Well, it's raining, raining, raining here right now so our day to begin digging the basement will probably be more like this coming Monday rather than Friday. OH well... we've waited this long, then we can wait a tad bit longer...

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas! Here's the Parente Christmas card this year!

I posted this on some lists but never did get around to posting it here until now...

We finally closed on our construction loan Monday!!!

Hooray! Let the buliding begin!

I hope to upload some picts of our home site today...

12/20/05
Well, our famous flying hen has gone to meet her maker. Evidently a fox thought her quite a tasty treat when she was making her rounds. :-( But the upside is that while burying her Jacob and Grace got to see eggs in the process of formation *inside* the hen. :-O
RIP

Can you stand another animal picture? Here are Oreo and Daisy, living it up on their play table. You can't help but love the little boogers...

We look forward to getting some pure-bred pygmy goats in the near future. Oreo and Daisy are mixed breeds... but good pets, nonetheless.

Our famous flying hen, hopping back over the fence so she gets her share of dinner!

These are the first of our farm animals... we can't wait to get the house built out here at our land!

Here are the big girls, all decked out and ready for their trip to the Nutcracker ballet recently. They look in the Christmas mood, don't they?

Here's Emma... enjoying some cereal bites at the table. My, how they grow! She's already 8 mos. old!

Hooray! After much red tape and gnashing of teeth, it looks like we'll FINALLY close on our construction loan next week. Suffice it to say that we're VERY happy to be on the way to breaking ground on our house.

The past couple of months we've been doing lots of things, not the least of which is participating in a local theater production. Jacob, Grace and Mary were all in "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" with the Benson Little Theater. This was one time that I knew they could dedicate themselves to such a production because the theater is right across the road from the house we're renting in town. :-) I have lots of cute photos like this one with the angel choir. Mary is on the front (standing) row, the second from the right.
After weeks and weeks of rehearsals, they pulled off 4 wonderfully performances! It was the same weekend as our church's annual Harvest Day event so it was a hectic weekend, to be sure!

In case you thought we were MIA, we've just been swamped. Vince has been working way too many house of nightshift and we've been trying to sort out the details of our future home.

Now the tide has turned and we'll be doing a conventional, stick-built home instead of the modular we had previously planned. Banks aren't as keen on modulars around these parts, evidentally.

So now we are charting a new course. Looks like it'll be the beginning of next summer before we're moving in a new home... God willing!

I've looked at house plans until my eyes were crossed and we finally picked one. The photo above is THE plan we finally shelled out the bucks for... it'll be pretty much as pictured, on a full, unfinished basement plus a garage. St. Joseph, pray for us!

Okay, so how many outfits should a child have? This is the question of the day. Dear Grace was very happy to get rid of lots of her clothes to share with hurricane refugees who left home with only the clothes on their backs. Now Mary is another story... can you say "clothes horse"?! At least we got Grace's box of things mailed out and some adult clothes, etc. but it may take a while to widdle down the rest of our family's wardrobe. I'm thinking really radical about this but hey, that's nothing new...

Lord, please be with all the people who are victims of the hurricane. It goes far beyond words, even worse than we could imagine initially. Please do anything you can to help. We're sending money and resources, as much as we can. Please consider donating to Catholic Charities or your other favorite reputable charity.

If you have any items to donate, consider sending them to:
Family Missions Company
12636 Everglade Road
Abbeville, LA 70510

Clothing, diapers, toiletries, etc. are much needed and will go directly to those in need...

Well, I found this photo and scanned it for family history purposes. My kids insisted I post it...
Yep, it's me... 13 and a half years ago. The image scanned a little too dark, my hair wasn't so dark.
Wow... time flies... who is that person?? Seems like a lifetime ago.

Unfortunately, the all the latest news has been bad.

My Aunt Darlese passed away last week from cancer-- she was 78. Her funeral mass and burial was Friday. The up side to this is that she's no longer suffering and that she would have been thrilled to see so many members of her family all together that day. I saw some cousins I hadn't seen in *many* years. It reminded me how blessed we are to have one another.

And, of course, the awful hurricane. Hurricane Katrina has devastated LA, MS, and AL. We are just beginning to grasp the level of destruction caused by this storm. I pray that all people will work together to help the survivors in any way they can. I can't imagine how a family would recover. Anyone who can afford to should certainly try to give to organizations who will assist in the recovery efforts. I'm off now to the American Red Cross website....

I got this from an e-mail list for those using Mother of Divine Grace curriculum. Since Jacob is *wrapping* up his study of Egypt now, we're going to have to try this. Better than the 'ole mummifying a raw chicken!

* * * Make Your Own Apple Mummy * * *

Instructions for making a mummified apple with a salt compound.

Ever wonder why you get thirsty when you eat salty foods? That's
because salt is a desiccant-it helps remove water from things,
including human bodies. Experiment with different salt compounds and
discover which makes the best mummified apple!

You need
Fresh apple, knife, 1 cup table salt, 1 cup Epsom salts, 1 cup baking
soda, 4 12-oz. Plastic cups, marker, masking tape, food scale, a data
table, shelf shaded from sunlight

To do:
1. Put a piece of tape on each cup and label as follows: Control,
Baking Soda, Epsom Salt, and Table Salt.
2. Slice the apple into quarters so you have four slices similar in
size. Place one slice in front of each cup.
3. With the apple slice for each cup, and record the weights on the
data table. Drop the apples into their cups.
4. Pour baking soda, Epsom salt, and table salt into their
respective cups. Make sure each slice is covered completely.
5. Set the cups on a shady shelf, away from direct sunlight. Let
them sit for seven days.
6. After a week, take out each apple slice and brush off as much
salt as possible. (Do not rinse the apple because that will
rehydrate it.) Weigh each slice, and record the new weight in your
data table. Then, calculate the amount of moisture lost by
subtracting each slice's final weight from the initial weight.

Conclusions:
Which compound words best at "mummifiying an apple? Where did the
moisture in the slices go?

Don't stop now!
Embalmers used a mixture of salts to dry out Egyptian mummies. Try
different combinations and proportions of baking soda, Epsom salt,
and table salt to "mummify" apple slices. Which combination works
best?

Our house will look something like this, put on a full walk-out basement. I can't wait to get it done! :-)

Today was Vince's day off so we had a very relaxed day, not really accomplishing much. We made a quick visit to our church to visit Jesus in Adoration and then stopped by my mom and dad's house to see how their sun-room addition is going. After a nice little nap with the baby, I suggested we take an evening trip to the pool. It closes for the year before long so we'd better enjoy it while we can. Dear friends of ours also are members of the pool and they were there, too, so the time flew by with all the chatter of happy friends. :-) A nice close to a nice day...

Well, I decided it's time to do our own blog. Seeing as how we'll start construction on our house soon, I might have some pretty interesting posts and pictures in the near future. We're doing a modular home over a full basement. I'll upload the picture of the proposed house soon.

Today Jacob was at a friend's house so the the girls and I took turns helping the little ones... Lucas and Emma. I had a phone call appointment with our Mother of Divine Grace consultant amid the busy-ness and then it was back to "school" day for Mary's dance class.

The other interesting thing was that we saw a news story this morning on a military reservist who has been distributing shoes to Iraqi children so I jumped on that as a new service project. Shoes, shoes, send me your shoes! Hopefully we can send several boxes of shoes for our Iraqi neighbors.