Hoops

As you can see, WWD has moved on to the next sport season. He is loving it, but hasn't given up his first love--football--as an avid spectator sport. Having to work through some disappointments lately on that front...but anyway.

WWD, we are so proud of your hard work in b-ball!! Great job this weekend at the tournament! His team took second place, against all one-grade-older teams. And I got to go watch!

Happy Thanksgiving

Party of 12 at our place. It was great!

NFL Mania

As you can see, we're just a LITTLE bit excited about Monday Night Football this week. GO PACKERS!

Moonwatch

This morning we went to the second of a two-part class about the moon. I was amazed to learn how far across the sky the moon moves from one day to the next; I thought it was just a tiny bit per day. Also, it goes from right to left (that is, east to west, I suppose), which seems strange to me.
As you might have noticed, we've been reading quite a few books about the moon and about the moon landings this fall. Until now, I never really knew how the relative positions of the moon, sun, and earth correspond to the moon phases that we see. We also checked out one of the planetarium's telescopes, and we're looking forward to seeing the close line-up of Jupiter, Venus, and the moon which is occuring right now (if only all these clouds would get out of the way--go away, snow!).
I hope my kids are as fascinated by all this as I am! :)

Use Them Wisely

Another spot-on thought for the day from Conversion Diary:

Lord, thank You for another day
within this life of mine.
Give me the strength to live it well,
whatever I may find.

Bestow from Your abundance
whatever I may lack.
To use the hours wisely,
for I cannot have them back.

Lord, thank You for another day,
in which to make amends
for little slights or petty words,
inflicted on my friends.

For sometimes losing patience
with problems that I find.
For seeing faults in other lives,
but not the ones in mine.

Lord, thank You for another chance,
in which to try to be
a little more deserving
of the gifts You've given me.

For yesterday is over,
and tomorrow's far away,
and I remain committed
to the good I do today!

Please Pray

...for Bill's & my dear friends, Andy and Chris. Last night they lost their new baby boy, Raphael, who died in his sleep. May the Lord bless them and watch over them and their family during this great, great sorrow. My heart is just aching for them so much.

Art History

Friday night we went to a pre-Advent presentation about icons at our parish. Our friend and homeschool art teacher is a real-live artist, who is gaining fame throughout our parish for her beautiful icon art.
Here's an example:
I learned so much about this fascinating and ancient art form, that I previously knew almost nothing about. This year in history the kids and I learned a bit about the Byzantine Empire, which followed on the heels of the Roman Empire, when the Emperor Constantine began to establish Christianity throughout the empire during the first century.
Icons (from the Greek eikones) are sacred images representing saints, Christ, and the Virgin, as well as narrative scenes such as Christ's Crucifixion. While today the term is most closely associated with wooden panel painting, in Byzantium icons could be crafted in all media, including marble, ivory, gemstone, precious metal, enamel, and mosaic.
In Byzantine theology, icons allowed the viewer direct communication with the sacred figure(s) represented and, through icons, an individual's prayers were addressed directly to the petitioned saint. This, of course, caused quite a bit of controversy related to whether people were praying to idols and so on.
Irrespective of all that, the art form is just amazing. Every color and line has meaning, and the complex process of creating an icon can be, in itself, a form of prayer. In the traditional method, paints are ground by hand from materials from the earth (clay, rocks, lapis lazuli, what-have-you) and mixed with egg yolk to form the paint itself. Often the gold color is actually gold.
After the presentation the kids had a chance to create a beautiful icon-like image for Advent. They loved it (almost as much as I did!).

Bake Sale Bliss

Yesterday our homeschool group had a nice little pre-holiday* gift fair, and in order to satisfy our family's ever-eager penchant for creating and consuming baked goods, we suggested a bake sale table. It was great! We had so much fun baking all day Sunday, and I was so proud of my busy little entrepreneurs yesterday at the sale. In the end we earned $101 for the Thanksgiving Community Meal Program here in town, and all those recipes and all that change-making were great little real-life math lessons, too.

