Nature Study Outing :: On St. Nicholas Day

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas!  We have had such a lovely day here.  Like so many Catholic families, our morning started with treats in honor of today's saint, patron of children, filling the little ones' "stockings."  (The truth is we used to use stockings...but I've fallen a wee bit behind and my youngest three don't even have stockings yet.  <blush>  I  have grand plans to make a matching set for all the children, so I'll be starting from scratch one of these days...In the meantime, I'm just glad chocolate just tastes as good coming from a paper bag!)

After breakfast, we left for our weekly nature study outing, today to a trail we visited on a native plant walk in late summer.  That day, the path was covered with poison oak and it was in the high 90s by the time we left.  This time, it was literally freezing: I think it was in the low 30s when we got there.  Very unusual weather for our area.  As you can see, we were all dressed accordingly!

mommy with baby #6 on back and baby #7 on front :)

The sunlight filtering through the trees was just lovely.

sycamores, bay laurels, and oaks

The kids had a great time climbing the huge laurel tree along our route...

...and we all had fun looking at the mosses and lichen and watching the creek flow by.

When we got home, we had a sweet teatime with our St. Nicholas treats and hot cocoa for all but baby.

Our afternoon was spent working on nature journals, listening to our music selection for this week (Mozart's "Clarinet Quintet") and a chapter from our current audiobook (Nesbit's Five Children and It), and reading some of our favorite St. Nicholas picture books with the littles: The Baker's Dozen, Demi's The Legend of St. Nicholas, and The Miracle of St. Nicholas.  A happy feast indeed!

Wishing you a cozy Friday too.