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Name day fun!

02 Oct 2011 by

There are three special days our children each get to celebrate: their birthday, their baptism anniversary and their name day. Yesterday, the feast of St. Therese was our sweet little flower’s name day. We had a great time.
Due to some car issues that my amazing husband had to fix, we didn’t go to our usual morning Mass nor were we able to go to the Shrine of the  Little Flower in San Antonio this year. Instead I made some well loved French crepes for the family to celebrate our well loved French Saint. Then we ended up at noon Mass at the Cathedral. To our surprise and my delight, the priest said the Mass in French! I took French some 17 years ago and I was able to read about 80% of what was written in the worship aid, and I was able to understand about 60% of what was said that wasn’t in the worship aid. And somehow I convinced Therese that it was awesome that the Mass was being celebrated in French! Afterward, we asked Father to give her a blessing for her name day and of course he gave it in French!

Then we picked up some sandwiches and went for a picnic at Mayfield Park. A stray peacock was watching us eat and waiting patiently for one of the children to drop just a little nibble of food for him. Next we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to apply what we’d learned in botany this past week. So we went on a little nature walk to identify some dicots and monocots.

The other children made Therese some feast day cards when we returned home and Fulton bought some lollipops to share to celebrate the day. Finally dinner wrapped up with some pepperoni rolls and oreo pudding for dessert. And Therese’s words after dinner, “Thank you, Mommy, for a great feast day!” Thank you Jesus and thank you St. Therese!

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Texas History and the Heliostat

02 Oct 2011 by

Last week we had two field trips. And the kids were such trooper and still got all their school work done.

Wednesday, the Bob Bullock Museum had its homeschool day and Thursday we went to UT to see the Heliostat, which is a special telescope they have for viewing the sun and its awesome activity in real time.

Both were great but  I realize my kids are still not ready for movies like the Star of Destiny at Bob Bullock. Things are still scary for their little eyes. Muffin sat in her chair with her hands over her ears and Cecilia kept signing “all done.” That was actually kind of cute. Otherwise, Therese found the early history with the Spanish explorers interesting because we JUST started learning about that in history.

Before going to UT we reviewed what we learned last year in astronomy about the sun and it was neat actually seeing a lot of it in real time. We saw sun spots and solar flares. Oh how I love home schooling!

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Sea World Homeschool Day

22 Sep 2011 by

One of the Sea World trainers said this afternoon, “The best thing about homeschooling is that the world is your classroom, but today Sea World is your classroom!”

We had another great year at Sea World Homeschool Day. The kids’ favorite part of course was feeding the dolphins and the beluga whale and pacific dolphin show. I invested in “field trip” sketch books for all the kids and they loved drawing and writing about their favorite things at each exhibit. We also enjoyed looking at some of the plants and identifying them in the phylum we’ve studied in botany. (You’ll see Therese examining the spores on a ferm which is a sporangia and of the phylum pterophyta.) We met another family there with 5 kids (which will be us in 3 years), and saw a few of our homeschool friends from Austin.

 

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Homeschool Projects

22 Sep 2011 by

This week we are catching up on a few of our homeschool history projects. Fulton is studying Egypt and life on the Nile River. So we made a model of the Nile. He is suppose to simulate the flooding the Nile each week and watch the grass grow along its banks. Therese started her third year of history studying the Spanish sailing over to South American and searching for gold. The Spanish took gold from the Aztecs but also mined and panned for gold in streams. So we buried some “gold” pennies at the bottom of a bucket and she built a mine shaft. Actually I think she learned more that NOT building a mine shaft can have disastrous results and it takes much longer to get to the gold. We also took some time to plant our fall garden in hopes that we can get something in this drought.


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Jammin’ with Matt Maher

19 Sep 2011 by

Matt Maher is my FAVORITE Catholic singer! He’s awesome and so filled with the Holy Spirit. Adam and I went to his concert last night at Texas State University in San Marcos. The crowd wasn’t huge but it was awesome to see so many people of different ages there. Some people brought their little bitty kids and their older teens. It was so much fun. We saw some of our friends, too. Our friend, Rebecca, took some great pictures.

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My Babies are getting older

17 Sep 2011 by

My little girls turn another year older this month. Gianna turned 4 last Wednesday and Cecilia turns 2 on Tuesday. The girls had their first party today and we all had a great time celebrating with family and friends and friends that are like family. Gianna wanted something in the princess  genre and Cecilia still can’t talk so I chose duckies for her. I made a princess pinata that made my little girl smile and found some great cake ideas.

The big gift hit his year was Calico Critters and the Woodsland animals. Gianna finally has something that is hers and that  her siblings like and want too. After months of watching her siblings play with cars and not share, Cecilia now has her own daisy car of her own that she absolutely loves!


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Baby G VII on the way!

08 Sep 2011 by

Today on this most blessed feast of the nativity of our Blessed Mother, she gave us the gift of seeing our new baby having a party in my womb! Baby G VII is on his or her way. Baby G is a healthy 10.5 weeks old and due April 2,the Monday of Holy Week(and anniversary of the death of John Paul II).

It has been a rough 6 weeks since we found out about our newest blessing. My progesterone levels continue to be low, but I am on the maximum dose of progesterone supplement at this time. I had some spotting that has thankfully passed. I have been really tired and mildly nauseous which are always good signs.

