Friday Update: Solstice Fairies, week 2

Clark and Linden found some secret bridges on an adventure one day

Happy Friday!  The solstice fairies continued to leave things this past week, so I faithfully recorded and took pictures. 

DECEMBER 7: As it was a Saturday, this day was particularly action packed.  The fairies reminded us about the Renaissance Fair going on in the Village, and let us know that this would be a good day to start making some holiday cards. Somehow, we didn't make it down to the fair last year, but it was great fun - there were tables set up with people selling their wares, a whole room devoted to beautifully constructed wreaths for sale, and a "tea room", complete with homemade lunch items, treats, flea-market items, and a kid's corner.  Though I have no pictures from the fair itself, I do have some photos of the spoils:

Linden chose this headband from the flea market table. He was obsessed with it for three days.

Juniper also scored a headband. It is actually hugely useful in keeping the hair out of her face. Unfortunately, it mysteriously disappeared after only a couple days.

The beautiful wreath we bought. I couldn't resist...

… because of the beautiful juniper berries, of course!

After naps, we hauled out the sparkly paints (is there anything better than sparkly paints?), and started in on the cards. The kids got a good start, but I feel like this will be an ongoing project.  Perhaps even after solstice and Christmas have passed.  We'll see.

Hard at work

December 8: Sunday was the Christmas parade! The fairies, however, always feel a little bad about making the treat of the day be something that they had absolutely no hand in, so they also left some beautiful new festive clothes that they likely found at a nice consignment store.

Watching one of the many marching bands. (is that me?)

Posing with their new duds. Juniper's Bolero is the only new part of this outfit, but it is red and sparkly. Linden has new pants and shirt, and could basically be twins with his dad.  Except that none of Clark's jeans are fleece lined. Sad, but true. 

December 9: A day to make some salt-dough ornaments! Somehow the fairies even knew that there would be friends coming over to help. Really, it was quite a fun morning, and we managed to make the dough, roll it out, cut out the shapes, bake them, and paint them all in one morning.

The funnest part: the painting stage. (closest-farthest: Linden, Miguel, Helen, Juniper)

Close-up: Helen and Juniper

Two sweet blond boys: Linden and Miguel

December 10: Girls night! (and boys night!)  Girls night is an ongoing tradition throughout the year, but it is a treat.  So the fairies didn't mind making that one of the solstice treats.  Besides, a girls night means, by default, that there is also a boys night, so much fun is had by all.  Girls night involves going to Starbucks (really, the only option we know of that is open at night). We buy apple juice and tea, sometimes we get a treat, and we always bring a game of some sort (and maybe also journals and books depending on our mood). This particular night, we brought along a game of memory, and spent the evening playing multiple games.

Apparently, the boys also had fun.  They played some music, sang some songs, and watched a little "Dinosaur Train" on Netflix. I asked Clark to take a picture, but he "forgot". 

Setting out the cards

Action shot. Notice the beautiful sweater?  That was another one of the clothing items that the fairies left on Sunday.

December 11: This was another big day! Not only was there some freshly fallen snow in which to play (our first of the season!), but there was also a holiday party at the Woods Hole library in the evening.  Once again, however, the fairies felt they really didn't have much to do with either of these things, so they also left a couple of pieces of chocolate.  Organic fair-trade, of course. We made the mistake, however, of making the kids wait to eat the chocolate until after supper.  This meant after the library party, which meant directly before bed.  Linden was up until almost nine, clearly drunk on sugar, singing songs loudly to himself in his crib.  Ah well.

Snow!

Clark came home at lunch to play as well. Canadians and our snow, eh?

Ahhh… finally getting to strap on the good ole' skis

Linden tries the skis for the first time!

This is the kind of raucous good time one might expect at a library party. 

Enjoying her much-anticipated chocolate. This is vintage 80s dress that Yvon had saved from when his daughter was Juniper's age!

December 11: Games night!  The fairies even left a brand new game - one that they felt could be enjoyed by all four of us.  Though it is a modern twist of some sort (involving a "Dinosaur Train" theme again - what is it with Dinosaur Train, anyway?  It is a PBS show about dinosaurs that we stumbled across one day, and I unwittingly also bought them Dinosaur Train toothbrushes, and now this game.  Is it super popular or something?  Or is it just destined to keep appearing in our lives?  I don't know the answer to that question, but I'll keep you updated if I figure it out. *Edit from Clark: It's a show about dinosaurs and trains. What more could a kid want?*).  Anyway, it is basically the exact same thing as the good old classic "Trouble", complete with the dice popper. I figured if nothing else, Linden would enjoy popping the dice when it was his turn. Result?  I think it was a good choice, and that we'll end up playing it quite a bit. This particular round of it, however, involved a whole lot of trying to keep Linden from moving all the game pieces and incessantly popping the dice. We'll work on it.

Figuring it all out

And that's it!  I think I might as well leave today's solstice treat for next week's post, because otherwise there are no pictures to go along with it. Here are a few other pictures from the week.  Have a great weekend!

We warned Linden that he shouldn't be climbing on and in things that were not meant to be used in that way. He didn't listen. Then he got stuck. We let him sweat it out for a bit.

There are some very elaborate picnics that happen at our place.

Juniper and Linden both had to tuck their babies in before we left for the library party. They were still snuggling when we got back.