November and the Holy Souls

Just a quick little update. Our 5th child arrived a month early. We couldn't be more blessed! He is wonderful! We found out we were having a boy only 2 weeks before he arrived.

November is the month of the Holy Souls. Our family is offering prayers and sacrifices everyday for them. We are also going to visit our family grave and clean it up, sprinkle some holy water, and pray for our relatives.

The last few weeks we've been inundated with lady bugs. The children are having a great time playing with them. We also have a stray bunny that frequents outside our window. We are trying to catch him so we can give him to a shelter. It's never a dull moment around here!

I'm busy making preparations for Christmas so that we can relax and enjoy our Advent. It is right around the corner!

Grade 1 Studies Are Underway!

We are taking a big leap in the number of subjects being taught this year. We completed our first week of first grade, and am happy to report we survived!! Dare I say we thrived? We are still using CHC curriculum, with a different math text. I also added in History from Seton and Geography from Our Lady of Victory.

My son is doing phenomenal and really loves to learn. I couldn't be more proud!

They key to this year is discipline (bedtime hours, meal hours, lots of meal planning, etc.) to help us succeed. Of course there will be bumps and illness, and a new baby (in 29 days!!!), but we have a general rhythm of our days, aided with prayer. Without our eyes on God, we wouldn't be able to do this.

God bless my husband, who is a wonderful teacher and principal of our school. Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. I'm more in love with him today than ever before.

Lent 2009

2010 Update!

Here is the image scanned in and made into a PDF or JPG for you to print.

PDF Version

JPG Version (click the image below)

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Sadly, I haven't been keeping up with this blog as I had hoped. But today, I was inspired by this blog post, to create our own version of a Lent calendar!

I'm out of printer ink, so I had to get crafty. A crafty person, I am not! I'm pretty pleased with the results though. I used this image and sketched it out on heavy card stock, in pencil.

Next, I used this image, to give it the elements to make it look more like the traditional Agnus Dei symbol.

When I was satisfied, I went over it in a large black sharpie. It came out like this:



This was to be the template. Because I have 3 kids that have "me too!" syndrome. They all want a piece of the action. I used regular printer paper, and traced the template, put their names on it, and "Lent 2009" because I know I'll want to save these in their memory box.



There was no room for me to put the Lent calendar directly on the lamb. I decided to make a basic calendar and post it underneath. My 5yo will enjoy coloring each day purple. I marked his favorite devotion on there as well. Divine Mercy! The 5yo is really into reading calendars these days. By the end of Lent, I believe he'll be a pro.



The children will glue one cotton ball each day, on their lambs.

Thank you, to Karen Edmisten for this inspiration!