Our Story
Welcome to Eight Turns to Winter, we are so very happy you are here.
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My name is Vicky and I am a mother, a homeschooler, a maker and a dreamer. I have four delightful children and an ever-growing number of chickens. We live at the foot of Mount Taranaki in Magical New Zealand.
Eight Turns to Winter and The Door to ElvenRealm all began with my eldest son, Cohen. He is a wild soul in a small body. Every day is pure joy to him, nothing brings him down. Except school. He is gifted in so many areas but reading and math came so hard to him. He couldn't keep letters in the right order, couldn't figure out what numbers were trying to tell him. It was a difficult few years and for a while I didn't think we would make it through. Everybody said maybe he needed to go to school so they could help him where I clearly could not.
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One weekend, as I tried tearfully to figure out how to just keep going, I made two little needlefelted elves that I named Adam and Merribelle. They had purple cloaks to match the lavender growing outside our window. Cohen really loved them and as I watched him play at the table with the elves, an idea began to form.
The next monday, we were to learn regrouping. We sat at the table, he on my lap, and looked at the items I had spread before us: the elves, some lavender sprigs, a wooden wagon.
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"Adam and Merribelle are bundling lavender to take to the elven market. Lavender is my favourite, you can use it for lots of different things and you can even eat it. Smell it, isn't it beautiful? Maybe we can put some oil in your bath later. See these bundles? They are tied in groups of ten, but oh no, Merribelle has three lavender flowers left over and Adam has some too, let's count them...".
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And for the first time, he didn't cry. And we learned how to make ten. And everything changed.
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Now ElvenRealm is simply bursting with friends and stories and magic and this site will be a place to share it with you. So that if you, too, are ever trying to figure out how to just keep going, you might find a little inspiration, a little help,
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And a little magic, too.
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Love Vicky x
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