When I asked MRD about her favorite part of running the bake sale, I expected her to say baking--perhaps sneaking chocolate kisses from the cookies, licking the beaters, or test-eating cookies--or selling all those goodies, or even making the poster, which was quite a work of art. Nope, none of the above--it was counting up all the money at the end! My little capitalist! :)




* By "holiday" I mean Thanksgiving and Christmas, not a non-specific wintertime festival.

Quote of the Day

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps if you are not willing to move your feet.
~ anonymous

Craft Club

During this year, MRD has been thrilled to be a part of the craft test club for her favorite magazine. They have met each month to test crafts and games for future publication. Today was their final meeting and end-of-year party, so little sisters got to join in! Hooray for KLD!
Their craft today was inventing bugs out of a bunch of candy and treats. What could be better than crafts? What could be better than candy? CRAFTS AND CANDY TOGETHER, of course! The girls were in heaven.


The finished creations...

Naptime

KLD, what a sweet little Mommy you are!

More Wisdom from the Saints

The past few days (perhaps I should say months or years) I have been really thinking that I might have a slight--okay, maybe more than slight--attention deficit problem. Call it adult ADD, call it Mommy Brain, call it the everyday plight of a homeschooling Mom, but I'm taking multitasking a bit over the top these days.

And once again today Jen F. over at Conversion Diary has hit on another gem of a post that speaks perfectly to what I've been thinking. I'm running to the library to get the book she mentions by St. Francis de Sales.
Here's an excerpt:

We should not want to practice many exercises at the same time and all of a sudden. The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests we undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. [...]

Very often...the evil one deludes us, and to distract us from achieving some good, he proposes another that seems better.

It's my age-old "good vs. best" dichotomy.
I can't WAIT to read this book; I'll give you a full report!

Quote of the Day

From CMR:

"If you're going to do a thing, you should do it thoroughly. If you're going to be a Christian, you may as well be a Catholic."
~ M. Spark

:)

MPD is 8 months old!

Happy 2/3 Birthday, my big boy!
I love you!

Two Little Ingalls Girls (by MRD)

Today me and my sister went to our nature center for a pioneer program. I got to dress like a pioneer! First we went on a hike, next we went to the pioneer cabin and learned the school rules for pioneer children then we played school and had a spelling bee and guess what .... I won! Then we made butter and bread it was so good. While the bread was cooking we did the laundry it was sooo much fun (and I mean it!)!



Here's the recipe for the biscuits the pioneer girls made.

Here's hopin'

Check this out: I just read that November 3 was the Feast Day of St. Martin de Porres. From this week's Catholic Herald:

Martin was the son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed black Panamanian slave in Peru. His parents were unmarried and his father abandoned the family. Later in life he regretted that decision and once again became part of Martin's life. Young Martin grew up feeling the sting of racial prejudice.
Martin's entire life was spent caring for the poor and sick. Martin also took care of slaves brought to Lima from Africa. He had a tremendous love for Jesus in the Eucharist and would spend hours in adoration. He desired to receive Holy Communion as often as he could. The Holy Eucharist was the source of his strength and love for the poor.

So anyway, St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639), whose feast day was the day before the election, is the patron saint of African-Americans and racial and social harmony and justice, among other things.
Pretty cool, eh? Here's another article about Obama from our Catholic Herald that I wanted to share. It's by John Meganck. Long, but I'm copying it whole because it is so good.

Months ago I had a conversation with my father that will stick in my memory forever. I told him Barack Obama was a lock to be our next president. My father who was born in 1940 and raised me to believe all people were created equal regardless of their skin color told me, "I don't believe the people of the United States will elect and African American in my lifetime."

The civil rights movement of the 1960s has been a defining part of his generation. Ending segregation ad gaining people of different races equal access to the blessings of America was the civil rights movement of his generation.

While there will always be injustices done to people because they belong to particular groups, I believe the election of Mr. Obama to the highest office of our great country demonstrates the success of this movement. As an African American becomes our president for the first time by his own talents and hard work, everyone who has ever toiled for freedom should feel joy in his success.

Will President Obama lead us forward to remove the overpowering civil rights atrocity of my generation? I was born in 1973, the same year Roe vs. Wade removed any protection for the weakest members of our society. In the 35 years since, over 48 million Americans have died as a result.

