Happy Birthday 14th Eowyn

 Happy Birthday Oompus Loompus!  (AKA Eowyn)  She was so plump when she was a baby she looked just like an Oompa Loompa... in case you were wondering. Do you have odd names for your children?

 Our sweet potatoes are doing quite well.

 So far the largest one is 2 pounds. I know a 2 pound sweet potato. 

 A very large cabbage did well. It is probably the size of about 6 regular heads maybe?

Galadriel made a doll dress.  She did  a great job but I'm not a good seamstress tutor.  I think even "easy sewing" is a language all it's own. Is it me or do sewing instructions miss some key sentences, even paragraphs?!  And Lady Modesty... don't turn our dresses inside out, they aren't masterpieces inside like yours :D

FYI:  If you don't homeschool, I'd like you to know that you don't know what "noise level" means.  If you do... then you know what I mean without my saying any more :D

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Hail Mary full of Grace!

 

 

 

Here is a cute story "The Hail Mary of a Protestant"  Enjoy!

 

 

Happy Birthday Poppy

 Poppy celebrated her 3rd birthday.

 Pippin lost his first tooth.

 Ok, now we have never done the tooth fairy (mean mother award... first I can't afford it, second I don't need fairies visiting us in the night, I'm sure they'd be to blame for the messes that appear out of nowhere that nobody did).  But oddly Pippin put his tooth under his pillow and someone gave him a gold coin.  Where do kids come with these things?  Have we ever discussed the tooth fairy?  I'm sure after my kids read this they will come up with miles of stories about conversations about tooth fairies and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. 

 Sam taking an on-line hunter safety course.  Frodo still has yet to start his.  Then they will do a field day somewhere.

 So we were just nonchalantly driving into our driveway after Mass and lo and behold we had flamingos.

 I was never into plastic lawn ornaments, we tend to stick to metal, like 80 year old tractors, but times change sometimes. *chuckle* 

 When we were harvesting weeds we found a semi-decent sized pumpkin.  I mean it won't become the 1203 we had a couple years ago but it's a pumpkin anyway.

 I could just eat that baby up.

 It's been an awesome summer for swimming.

 Now, I got this swim chair for Aragorn and it was nice until the kids tore the arms off it and you simply can't balance on the thing (as I took a picture of 2 children perfectly well balanced on it).  I sat down to read some Anne of Green Gables and promptly flipped right over into the pool.  Don't they make swim floating chairs that don't pop?

 Weeds are pretty.

 Sometimes.  Poor St. Francis and St. Claire  are lost in the plethora of lambsquarters. I will admit the month of 90-100 temps was not conducive to my bothering with weeds.  St. Francis did desire a solitary life so I guess the weeds protected him from a plethora of children!  (good excuse?)

 Our cow finally had her calf. Unfortunately born breech so died but we have milk again... or will tomorrow after the yellow milk wears off. This was only 2 months worth of moola caps and doesn't include all the other brands that aren't collected at our homeschooling group.  I think it was about $200 a month just on milk and believe me, I knew where to find the cheapest whole milk and Kwik Trip loved us so much the price went down 60c a gallon in town hahaha

 I don't know but what will become of Frodo someday. 

Science experiments.

Rubber Duckie You're the One

 I'm awfully fond of rubber duckies, too... but............

you know when I bought this mama rubber duckie with 4  or 5 little baby rubber duckies on her back for Marigold I really thought I was at the rubber duckie quota but I guess not.  I will admit that I am curious what this person's bathtub might be like if this was the car.  Incidentally, I was not the only one pulling out a phone to take a picture. 

Brutal Honesty

I marvel at how easy it is to involve oneself in pettiness... or at least imbibe the fruits of pettiness...   which is no more than a little piece of rottenness.  I'm beginning to think that pettiness is the devil's real tool.  I can see a new chapter to the Screw Tape Letters which may start something like:
Ha! Ha! Ha! Get them to think that these little things are truly what is real, truly what is important.  It will destroy even the most virtuous! (insert evil laugh) 

How often we do not accuse ourselves in or out of the confessional, but yet so often we do nothing more than excuse ourselves even in these little things.  To accuse oneself and to excuse our neighbor with great mercy!  Our parish priest mentioned a term in his homily on Sunday.. "brutal honesty".  Imagine if we all went into the confessional with brutal honesty (toward self... and mercy towards others).  Here I am Lord to accuse myself in brutal honesty.  Ouch.

St. Teresa of Jesus says, "We may not be [angels or saints]; but what a good thing it is for us to reflect that we can be if we will only try, and if God gives us His hand!" (Way 16) The saint strongly insists that those who have dedicated themselves to the spiritual life should not nourish petty desires, but generous ones, nor should they fear to emulate the saints; she affirms with authority, "I have never seen any courageous person hanging back on this road, nor any soul that, under the guise of humility, acted like a coward, go as far in many years as the courageous soul can in a few" (Life, 13)Divine Intimacy #289

Let's let Our Blessed Mother teach us the path, the great path, the magnanimous path... do great things while remaining hidden.  All we need to say is "Be it done unto me according to Thy Word."  In that there is no room for pettiness... only for great love.  And the fruit of such love is Christ.

The Hobbit ... Thrice!

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” opens this holiday season, on December 14, 2012.

 “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” will be released on December 13, 2013.

“The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” will be released worldwide on July 18, 2014. 

Thrice awesome!

Annual Cow Chip Throw Fund Raiser

Theme this year:  Pirates of the Cowwibean   (*chuckle*)

I kid you not when I say in my area we have a contest for seeing how far one can throw a cow chip where somewhere around 40,000 people come to spectate.  (BTW, "we" is not my family but the local general "we", just in case it was just the kind of sporting event you'd expect at Trinity Acres, though our cows aren't here, however we do have horses so if there were to be a horse apple throwing contest........ nevermind, my children read this blog and I don't want them getting any not-so-fresh ideas)  Ok, with all that I just lost all the city dwellers who visit here. You aren't missing anything.  Anyway... this year we spent a couple months suffering a drought and I just learned that it had catastrophic effects on finding appropriately dry cow chips (patties if you prefer). You can read the story HERE.  I don't know but I laughed my way through it even if it was in earnest.  Incidentally the record is 258 feet for the furthest chucked chip. 

 Sam and Rooster were the Franciscan Fryers in a fund raiser for our priests.

 This year they did deep fried oreos "with or without" (powdered sugar) and supreme (with ice cream and chocolate syrup).  Just typing that, I gained 4 pounds.

 Galadriel, Eowyn and Frodo as well as Annie and Allie (who were gone before I got there) help with the serving and money.

 Chair woman ... and her husband were the entrepreneurs of the deep fried fundraiser

 Another stand that was for our parish is the walking taco stand. Now this was an ingenius idea.   They slice open a bag of Fritos then put in taco meat, lettuce and whatever else and you just eat right out of the bag.  Neat-o or what?  I think it would be great with doritos, too.

 4 deep fried oreos for $2, add a couple scoops of ice cream for an extra buck.

I do not want to eat another oreo for an entire year...!
(though this was actually a deep fried pickle that we tried out fo funsies after we shut down)