September 28, 2008

September Musings

Boys!

Our latest incidences involve boys! One of the boys "dropped" a screwdriver from the otherside of the house from the loft and it amazingly bounced up and crashed through the outer window of the bottom oven door. Since this leaves one in a complete state of utter dismay, there really was nothing else to do but grab the camera.

Our next incident involve Bilbo who has decided at 9 months he is one of the big kids. He had yet to learn the art of ducking out of the way of projectile missles in the hands of the 2 year old. Said missle bopped him right square in the eye. This was Bilbo's first black eye.

Our next incident involved Pippin who fell while the bigger children were playing a game of chess. The story went that Pipping fell right on the bishop which went into his mouth and puncture the inside of his cheek! Only in my house would we have an injury during a chess game!

September Swim

When the end of September is so beautiful we could think of nothing better than one last summer swim.

Eleanor




Merry

As my children are forever dredging the bottom of the lake for treasure, this day they actually found a treasure, a big ol' sandbag!

"Gold!"

More "Gold and jewels" I believe is what they called this.

Then, believe it or not, inside this sand bag was a black garbage bag full of ID cards, driver's liscense, credit cards, check book, etc...! We were shocked to say the least so we packed it all up and brought it home and called the police who came and took it to do some research on it. Interesting day to say the least!

Cute Food!

I really never thought I'd be posting a picture of cute pasta but these wee little bow ties I found in the grocery aisle were really too cute!

Teeny-weeny little bow ties. What next?!

Afternoon Teatime with PACE

We run a 5 day cycle for school. Fifth Day is our fun day and it can fall on any day of the week. Regular classes are lighter and then there are the "extras". One of these extras is afternoon tea. We start this after the first several weeks/month of routine has finally settled in. During teatime we read from the PACE program for Character Education. (which I have blogged about before)

Our first topic is Self-discipline and how coincidental that our first Tea should fall on the Wednesday Ember Day of Fall. Ember Days are found on the traditional liturgical calendar. They are penetential days where we are reminded to offer to God some of the blessings he has given us, particular during the harvest season. These are days of fasting and abstaining. So what a terrific way to begin our study of Self-Discipline with an ember day. So for this day we had a plain biscuit with a bit of butter (maybe we should have skipped the butter?) and water for our "tea" (we aren't actually tea drinkers but we always find a drink to call tea!)

We will study each virtue for about 5-6 weeks. This particular week we read, discussed and memorized some quotes about self-discipline and read some stories from the Book of Virtues by William Bennett. Let's just say there have been many more "Pleases" this week :)

Felling the Forest

Sam's been busy felling trees for the winter and making the field larger.


Frodo on the other hand has been... monkeying around...



And barrel riding

Timber!
Signs of Fall
The soybean field is fading into Fall... I miss summer already but fall is lovely... however I can't wait til spring!
Last crop of hay.
Brotherly Love
Baby Mozart

September 21, 2008

What Can Trig Teach?

One of my favorite authors is my famous friend Mary Ellen Barrett. She has such a way with words.

Trig shows us that each life is valuable and beautiful and his right to be here is the same as any other person’s. It’s a message sorely needed in this country and I am grateful to be able to cast a vote for a candidate that is open to life even when it’s not easy.

Here is the lovely article entitled What Trig Can Teach in it's entirety.

Mary Ellen is a wonderful wife and mother of 8 :) When I grow up I want to be just like her.

September 14, 2008

First Day of School and Other Tidbits


Twas the night before school begins and the school was actually in order.

The littles library.

The first day of school. Eowyn and Galdriel share a desk.

Rosie and Eleanor share a desk.
We have always done uniforms and these were our favorites. Denim jumpers with a lovely embroidery on the front with polo shirts. Unfortunately our source for these closed their shop. Boys are suppose to wear polos and good clean jeans... but boys will be boys.

On the other side of the school Merry and Pippin share a desk.

Frodo

Sam

Kewpie Doll

I guess Bilbo forgot to don his uniform.

The children watching one of the old Mr. Wizard shows on DVD. They love them and think they are hilarious. They are old time science shows.

This year the cicadas are quite thick. Oh the things mothers must endure for the sake of their children. The other day I went in to tuck the boys in, these boys who have collected a rather large sampling of dead bugs including a huge dragon fly. Well, this said night Frodo is giggling because "it" is making a funny noise. To my question "What is that?!" The boys inform me in their dead bug collection they have a LIVE toad... *in the house*. (Time ticked off purgatory that day.)

Heelarious



A friend of mind posted this prize winning pair of shoes. Heels for *babies*. Now I think I have seen everything!

First Holy Communion

Congratulations to our nephew as he received his First Holy Communion!

Our nephew and our wonderful priest.

Their beautiful family

Labor of Love

This was my labor of love for our nephew who received his First Holy Communion. Since his next big duty will be to join his 2 boy cousins to serve at the Altar, I made him an Altar Boy Handbook.

Come to Mass Coloring Book www.OLVS.org
Altar Boy Audio CD for the parts of the Mass. I highly recommend this. Frodo listened to this over and over and was serving the TLM at 7. www.AllCatholicBooks.com
I began the book with things about Altar Boys: proper deportment, obedience, black shoes (!!) etc.

These gorgeous pictures are from www.MOScompany.com
Opposite the picture are the parts of the Mass in both Latin and English that both the Priest and Altar boy says.

Know Your Mass is a wonderful comic book style book that is just chuck full of information about the TLM. It's a must-have. www.AllCatholicBooks.com


I wrapped up the gift in a beautifully embroidered pillow case from our parish's silent auction.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY EOWYN!!

Eowyn turned 10 !!
In our household we celebrate birthdays and Baptism Days as well as feast days... anything for a piece of cake! :)

Mom's Wellies

Ok, I'm going to admit I have a hankering for Preppy clothes and shoes. Hey, I grew up in Skaneateles, what can you expect? I love Lands' End and LLBean. And now I finally have myself a pair of wellies... actually these are more accurately "Wallies" since I bought them at Wally-world.

Now tell me these aren't cute?!


Bilbo stepping into my boots!

Ponies

Our wee bit of Ireland (though truly the pond doesn't actually look as nice as in this picture!)



My little cowboy

And cowgirl!

Chopping

Grandpa chopping hay

Watermelon Harvest

If one watermelon can be said to be a harvest this is our watermelon harvest! Sam is very obviously tickled to death by his 20 pound watermelon!!

It was absolutely delicious! (and I'm not the biggest fan of watermelon)

Dinner Bell

One silly thing I always wanted was a dinner bell. And lo and behold my next door neighbors had a garage sale and were getting rid of theirs! But does anyone come when it's rung? Nope, because they are waiting for Mom to whistle! I think I need to get one of those whistles like Captain von Trapp had in The Sound of Music, I'm certain it's quite unlady-like of me to be whistling with 2 fingers in my mouth!