Lucas...

December on the front porch

I've been caught!

This was Emma about to pull off all the clings from the windows. She loves sitting on the stairs here to look out the window.

Pride and Prejudice heroine?

Elizabeth Bennet

Often called Lizzy, Elizabeth is the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. The second eldest of five sisters, she is witty and intelligence, though her prejudice prevents her from recognizing her true love when he appears. However, Mr. Darcy, though he appears proud, wins her love and respect, but not before she believes she's lost him forever.

Which Classic Heroine are You?
Take this silly quiz to see which heroine you are!

Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, and Happy Epiphany!

Well, I just lost a week of my life. What I mean is, a stomach virus has made its rounds through our household. It started New Year's Eve with Emma and ended (we think) with Jacob and I. I'm shocked that dear hubby didn't get it but time will tell if he finally gets it. He's been on nightshift so maybe he didn't get to be around us enough to catch it. :-/

Everyone's blogging their New Year's resolutions but I feel like I do the same ones every year.You know the ones: lose weight and be healthier, be kinder to one another (family), offer more time to God's work, save money and be good stewards, you know... be a saint! It's alot to bite off. But that's what we're called to do, right? Be saints? My pastor always tells the story that his parents wanted to marry not only because they loved one another but because they thought that their beloved would help them get to heaven. They chose one another because they wanted to help one another get to heaven! How many of us can say that? I hope many of us can. I know my husband and children help me to have opportunities to exhibit heroic patience and self-control everyday. (hee-hee!)

I've learned a great deal these past few weeks, much of which was not how I wanted to learn it! Dear hubby had to work throughout Christmas on nightshift (12-hour shifts) and I was a basket-case trying to do everything for everyone. A dear family friend passed away just before Christmas and his funeral was a couple days after Christmas. *We found out our dear pastor is leaving in March!* (More on this later.) Just as we thought we were beginning to see the light of day, this stomach bug started on the eve of the New Year. On my daugher's birthday day I was in the throes of washing up after the 4 yo and 7 yo all day (while trying to make her birthday day as pleasant as possible under the circumstances). What's the saying about human beings make plans and God laughs? Well, I got my priorities put in place, whether I wanted to or not.

Below I will quote an e-mail I sent out to many of you dear friends while I was in the midst of my pity party on Christmas Day:


I want to share my 2X4 to the head kind of revelation from this morning...

Background: Vince is working thru Christmas (electric company nuclear
reactor).

So Christmas Eve was his 4th out of 5 nights he has to work
12-hour shifts. Tension building, I'm getting frustrated taking kids to
Mass, etc. by myself (4 year old boy going bonkers!), trying to make the
perfect Christmas, etc. Christmas Eve was the last straw... it was just a
pure disaster. Jacob's 13 year old hormones and I clashing constantly... I
was in tears half the day... most of us were arguing the whole day long
and Emma was fussy most the day. I got almost nothing done that I had
planned and we ended up having Chinese food after 5 pm Mass. Pathetic...

Last night as I was awake in the wee hours doing all kinds of Christmas
magic by myself I was having a big-time pity party, but I was trying to
shake it off the whole time, trying to push away the depression that
was trying to overtake me. I also was bummed that I didn't get a chance
to finish a Christmas arrangement for Hannah's grave. Like "What kind
of mother doesn't find something for her baby's grave?!" I finally
cried and recovered enough to finish up my chores and get to bed about
2 AM.

So this morning as I brushed my teeth to drink some much-needed coffee,
I felt like I got a real kick in the rear from my guardian angel or the
Holy Spirit or someone up there. I realized that my temporarily absent
husband would be coming home, God-willing, safe and sound. We have a
local homeschool family nearby who lost their dad a couple months ago
as the mom was expecting her 6th child. I think of the soldiers who
have died this year leaving children to spend their first Christmas
without their dad, also. In other words, I got a big dose of humble
pie. We are abundantly blessed, indeed.