The loss of life is the greatest atrocity created by Roe vs. Wade. There has also been a cost to the freedom of every American when five of nine Supreme Court justices can take liberties to create meaning in our Constitution. That takes freedom from the voters in this country to make the laws that will govern us.

As a Congressman, Mr. Obama's record is on the wrong side of this issue. Deep down he must know abortion is an evil act, as he has admitted that no one likes abortion. President Lyndon Johnson had a bad record on segregation when he came to office, but the civil rights legacy of his presidency was the end of the great evil of legal segregation.

The legacy of civil rights under President Obama will be whether he has the courage to stand for what is right as President Johnson did. It will be sad if President Obama allows his greatest civil rights achievement to be getting elected as an African American and not protecting the unborn with the power he now has.

Kind of a nice twist on things, don't you think?

(And here's another link on this subject that I couldn't resist putting in.) :)

Autumn, We're Going to Miss You

Today we raked leaves, with MPD not too sure about the whole thing.

And KLD is already starting an icicle collection for the winter.

Viking Invasion!

In our studies of medieval history, we're up to the Vikings.
Today we made Viking boats...


and Viking bread.
It was pretty yummy.

More Tasty Science

Did you know that a tortilla can be made to look very much like a waning Gibbous moon phase?
Me neither.

Thanks; I Needed That!

From Thy Will Be Done:

"Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God,
and then lie still and be at rest in God's bosom...
Whatever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to cling simply to God; trusting to God's eternal love for you."

~ St. Francis de Sales

It's Here!

I almost forgot to tell you that last Thursday, November 6, MPD's first little tooth finally came up! He has had a little swollen puff on his gum for a while now, and now the tooth has arrived! What a big boy. *ILMS!!!


*I love my sweeties! xoxoxo

I Noticed

...this Thursday morning when I snuck quickly to Mass after dropping JPD off at preschool, that a good 90% of the weekday Mass-goers have white hair. And that percentage would be even higher if I counted those with naturally white hair. So what's with the senior citizens at Church?

You know, I always assumed that this phenomenon had mostly to do with two factors:
1) These guys are all pre-Vatican II guys, who like their Catholicism strong and traditional, and
2) Retired people just have more time on their hands, ya know?

But we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Stay-at-home Moms, while a busy group, sure could swing by a 25-minute Mass after the little darlings get on the school bus. (Did I do this when my kids were in school? Uh, not much.) Even as homeschoolers, we don't make weekday Mass as much as I'd like.

I digress. About the senior citizens. For the first time, Thursday morning, it occurred to me that maybe they aren't just looking for a way to fill half an hour, or going to Mass because they were well programmed by the nuns of their Catholic school days, or even that as the years go by, it occurs to all of us that our lives on earth might not actually last forever.

Maybe the white-haired weekday Mass-goers know something we don't. Maybe they're actually experienced enough, seasoned enough, wise enough, well-organized enough, to have figured out their priorities. Those of us who aren't there yet are still running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to solve all our problems ourselves, whereas the weekday Mass-goers know that checking in with our Creator (that is, the Blessed Sacrament) is the answer to...well, just about everything.

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
~ John 6:35

Science Takes to the Air

Our airport field trip this week triggered an impromptu afternoon of air- and flight-related science experiments. Each student led one experiment.

Here we are testing racecar aerodynamics:


"Must...get...tasty...racecar..."

Discussing rising air currents and discovering that mobile shapes twirl faster when placed above a heat source:

Making a hot-air balloon to think about heat rising:
(This one was JPD's but he was camera-shy.)

Investigating what happens to a glass-enclosed candle in water (when the flame goes out, the water rises inside the glass!):

Making spinning helicopter blades to discuss how the air currents work:

This was a detour from our "regular" curriculum, but it still fit in well with our science theme of "Earth and Space." All these easy and cool experiments came from the book "Air, Wind, & Flight", from the library.

Put Me in the Zoo

We celebrated our (probably) last 70 degree day of the year with an outing to the zoo. Goodbye warm fall days!

Can you spot the four wild animals camouflaged in their habitat here in the first picture? :)