The children are very excited to welcome a new brother or sister. They have ridden the roller coaster of scares for the future of their sibling and risen to every moment in joining us in prayers for a healthy baby. Fulton is advocating for a brother to share his room with someday. The girls would be happy with another princess.

Please pray for us and God’s holy will for our family.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.
St. Gerard, pray for us.
St. Gianna, pray for us.
Bl. John Paul II, pray for us.
All holy men and women, pray for us!

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The Family Rosary

04 Sep 2011 by

The Christian family finds and consolidates its identity in prayer. Make the daily effort to find a time to pray together, to talk with Our Lord and listen to his voice. How beautiful it is when the family prays in the evening, even though it be only a part of the Rosary. The family that prays together stays together; a family that prays is a family that is saved. Act in such a way that your homes may be places of Christian faith and virtue through praying together.

–Blessed Pope John Paul II (Address to Families, 24 March, 1984)

We heard in today’s Gospel, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matt 18:20 How Jesus must long to be in our homes and in our families! How much joy it must bring him to be invited in the joys, the celebrations, the resolution of conflicts, the sorrows, the hurts and the tears to hold our families and our children close to His Sacred Heart. And how sorrowful He must be when we don’t invite Him, having His mercy rejected.

The time we have spent in prayer in the last six months has been a gift. I marvel at God many times that he has been so wonderful in allowing us the grace to continue our family Rosary. I think I mentioned in a previous post that we started this last Lent. It was only meant to be a decade, but flourished into a whole Rosary by the second or third night. There was a season in our lives not long ago when it was all we could do to get the family fed, kitchen cleaned, kids bathed and in bed by 8 p.m. It seem there was “never enough time.” But somehow–no, not somehow, but by the grace of God, we have time every night to pray the Rosary. Our Lord and Lady have been so good to us.

He will always open the doors for us to do His most holy will and so many times He opens a very wide door for our family. And what a beautiful grace to hear our kids pray and to hear the intentions in the inner most depths of their hearts. They hear Adam and my conversations or the conversations we have with our friends and they carry those intentions many times to our prayer time. Oh and just a reminder, they aren’t perfect. Sometimes they trail off…sometimes they fight over who is going to lead what decade, the baby doesn’t usually sit still the whole time, they slouch on the couch, but they still sit and join us for those 17 minutes that are full of grace.

So if you don’t already do it, I invite you again to start the family Rosary. Start with a decade–3 minutes–after dinner. And see how your family is transformed by Jesus in your midst.

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Cecilia’s Speech Update

02 Sep 2011 by

Cecilia has been receiving in- home developmental therapy through the Early Childhood Intervention program to help her start speaking more. We have seen leaps and bounds in her signing since we started in July. She’s a smart cookie and can communicate very well non verbally. However, her verbal speech has been coming along slowly.

This week we had a visit with our regular therapist and a speech therapist to re- evaluate the services we are receiving. Now in addition to our weekly visit with the developmental therapist, we are adding the speech therpist another two days every other week.

I have to say ECI has really helped us identify her strengths and build up her weaknesses. Most of the time communicating with little miss sunshine is easy. She still has her moments aka 2 year old behavior. Thankfully she has the most delightful dispositions of all our children.

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Summer Family Update

25 Aug 2011 by

It’s just not easy to update the world on our lives when there are so many little lives to look after.

The kids are loving the pool. Fulton will finally put his face in the water thanks to the motivating water slide. Muffin is learning to swim with a nifty little swim aid that I originally got for Cecilia. Therese is still going strong and realized she can swim the whole length of the pool. Cecilia is usually a handful so I often leave her with Adam when she’s napping and he’s working from home, but she’s getting a lot better and doesn’t scream anymore.

Adam and I took a month of dance lessons with a gift certificate he gave me for my birthday. It was so great and I highly recommend it! We learned the Argentinian tango, Vienesse waltz, East Coast swing and jitterbug, and the West Coast swing. We were able to make the lessons four night of the week thanks to our generous friends who watched the kids. We’re still amatuers but we can get around on the dance floor.

Cecilia is still a little girl of few spoken words but many many signs and many smiles. We’ve had visits from a developmental therapist since mid-July. In that time she has gained only a few more sounds and words, but she can sign so many words that it is easy for her to communicate and any frustration is minimal. Next week we have a speech therapist coming out to observe and perhaps we’ll have a better sence what is going on.

We started school last week. It is a full time job for me but so far so good. Therese is now a 3rd grader and Fulton is starting first grade. It is so interesting to see how different they are and how opposite their gifts and talents. Fulton is definitely the math whiz while Therese is the English and reading star. Both are very talented and capable but certainly have their preferences. We school four days a week and leave one day for make up projects, playdates or field trip. Our extra curriculars at home are botany for science, Latin for our language and art appreciation. At least for Latin and art, Gianna can also participate. When we get more into the hands-on of our botany, she’ll be able to do more with us. Between 8am and 4pm I really only have a two hour break from noon to 2…so if you don’t hear much from us, that’s why! The kids are also participating in the Christian Choral Society of Austin. Muffin gets to go to class this year and she is loving it. She so wants to be doing everything her siblings are doing, but I’m not ready for her to be in kindergarten yet!

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