God bless all those families
who are missing their loved ones today! :'-)


I post this again here b/c I need to be reminded of my blessings daily when I get in a tizzy about unimportant stuff. I want to wear a scarlet letter of sorts to keep me humble and on my knees in prayer and thanksgiving.

So this weekend feels like my New Year's celebration... Happy Epiphany! What a great opportunity to adore Jesus as the Wise Kings did so long ago.

God bless you all and now I've got to finish my New Year's letters!

Back to our regularly scheduled photos and jottings...

My new favorite toy...Image Chef!

Run-away angel!

Sneak peak of Christmas pictures...

Merry Christmas one and all! I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to update the blog again until after Christmas.

We had a blast taking these live nativity pictures. We got quite a few shots to sort thru... Hannah on the far left is Grace's best friend so she joined us and Jacob thought he was too old to participate. :-/

I long ago concluded that it was just as appropriate and fun to send Christmas greetings during the Christmas season so I'm not going to fret over getting them out after Christmas day. I'm just a rebel...

Christmas Redheads

Winner the cat...

You needn't worry about Winner being comfy!

Advent tree?

Well, since I'm trying to really teach my children about celebrating Advent, one of the new things we did this year was to decorate our *Advent* tree while waiting until Christmas Eve to make it a *Christmas* tree. I purchased 3 strands of purple lights at our Lowe's for $1.99 each and then just used what I already had to make it relevant to Advent festivities. I put the St. Nick ornament on it on the feast of St. Nicholas, the Our Lady of Guadalupe ornament on her feast day, etc. Just a few purple glass ornaments and gold ornaments to fill it up a little bit more. It's been an interesting experiment to help us build excitement for the birth of our Saviour!

Playmobil Advent calendar...

My kids have enjoyed doing this to countdown the days until Christmas as we did last year. This time we added our nun doll I purchased while on vacation so Lucas could sit beside "Sister Julia" on the park bench. God bless my Aunt Julia aka Sister Julia! :-)

We have our first double-yolked egg! The kids were thrilled.

The Art of Believing

Gosh,Cay has done it again. What a beautiful tribute to her father-in-law...

I've been delinquent once again but we're doing fine. Hope to get a chance to upload some pictures in the next couple of days. The kids are all growing so fast! Emma's talking so much now! I called my dad a couple nights ago so he could hear her saying "Give me chocolate!" :-) She was helping me make chocolate chip cookies.

Can you believe it's almost Christmas??!!!

Emma likes to eat!

Bee-utiful day!

Okay, so that's pretty corny... but we had a wonderful field trip to Vollmer Farm a couple weeks ago and this is one of the photos we snapped. I'll post more later. We've been there several times and each time I go I wish I could join their wonderful business venture... it combines the best of both worlds! Agri-tourism at its best!

Name that plant!

I took this a few weeks ago and keep meaning to try to identify it. This is a lovely bush that is growing in the shrubs/bushy areas along the dirt road to our house. I thought it was some kind of wild thing but then I saw one in the landscaped area between two roads some time ago. Anyone know what it is? It's lovely and unique!

Family reunion fun

Saturday we had my dad's family's annual reunion with his siblings and their children and grandchildren. I always enjoy getting together with family and learning more about my roots. We had a guest there this time (who is actually my dad's sixth cousin) and he shared lots of geneology information and photos he had been collecting. And my children would be so sad if we didn't have an "old folks" game of football or volleyball or the like... my dh and some of my cousins in their 30's and 40's will be sore this whole week after the football game, I'm sure! :-)

The big one DIDN'T get away!

Happy husband and son after fishing on Saturday!

Fall is in the Air: A Photo Shoot

As beautiful as today was, we couldn't wait to get outside a while this morning to enjoy the little chill in the air. I couldn't resist snatching the digital camera from its home so I could catch the children in action. I hope you enojy this little glimpse of life from our neck of the woods.

