Josh and Sabrina as seen by Aloka

Aloka takes pretty good pictures!

Aloka Rain version 3.2

She had another upgrade last night while she was sleeping. The gnomes have been busy. She was like a different little person today. She was so empowered, I couldn't believe what i was seeing! She vacuumed the house by herself (usually she hates it because it's so loud), she shaved Josh's head:
And she became a pro cinematographer! She figured out how to take pictures and videos. I'm including a clip of hers. It's just hilarious! She took a few others but they were too big to post. Josh and I were in disbelief.
She's also growing in size so fast! She was in dresses and sandals much of the summer so when the weather shifted, we suddenly discovered that all but a few of her pants and long sleeved shirts were too small. Our beloved friend Melissa rescued us from the monotony of the same 3 outfits by getting her 4 new pairs of pants from her recent trip to the States, wahoo! Thanks Melissa!! So when you're not seeing Aloka in her tutu/ballerina/gypsy/belly dancer/or totally naked attire, you'll see her in some cute new things.
Here's another video of Aloka dressed up doing a "gypsy dance", actually more just like playing my finger cymbals (for bellydance)!

Waldorf arts and crafts projects

As promised here is a picture of Aloka's lantern that she made. Next to it, you'll see another SweetPeas project; We decorated a terracotta pot with grout and glass pebbles, and then planted a paperwhite bulb in it. She loves these projects!
Today at SweetPeas we grated crayons with a cheese grater onto wax paper, of all different colors. Then we placed another layer of wax paper on top, and ironed it! It made a beautiful colorful melty thing, that resembles stained glass. We then made a pretty border/frame out of construction paper, and it's hanging on our window now. Another project we did at her other Waldorf Playgroup was a leaf collage on contact paper sandwiched together. That too, is hanging on our window. We're turning into one of those houses where the children's artwork and projects are hanging everywhere! I love it!
Parents: What do you do with this stuff?? We can't possibly throw it away, of course. I suppose we're supposed to stick it in a box until Aloka is 30 and then unload it all and a sentimental gesture, ha ha!
Gosh, if these projects are starting at 3, we're going to be filling up many many boxes! Although, when Kate and Winston got older, their art projects became quite impressive. Beautiful crafts, paintings, marble sculpture. I'm excited for Aloka to experience the same thing.
Here's a photo and a video clip of our playdough project. We made playdough the other day, one of Aloka's favorite things to do lately!

Pictures from Sweet Peas today

All the girls were having fun! The first photo is of the children making a "nest" just before snack time. Aloka ate 3 bowls at snack (millet with soysauce and nutritional yeast) and a cup of chamomile tea, she's growing!
Debbie is the adult setting up the story time table in the video. She's wonderful, and she will be Aloka's teacher for Kindergarten when she starts. We love Debbie!
Today, Aloka made a beautiful watercolor paper lantern with leaves on it, I'll definitely be posting a photo, it's so pretty!

Settling into fall

We're settling in and we have a nice routine going. Monday I have my belly dance class which Aloka usually comes with. She (and I too) just got a new hip scarf (with jingly coins) and she's so excited to wear it for the next class. She really learns these moves! It's cute, and all the women in the class seem to love her.
Tuesday she is in her Waldorf playgroup from 9-12pm, Wednesday is gynastics with Josh, Thursday is playgroup again, and friday is Waldorf SweetPeas playgroup and then Family Yoga. Holy guacamole! That's every day of the week. Weekends are filled with concerts/performances and whatever else is going on.
Dena (aloka's teacher) said that she and her family are really into snowboarding, and that when her two children got a little older than Aloka's age, it was really fun to have something in the winter they could really get into. So I foresee snowboarding in our future, probably this year.
Dena also said that falling (which i of course will be doing constantly) is no problem here because there's always so much fresh powder. She is from Colorado and said it was usually hard packed by the time they went out to ski.
So as long as I have some cushion, i won't mine the humility too much! I'll probably do some more cross country skiing again too this year.
So i don't have a ton of photos this week, but we did go to an awesome West African performance for children and i have some videos, though they're not really portraying the coolness of the group! The dancers did lots of back flips and amazing acrobatics along with a leopard dance at the end. The band is called Masabo, and Aloka and I left the theatre with huge smiles (and a CD and T-shirt!). It was a great show!

