I don't feel like I'm totally destroying kids immune systems.

These girls had a blast going around the block and watching semi-scary movies with us.

Did you celebrate? What did your family dress up as?!

Christmas with the Schutskys 2015

Hope everyone had a wonderful time celebrating the holidays {if you do that sort of thing} and wanted to share a quick peek at our Christmas tradition.

On Christmas eve, we do dinner at Husband's Nonnie's {that's grandmother in Italian, or rather grand parents, which is actually more accurate since she's raised four kids on her own} house. It's an Italian tradition to have pasta and fish so we do that whole thing and open gifts with Husband's side of the family.

You know the kids couldn't be more excited about opening presents, so the whole night is spent trying to keep them calm until we actually finish dinner and open gifts.

Vera literally finished these candy coated chocolate candies in like 5 minutes, the whole tube of a candy cane gone.

and look at that even the big kids like opening their presents.

and the newest Schutsky opening his gifts too.

but maybe Nonno {grandpa} doesn't like gifts all that much.  j/k Husband was probably saying something sarcastic in the background.

Nonnie's love photos of their great grand babies for Chirstmas, if you needed gift ideas.

Look Husband and I even got a photo together. {and Matt and Emily on the right}

Awe look at all that Christmas plaid.  Once the kids crash we head home, drink some glühwein and watch Rare Exports. 

The kids were so tired this year I had to wake them up, Vera kept yawning and Sonja had morning sass. {Christmas pajamas complements of aunt gretchen from gap kids}

Stocking were stuffed and opened! Vera hung on to hers for dear life.

Sonja's favorite gift were these cool new gold shoes.

A girl and her "nacks" {anyone else's kids wake up early in the morning and ask for snacks instead of breakfast? yeah, that's what I thought, just mine}

Oh wait, I forgot this was her favorite gift.  Kindle Fire to read more books!

And after presents is breakfast!

Fresh squeezed oranges from our tree {even though they actually taste like lemons, anyone know what's up with that?}

And Husband made Christmas Crêpes

Then, we had some mimosas.

Pretty much my favorite breakfast of the year!

And that's how the Schutskys celebrate Christmas!  

Do you celebrate? what kind of traditions do you have for yourself and your family?