About Me

Washington, DC, United States
Heather Capell Bramble is mother of two kaleidoscoping kids, Jonah and Vera. She has a magical kaleidoscope, often in her back pocket, and it usually helps her turn her normally chaotic life into something beautiful. Her goal is to have as much fun and try to be as happy as they can while on the uncharted journey of motherhood. This means doing lots of arts and crafts, going on crazy adventures, and celebrating all kinds of holidays - and yes, trying to laugh along the way!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Autumn At last!

This weekend we welcomed Autumn - Fall - the season of brilliant colors, sexy boots, snugly jackets, sensuous scarves and crunchy leaves under your feet and some pretty great holidays!

I love FALL!  (truth be told I love all the seasons!)  I love living in a place that has seasons.  I lived for three years in Austin, TX and I really missed the seasons.  It feels good to be at one with the changing of the seasons... even better was the year I spent in Israel and we literally ate the foods of each season from the central market in Jerusalem... no imported fruit or vegetables... just the ones that were in season - I really liked that!

So this weekend we did what any good kaleidoscoping crew would do on the first weekend of Fall!  We went to FALL FESTIVALS!  You know we love good festival!

We kicked the weekend off with a jaunt over to Capitol Hill.  We don't get there much, but when we do we usually have fun.  We went to the Barracks Row Fall Festival.  It was a little Main Street USA right here in the middle of our Nation's capitol, literally on Capitol Hill, just steps away from the actual Capitol's steps!  Go us!

It was totally fun.  There were arts & crafts, a little petting zoo, booths of all types, arm painting, arial gymnastics, kid games, and musical entertainment.  We hung out with a random street performer and his electric guitar for quite quite a while... Jonah even got to strum the guitar.  Then the highlight of the day was the performance by Batala - the all women Afro-Brazilian percussion band!  It was absolutely completely awesome!  Jonah & Vera were entranced and dancing up a storm... and well, when we got home, I looked them up on the Internet and tried to join the group... (seriously that is how superfantastic they were!!!) but alas they are not accepting new members right now... I will check back later.  If you ever get a chance to see them - go - it is sort of a life changing experience - well it was for me.  Next week, we may need to check out the drum circle at Meridian Park because I am all into drums now!

We had a fall festival meal:  Appetizer of cotton candy, Main meal of ice cream sundaes, and dessert of fancy cookies!  Again, all I can say - Go us!

It was the perfect way to begin the new season - even if it was sunny and close to 88 degrees???

It's all about getting your new season groove on - new clothes, new shoes, new thoughts, new foods, new holidays - some of it isn't really new  - just the "cycle" of the year continuing.  But each time we get to a another holiday or date that I can mark, I look at my kids and think - wow, another year, another memory, another blessing.  That is the real benefit of noticing the day, the month, or the season and the time of year - stopping to make sure you are able to make a mental note - how lucky I am and how I am going to do my best to make the most of every second of it all and enjoy it the best that I can!

FABULOUS FALL WE ARE ENJOYING YOU ALREADY!

Happy Monday Everyone!

And yes... spoiler alert - I did see Madonna last night (without the kids) and it was a religious experience!!!!  One of the best nights I have had in my life - not that I am dramatic or anything like that... I will find a way to weave it into one of the posts this week - I just could not do it today... the concert finished after 1am!!!  I LOVE MADONNA!!!


bubbles

clay pizza dough with flower prints

bracelets made from pipe cleaners, pasta and leaves

balloon sword and cotton candy



animals!

this is our street performer guy - eating our icecream right before Jonah & Vera put on a dance show and then Jonah strumed the guitar!


cookies

batala!!!!


my kids dancing to the batala beat - one day mommy might be in that band!!!!

making seed balls from mud...








Friday, September 21, 2012

Camp Shabbot!

We still have some posts left over from August to get out of the way, and this one is a Shabbot one - so here it is!  Happy Friday everyone!  And Shabbot Shalom!

In the midst of our less than august August, I decided we needed a good dose of backyard camping fun!  We went all out - we had a super deluxe tent with 3 "fold down flaps" that had a lake, a cookout station, and a forest trail on them.  But that wasn't all.  It also came with whole a set of cooking out paraphernalia including a little camp fire that lit up and made noise, and a whole set of camp out pots, pans, cups and canteen!  We also had lawnmowers, horse shoe game, golf, watering cans, a little set of table and chairs perfectly sized for my Jonah & Vera.  Their chairs were froggys!  They also had matching red Elmo camping hats!  We had breakfast, lunch, snacks and shabbot dinner in the backyard at our camp site!  We BBQ'd a dinner of super camp food - hot dogs!  And yes, after dinner we even toasted some s'mores over a little flame!

During the afternoon Jonah & I made butterfly nets from recycled stuff - a big milk jug, paper towel holder and a plastic netting bag that some pool toys came in.  It was fun to make them and even more fun watching the kids trying to catch the butterflies!

It was a good old fashioned camp out in our little backyard. While August may not have been august, we still managed to have our share of fun!

ready for breakfast

our tent



horseshoes





mowing


 




A little milk break!

 
sweeping up a bit

watering the plants

making the butterfly nets





golf


shabbot dinner



after dinner camping fun


and now some smores!




long good day camping!