Aloka in (her/my) new boots

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say! I had just bought these crazy boots for my Halloween costume (renaissance pirate wench), and Aloka of course had to give them the test run. The funny thing is that I think she can walk in them better than me!
And the other morning, she woke up before us and she went wandering out of the bedroom. It became very quiet, like, "uh oh, what is she into" quiet. All you parents out there know exactly what I'm describing, I'm sure. I called her from my groggy sleep, and she comes in with my fake eyelashes (again for my costume) stuck to her forehead with elmers glue! It was hiliarious! I don't know how she knew to glue them, but somehow she figured out that's how it's supposed to work. Funny that she decided to glue them to her forehead, just above her eyebrows, not straight of course. I guess I should be very happy she didn't try for the eyes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aloka at Waldorf preschool

Aloka and Josh at Barter Faire

At Barter Faire

Aloka on Thanksgiving day walk

Children at the Harvest Celebration potluck at the Waldorf School

We had our first Canadian Thanksgiving (Monday the 9th) and it was one of the best Thanksgivings I've had yet! Sounds silly, I've had a lot of them, but it really was wonderful. Aloka's new Waldorf Preschool teacher and her husband (Dena and Noah) invited us over, and we feasted with 6 or so other adults, and 7 or 8 children. One of the highlights was after we ate we went on a wonderful long walk through the cemetery, and then up to a cool trail. The kids climbed trees, and bounded joyously through nature. These 3 videos are from that! We then came back, ate pumpkin pie, I played some mbira, enjoyed more conversation, and then went home, spiritually, socially rejuvinated. We have so much to be thankful for, and it seemed we were all able to share in that mutually.
There are so many people from the States here that we've met lately! Dena and Noah are from Boulder, and another couple at Thanksgiving was from NY.
It's fun talking about our immigration experiences with other American couples, all expatriates, all starting a new life in a new place that we all feel so passionate about. Everyone i've met from the States here seem to all have a strong pull towards and love for Nelson.
The day before Thanksgiving, we had a fall harvest potluck at Aloka's school, with 5 other Waldorf families. Once again, many happy children and wonderful parents that we met. Another US couple from Northern California, they just moved here a year ago. I feel like we've found family here, as if I've known these people and the Nelson community all my life. So, i'm including some pictures from Thanksgiving, and also some from the Harvest potluck.
Aloka is doing well with her new school life! She's only been 3 times, and I still haven't left her for the entire time yet, but it will be soon. Today, I dropped her off and went to the co-op grocery store for a bit, came back, connected with her briefly, and then waited in the car for her and played my mbira. She missed me a ton, and there were some tears when she finally saw me. It was painful being away from her, I cried a little, and felt weird shopping without her. I was equally happy to come back from the store and poke my head into the class to tell her i was back. It is a slow process, and as much as i've wanted this freedom, I miss my baby too.

Laughing hysterically!

Just goofing around in front of the camera! That's pretty much as big as my smile gets, I was laughing so hard!

Josh is a winner!!

Josh entered a contest the other day, to create a poster for an upcoming event called "All Souls Night". I'm sure you can guess what it's for! Halloween! I'm so excited for Halloween, there's so much happening! The Nelson Waldorf School is doing a series of fun vignettes, and we're also throwing a pirate scavenger hunt party, with several adults in character also acting out vignettes as part of the game. Josh entered this poster today, and he was notified by email that he won! He gets $100 plus a bunch of art supplies from one of the sponsors of the event, a big art supply store in town. Plus lots of publicity! Woo hoo!!

Our artistic daughter

I sure wish I had some photos of her from today, prancing around with her little jingly hip belt doing "arabesques" in belly dancing class! She really likes it, almost as much as me! I'm LOVING this class!! It feels like such a natural and beautiful way for women to move and I have so much fun. It's great to be doing something physical and really working the muscles with the isolated moves found in belly dancing. Maybe I'll bring my camera to class next week!
In the meantime, here's a little clip of Aloka and Nile jammin' on the drums in 'Still Eagle', a cool little hemp clothing shop in Nelson.
On Saturday night, we also went to a really fun and high energy performance by the African drum and dance ensemble I previously filmed at the Garlic Festival, called Malicounda. This was so much fun and Aloka and I danced and danced. She is really immersed in the arts here in this town, I love it!
Some fairly big news for us; Aloka is starting Waldorf Preschool this week! She will be going two days a week to start, from 9-12. I'm a little nervous about it. She seems totally ready, but I've never been apart from her for so long. It will be a great thing, but it's also a big deal for her to be totally on her own with neither of us. The teacher is wonderful, and said she comes over to the childs home to play for an hour or so to get aquainted. Aloka will show her all her toys I'm sure, feeling more comfortable and familiar with her (her name is Dena). A great idea I think! We've already been to the school once, where I stayed with her. Waldorf School is so amazing, and so child focused. Thursday (the day we went) is "soup day", where each child brings a vegetable from home and they all chop veggies and put it into the soup. They then have it for lunch with the bread they baked the day before. If feels very wholesome, creative, lively, and full of wonder.
And on a seperate note referring to the photos, is the Playdough gingerbread girl and the little "sculpture" Aloka made a few days ago. For the past few months, she's been drawing people with a big round circle for the body, and then stick legs and arms coming out from the body. She puts eyes, mouth, and nose on the circle. Well, the other day I made her Playdough, and she was quietly playing with it. She called for me from her little fort, and I came over and saw that she had made a 3 dimensional rendering of her stick person drawing! I couldn't belive it! It was her first interpretational sculpture! It seems like a little thing, but boy are Josh and I proud! I'm also including a photo from earlier that day. She also made her own "gingerbread girl", complete with buttons on the dress and eyes and mouth, and some kind of patterned texture on the dress.