Moms for Modesty

Anyone that knows me well know that I have a few soapboxes I occasionally (hee-hee) get on. One of them is modesty. I saw this graphic on a friend's blog and added it. As soon as I can, I'll link it properly. Other soapboxes for those who don't know are: breastfeeding, homeschooling, and being open to life in your marriage as the Church teaches.... I'll add some good links on these when I can.

Pear season

Pear Butter (from Ball Blue Book: Guide to Home Canning, Freezing and Dehydration)

20 medium pears
4 cups sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
1 t grated orange peel
1/2 t nutmeg

To prepare pulp: Wash and quarter pears. Cook until soft, adding only enough water to prevent sticking (about 1/2 cup). Press through a sieve or food mill. Measure 2 quarts pear pulp.
To prepare butter: Combine pear pulp and sugar in a large saucepot, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add remaining ingredients. Cook until thick enough to round up on a spoon. As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Ladle hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 mins. in a boiling water canner. Yield: about 4 pints.

Field Day Early Autumn 2006

Dawn has a wonderful Field Day Early Autumn at her blog going on. There are some really neat photos! Even our humble little blog picts are linked. ;-) I just love all the creative folks in the homeschool blogosphere!

Need I say more?

High School at Home...

Angie's latest post makes so much sense. I hope you'll enjoy her article as much as I have. I have also purchased this book and plan to make good use of it. ;-)

The more I read, research and pray about it, I really believe that the road we're taking by homeschooling is what God wants of our family, even if it's not always the popular choice among our peers.

The kids are thrilled that we got another cat a few weeks ago... this is "Winner" whom is lovingly called "Winnie" and "Minnie" by Emma. :-)

Snakes alive!

We've had a couple too many snake sightings at our house lately. Here's the big one dh killed yesterday. It's a plain-bellied water snake according to my Audobon Guide.
There was a small one in the garage a couple days ago I almost stepped on. =:-O

Ah, a nice little turtle on our path, too...

We've had some interesting nature sightings around here lately... check out this spider who has made herself at home on my new porch hand-rail... look at those huge egg sacs hanging there, too! Poor grasshopper...

I'm not sure what kind it is? We'll research it as best we can. Let me know if you know!

9/5/06 UPDATE: Thanks to MacBeth, we now know for certain that it is a garden orb weaver . That's what we thought it was but wanted to be certain since it's such a prominent fixture of our house right now. =:-O Hey, and there are over a thousand eggs in each sac. Ugh... wonder if I could sell them? LOL!

Emma's going to be a writer... she's always finding a pencil or crayon and proceeding to write on any paper or book she can get her hands on. And then there's my angel napping...

Here's my John Deere Boy being a ham! One has the back of Emma's lovely little strawberry-blonde head...

Okay, so I finally got my camera fixed and we've been having fun with it again. Some of these pictures were taken by me and some by my oldest son. There were some real winners this week. On the right is Jacob building a cardhouse. They've all been playing more card games since our recent beach trip with my family/clan. Jacob is growing up so fast!
The next one is Grace, Mary and Grace's BF, Hannah, in Grace's new room. Yep, those walls are different colors. ;-) She picked it out and the opposing walls are green and lavendar.

Here's the new addition to our family... meet Calico! The kids are thrilled that we've finally gotten another cat. She needed a good home and we were eager to bring her home. :-)

Yahoo! I finally got our digital camera fixed! Here's how my youngest cutie looks now-- wow, she's grown up so much this summer!

EveryWakingHour: Mentors are not GHMs

Well, I'm finally about to catch up on e-mail and found this gem to share. I'll just say that her comments are SO right on. I think we've all met a few Gestapo Homeschooling Moms in our homeschooling history.

(Of course I'm about to catch up and then we're going on vacation next week so I'll be behind again, LOL!)

I promise to get some REAL updating done up here soon.

We've been officially in the new house for 2 months now and we're finally starting to feel a bit more settled. Our bookcases are starting to get filled. ;-)