Seasons of Joy

Looking for a way to bring peace and joy to your day? Seasons of Joy is my 10-week seasonal guidebook to add rhythm and fun to your daily routine. Each guidebook has ten weeks' worth of circle times, stories, arts, crafts, and handwork, painting, playtime activities and more!
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Seasons of Joy seeks to empower families to create peaceful rhythms and routines and joyful celebrations that follow the circle of the year. The blog also chronicles our adventures in living simply, loving exuberantly, and Waldorf inspired homeschooling.

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I review for BookSneeze

A Month of Mondays

I have a little project in mind for the next 7 months or so, starting now in February. The plan is to use this space both to tighten up our rhythms and routines as well as to (hopefully!) give you some practical ideas and inspiration as well. This month, we’ll have a month of Mondays.

During the first week of February, I’ll introduce you to our Monday homemaking rhythms. In our house, this means laundry and caring for clothes.

During the second week of February, we’ll look at Monday homeschooling rhythms. This includes our planning meetings, assignment sheets, and crafting for others, among other things.

Cold Comfort

Molly is sick.

She’s not very happy about it either.

What started out as a simple cold has morphed into bronchiolitis, and we ended up in the emergency room last night for a breathing treatment and a chest x-ray. It’s not RSV, thank goodness, but seeing her struggle to breath and feeling her baby heart race was certainly scary!

Even having a stuffy nose can be frightening for a baby. Infants are obligate nose-breathers, God’s design for allowing them to breathe and nurse at the same time. So when little noses get stuffed up, things can get very difficult very quickly!

This week’s feasts and festivals, plans and projects

My lack of blogging speaks to two ongoing issues in my life right now.

First, no camera. It hasn’t been the same since Michael accidentally spilled his drink on it at the Little League World Series. It hung in there for a bit, but finally gave up the ghost right after Christmas. I had my eye on a really nice replacement until my hubby decided to renew his on-again off-again relationship with Dave Ramsey and pay off our two remaining credit card bills and the remainder of my student loan instead. So instead I have a cute littleĀ  purple point-and-click Nikon on its way instead. Ah well- easy come, easy go.

Menu Plan Monday… I mean Tuesday… Better make that Wednesday

You know, typically if I had arrived at Wednesday night and still not posted this, I’d just skip it for the week. But as we’re attempting to transition to real/whole foods, it feels important for me to document our progress in this space. So… away we go!

A Day in the Life

Happy Thursday! Here is a peek inside our day.

Daddy had to leave early– 7:30, that’s early for us!– for a doctor’s appointment, so the early morning routine was a bit crazier than normal. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Michael walks up to the middle school for chamber orchestra from 7:30 to 8:00, so I was missing one of my big kid helpers.

I usually get my shower the night before so that’s out of the way in the morning. I got the babies dressed up in the bedroom and by the time I was finished, Katie Grace was dressed and helped me take them downstairs.

Review: A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers


I was so excited to review this book, not only because I’m a music geek and love finding new ways to share music with my children, but also because I know one of the authors! I went to college with Melissa, sang with her in our choirs, and know what a wonderfully fabulous person and musician she is. So how could I pass up an opportunity to check out the book she wrote?

Sensory Box: Ancient Egypt

I’m so pleased with the little sensory box I’ve put together for my middle boys! I went with an ancient Egypt theme. The “Nile” is just a strip of felt, and I made two little mummies– one from a wooden egg, and the other is a little peg person wrapped in white silk.

There’s also a crocodile that is probably actually an alligator that Daniel wanted to add as well as a felt pyramid I made based on the pattern here. The base filler is sand (of course!). We also made a little pharaoh.

Thursday’s Treasure: Ancient Egypt

‘Egyptian treasures’ by annettemarie

We’re knee-deep in our study of ancient Egypt, so here are some Etsy treasures to go along with our learning.


Senet – Ancient Egyptian Boa…

$15.00

Wooden Blocks – Egyptian Hie…

$23.50

Moses and the Ten Commandmen…

$5.00

Waldorf Nature Table Dolls -…

$120.00

SALE – Pure Beeswax LARGE Py…

$10.00

Prophetess Miriam Wooden Dol…

$20.00

Handmade Juggling Toys with …

$14.00

Mummy Egg Monster Wooly Made…

$18.00

Miniature Egyptian Grave Goo…

$7.50

Mummy Bendy Doll by Princess…

$15.00

Miniature Egyptian Altar Amu…

$40.00

Old Papyrus-bookmarks with h…

$6.00

Children of Character: Forgiveness

This month our character trait we’ll be focusing on is forgiveness. In a large family, this is a virtue we have many opportunities to practice!

We spent our last Friday night “family night” exploring forgiveness. First we watched this short segment from Veggie Tales:

It was a fun way to kick off the discussion!

We read the Bible story about the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. It was interesting to learn that forgiveness isn’t optional.

101 Ways with a Theme: Make a toy!

I am soooooo excited about this new series, 101 ways with a theme. Whether it’s a main lesson block, a circle time theme, a literature-based theme, a particular season or holiday, or just something your little one is interested in, I’m going to share with you ideas to extend that theme with activities that are both meaningful and fun. They’re listed in no particular order, but I’ll include links as well as examples from our own family activities.