The Hidden Art of Homemaking

Several years ago my mother-in-law told me about a book by Edith Schaeffer called The Hidden Art of Homemaking.  The book is about how all of us are children of God, the creator of this beautiful world, and have inherited his creative abilities.  It encourages the use of these creative abilities in making our homes and neighborhoods beautiful; adding a touch of art to everything you do.  She assures those who don't feel they have artistic ability to consider the variety of artistic expression found in the home - from flower arranging, gardening, and a beautiful meal to reading stories aloud, theatrical production with costumes, and singing together.

Geoff's parents spent time and were married at L'Abri in the Swiss Alps, a Christian commune run by Francis and Edith Schaeffer. There was a touch of beauty and art in everything Edith Schaeffer did in this naturally beautiful setting, and Geoff's mother was a ready student.  After reading The Hidden Art of Homemaking I understood why every table in Geoff's parent's home was set with a little beauty, every room laced with warmth and love, every gathering having elements of creativity, every view of the window filled with flowers or a focal point, and she, herself is always dressed as a lady.  I'm not talking Martha Stewart-no-one-has-time-for-that-kind-of-creativity.  Just small touches of beauty.

I don't have a lot of spare time for projects, displays or elaborate creativity but Geoff's mom's artistic beauty rubbed off on me - it is worth expressing our creativity, even in small ways, because it feels good to use our divine gifts.  It brings us joy to see beauty and art in our own little 'world'.

I must say that I really like living in an apartment because everything is about the scale I can handle at this stage in my life.  Geoff and I planted flowers and bulbs for Spring blooming in our manageable, patio flower boxes.  I can actually keep them up!  We love using natural elements to bring beauty inside: flowers, seeds, gourds and pumpkins, branches and leaves, etc. 

Geoff's mom rotates things each season, and sometimes more often, to keep the home alive.  We don't have a lot of space to store things right now, but the seasons themselves offer so many options for displays, and we try to have a few new things out to spark interest and wonder.  We put out new books from the shelves on the coffee table to encourage browsing, occasionally the globe is a prominent feature in the room, other times it is a display of natural treasures collected on a hike, or field guides and binoculars.

Art supplies are like snacks: if you set them out the little people will partake.  Sometimes I try to set out unusual things that they might not choose, like supplies to cross stitch, or felting materials.  If a game is set out it will get played, if writing supplies like paper, envelopes, sticker letters and fancy pens/markers are left out in a basket they will draw attention and get explored.

I'm far from having this down like my mother-in-law.  I still feel lucky to get a nourishing meal prepared, and usually we eat it right out of the pot, grabbing a plate straight from the cupboard instead of a beautifully set table, but I'm a ready student!  And whenever I look at our planted flowers or our plate of collected seeds or the open music on the piano I really do feel joy.  Maybe it is from discovering the hidden art of homemaking.

Halloween

Last Monday we carved pumpkins.  

Geoff and Ceci played a little soccer scrimmage against each other out at the park one evening this week and Ceci came in looking a little Halloweenish (so I'll include the photo in this post) reporting, "Dad elbowed me."  Geoff calls that "soccer tough".

 

A traditional Halloween breakfast.

Emily and Mike had all of Geoff's Utah siblings over for Halloween night.

Equally exciting as getting candy is passing it out!  Look how diligent Ceci is at holding her post!

Nikki was a backpacker through India and Britt a witch

Em was also a witch, and Mike a Ute (University of Utah) fan

Zoey and Tate were gnomes

This photo is blurry but it was the only one of me in my Chinese costume, and little Zoey crawling over and popping up in the background was too cute not to share...

A few days before Halloween Tennie whipped up this Alice in Wonderland costume for a ward party...

It fell apart on Halloween night so she whipped up this costume from Em's costume box (and that is her cute friend Sunny)

I only got the backside of Bailey's cute fairy costume (and I missed Geoff's renegade superhero costume, darnit!)

Inspecting the goods

We left our home at 7:45AM on Halloween morning and got home around 9:30PM on Halloween night.  It was a long, full day!  But on our doorstep was this adorable Halloween basket from some neighbors, the Oaks.  One last BOO to thrill and delight our girls.

Halloween Tricks

When I was a little girl I used to bite off the yellow and orange parts of a candy corn and tell my mom I had lost a tooth.  It worked every time, or at least my mom led me to believe it did!  Adele pulled the same trick on me this week, and had she not had her 'I'm-trying-not-to-let-on-that-I'm-pulling-your-leg' face on I just might have believed it.

This week at the girl's piano teacher's home they noticed the paper on his family's front door that declared that they had been BOOed.  (This mean someone in the neighborhood had anonymously left them goodies and they were to pass on the BOO to another home.)  The girls lamented that they weren't going to get BOOed in an apartment building.  As a matter-of-fact, they might never get BOOed in their entire lives!

