Avalonschild and Her Mighty Minions: March in pictures

The Girls brought March in with a very exciting event, they participated in the Alberta wide "Get up and Go Girl" workshop. They took four different fitness orientated introduction classes, they didn't get to choose so ended up in Yoga which both are quite adept at already but they loved the new experiences in Ultimate Frisbee, Disc golf and Hooping. Willowtrees favorite was Hooping and Bugs was Ultimate Frisbee in which she came in first in the final competitions.

Modeling the hoodies they got at the Get up and go Girl workshop!

Meadow won first in the Ultimate Frisbee. Her prizes

In the first week of March the Minions had the opportunity to check out a liver and heart, lung, windpipe combo when we butchered one of our pigs. Over the years they have had a few opportunities like this with a few different animals like deer, pig, sheep, cow, chicken, turkey and moose. They get to understand the similarities and differences in the anatomy and how they work.

Hands on anatomy lesson. The Liver

Me explaining how the respiratory system works

Bug really loves anatomy, she finds it fascinating how the organs work.

This is a fun game we found at the dollar store. It is full trivia about art, science and history and you have to guess if it is fact or fiction.

Can you guess what we are up too?

A money lesson :) I love how colorful Canadian money is, it gives me all sorts of wacky teaching ideas!

I was in a fender bender :( So we took the opportunity to teach the minions all about insurance. The insurance agent was a really good sport and answered questions for us :)

Pre heating the oven

Bug is becoming quite the little baker, like her sister she loves to bake and cook. I guess I should not be surprised I love to cook and Daddy is a chef so it comes naturally. She is at the age were she does not want help with much anymore and her Independence is very important to her so I do alot of watching :) My role has become the observer. She decided to make a cake and wanted to make it better than the mix ( I am forever tweaking and adding to cake mixes just for something different) I asked her what she wanted and she said Spicy Chocolate!! one of her favs.

Busy adding ingredients

She chose a dark chocolate cake mix and to it she added one heaping teaspoon of chipolte powder, to make it really spicy :)

Egg cracking is still a bit of a challenge

Her finished cake before icing

It turned out delicious! She iced it with a creamy milk chocolate icing and it was the perfect compliment. So much so that I did not get a finished pic lol it was devoured very quickly! Great job Bug!

King Connaher holding his icicle sword

March also brought us a challenge like we had never faced before. Flooding!!! We woke up one day in mid March after a very warm spell to water flooding into our basement threw the wall and floor. We had no clue how to deal with it to begin with and spent the first day ankle deep in freezing cold water. We made an emergency run into town and bought a wet vac to help. We took shifts mopping and managed to keep it from doing an major damage but could not get it to stop. We phoned the previous owner and they said they did not have any problems like this. Upon inspecting the outside of the area were the water was coming threw we decided to take a landscaping approach and remove all of the snow and ice in the area. It took us about half of the day but when we finished the flooding stopped! So it is a grading issue!!! Problem solved but it means some major work when all the snow is finally gone but the awsome part is that we used the knowledge we gained from the permaculture course we took to solve this problem :) because of all of the melting we ended up with quite a few large icicles around the acreage. King Connaher and the other Minions had lots of fun having icicle sword fights.

Lapis Lazuli that I was gifted by a good friend

I have worked with crystals for many years, I love working with them and decided that I wanted to take my knowledge to the next level and get my certification as a crystal healer. When I started my course King Connaher showed alot of interest, after a week or so of me working on the course he approached me and asked if he could take it as well, this thrilled me to no end!! YES YES YES I am thrilled to share in this with him and I know he will be an excellent healer! His gift with crystals is awsome and his intuition is bang on I am looking very forward to seeing him develop his gifts and sharing them with the world!

Healthy snack, chopped fresh mango and dragon fruit. mmmm a family favorite

As always we are on a continual quest to eat healthy and nutrition is a big deal in our house. My minions are very well versed in food, good and bad. We do not eat alot of meat and most of us are about 90% vegetarian and usually only eat meat for Sabbats and always organic. We raise our own meat this ensures it is organic and not mistreated. When we butcher it is Kosher and proper prayer is always given. The minions have all learned to butcher, cut and wrap meat and even if they grow up to be strict vegans I will know that they are prepared for any food situation. Survival skills used or not are a must in our home!!!

Making Ostara rattles

March 20th brings the Spring Equinox AKA Ostara, about a ten days before we start getting ready and doing Ostara themed crafts. First off this year was making egg rattles. We went to the dollar store and bought a package of the snap together eggs you fill with candy. When we got home we talked about how the Mother is still sleeping but soon it will be time for Her to awaken and sometimes she needs help. We collected some fillers rice and popcorn kernels they make two different sounds and this lead into a conversation about sounds and acoustics. We blessed the rattles to be used in our Ostara ritual. They sounded great and were rattled loudly to wake up the Mother!

Ostara wreath

Bug, Willowtree and I re-vamped last years Ostara wreath. It had taken a real beating in the move and only had a few eggs left on it. Last years wreath was all eggs, it was completely covered and most of them were sparkly or mirrored.We wanted a new look this year and knew it would include flowers. We took a trip to the dollar store and chose some nice flowers. We salvaged what we could of the eggs from last year and had made some from pipe cleaners in an earlier Ostara craft so decided to add them as well. At the last minute Bug decided to add the little bows and made a cute pipe cleaners flower to add as well. It looks great and I love it. We are here to stay so this one should last a few years :)

Shaving cream method of dying eggs: Fill a cake pan with shaving cream at least half way and drop food coloring onto it.

We switched it up this year when we dyed our Ostara eggs. The shaving cream method was all over Facebook and looked like alot of fun so we bought a cheap container of shaving cream and tried it out! It was a great success and we will defiantly be doing it again next year.

Take a toothpick and swirl the colors around

roll your egg around until completely covered

Set to dry and when dry rinse off the shaving cream.

WALA a very pretty marbled egg

Bug working on her spelling and printing

Ostara altar 2013

Bug set the altar this year

cute Ostara sign

Ostara decor

Spring puzzle Bug is still in her puzzle loving phase

Bugs bunny loot

The Ostara bunny came to visit.

Willowtrees bunny loot

King Connahers bunny loot

Really cool dragon egg Gramma made for King Connaher. The Minions re created this craft and all have Dragon eggs now. It is so simple just a foam egg and thumb tacks and they look brilliant!

Part of my Ostara gift from the Minions and Hubby

and this is the other part, beautiful isn't it!

We always do a seed blessing at Ostara ritual and this is this years

Willowtree and her baby Whiskey

Last year when Zoe had her puppies Willowtree and Whiskey found each other. They are inseparable and he is her baby. She has learned alot of responsibility from having Whiskey and now realizes a small amount of the responsibility of a baby as she has had to not have as many sleepovers since he came into her life because he suffers separation anxiety when she is gone. He is a handful and reminds me very much of a toddler with the trouble he gets into and his cheeky nature. Willowtree is in love and forgives him of anything and trust me he has chewed up some of her most precious things. He is her best friend and protects her fiercely and we are happy to have our grand dog as part of our world.

King Connaher working on his Crystal healing course

Some of his collection

I found these on the Ancestor altar. Bug is always leaving them presents, she is such a sweetheart.

Crystal healing session for Willowtree

Crystal healing for Gramma

Everybody in the house has been having crystal healing sessions regularly as King Connaher and I practice for our certification.

Healing session for Bug. The Dachshunds love crystals and are always hanging around when we are working with them. We do regular crystal session with them as well.