That afternoon Adele sneakily BOOed Tennie's bedroom door.  She was beside herself with excitement at the idea.  An inside BOO job!

Later Tennie BOOed Adele and Ceci's door.  They all seemed content with their BOOing.   But then later that night when we were heading out somewhere we found this cute little get-up outside our door.

Who in the world would carve a pumpkin, fill it with candy, and dress it up?  Immediately we suspected our adorable, older neighbor, Mr. King.  And just then he came out and fessed up.  Can you believe how awesome he is?  It was a genuine BOO.  (They later BOOed him back with chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and local apples.)

And today Mr. Bones came to lunch.  I don't know what is so exciting about this guest, but he sure gets an overwhelming welcome!

 Halloween is a'brewin around here!

Gardener Village's Witchfest

Adele, Ceci and I met up with Emily and kids at Gardener Village while Tennie was nearby at rehearsal.  Gardener Village has a witch scavenger hunt with silly witches placed throughout the little shops.  We hunted them all down, stopped by the candy shoppe for delicious caramel apples, and browsed through the stores.  (In one Adele, Ceci and Bailey were testing out the couches, chairs and poufs to measure their comfort level.  At one point Bailey was saying that several pieces of furniture were comfortable, and Ceci didn't agree.  She said, "You don't have a good sense of comfy!")

Trading Booth

Adele and Ceci go to a half-day homeschool group where they have instituted "trading booth" during their free time with the other girls.  Each girl takes some homemade goods to trade/barter.  Adele means serious business and made dozens of things the first time.  Then she saw that her goods were more valuable than the other goods.  She was frustrated that the other girls thought they could trade things one good for one good.  She has a keen sense of value and drives a hard bargain.  It has been fun to watch her in this process.  Ceci is in it for fun, and she has about 5% interest in crafts and making things so her goods are slowly dwindling each week.  We'll see how long it goes on.  Here is a sampling of last weeks goods:

Ceci's goods, mostly made of paper, and one hand-sewn heart pillow

Adele's goods include paper, a few hand-sewn pillows, a turkey decoration, and a castle-knit jump rope

Obviously they aren't making anything that takes an enormous amount of time.  They usually throw away the goods they receive at 'trading booth' right when they get home.  But it is the bartering that keeps them going, and seeing what the other girls come up with.  And when someone makes an 'order' then it was a hot item and manufacturing goes UP!

BYU Women's Soccer

Saturday we took the girls, Bailey, and Tennie's friend, Sunny, to the BYU Women's Soccer game.  BYU is one of the top in the nation and really fun to watch.  The girls were watching for their soccer camp coaches, and were really into it, as you can see...

Blue-marker Ys on one cheek, the number of their favorite player on the other

The players run by and give the fans 'five' after the game and Adele got her camp coach, Niki's, attention.  We later saw Ceci's camp coach,  Catherine.  I really appreciated the attention they gave to these adoring fans.

Deer Hunt, Pumpkin Patches and Parks

Utah public schools had a few days off this week for parent teacher conference, which falls during The Deer Hunt.  I think it is funny they have vacation days to hunt.  We don't take those days off for hunting or conferences, but we did enjoy that some of our weekly activities were canceled and we had a few free afternoons!

We fit in a few things we've wanted to do but haven't had time.  We spent an afternoon at The Leonardo museum, and another day met Emily and her kids at Wheeler Farm to get some pumpkins.

The girls went crazy over these friendly goats.  This historical farm was really fun.  They had old barns and a tree house, animals of all kinds and cellars and outhouses.

I came in and saw that Ceci was on this tracker - who cares about the sign that said stay off of the antique farm equipment.  Somehow Ceci doesn't see signs like that... (She pulled out the fake fire in an exhibit at The Leo this week, too.  Bless her curious heart.)

But the real excitement came when we took a little walk around a field and came across a hidden bridge and forest.  So what if I had to drive to childhood - we found it.  We parked ourselves for at least two hours while the girls explored the secret places, and created a fort under the foot bridge.

Meanwhile Em and I watched her one-year-old twins explore and delight in all of the textures and sounds (and tastes) of this beautiful, natural place.

Britt came and met us at the end while the kids ran through the hay maze and got their pumpkins

We missed the fields of pumpkins, and picking our own unique shape, but this was a good Utah alternative.  It was a perfect fall day.

The next day we had a few hours, too, so Emily and I took the kids to Sugarhouse Park to ride scooters, climb trees, and enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

These kinds of trees are my girls favorite for climbing.  Can you see them near the top?

A different, even bigger, one

It felt so good to be outside, to see large spaces, and to see my girls so alive.