Our Fence Adventure

Since Juju is such an active busy boy, and since we got a puppy, we really needed to put up a fence. We had a fence guy come look at our yard and give us an estimate, and it just about blew us away! So we googled “how to put up a chain link fence”, and rolled up our sleeves.



As you can see, Bear did most of the muscle work. I read the directions that we printed off the internet, took pictures, and helped a little. ;-)
 
I love it. Now I can sit at the picnic table underneath the shade with a fan blowing while Juju runs and plays and climbs and digs in the sandbox and splashes in the kiddie pool. We can do school work, I can even get out my beads, or I can take my laptop out there and not have to wonder what Juju is getting into. I can see him wherever he is.
And we can put the puppy outside.

Sunshine’s Confirmation

Sunshine received her Sacrament of Confirmation on May 11, 2010. Here our bishop is anointing her head with holy oil, along with the words “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit.” Standing behind her is her sponsor, our dear friend Catherine. Sunshine chose St. Agnes as her patron saint.

  Before the Mass, Caveman asked our bishop “Are you going to slap my sister?” Bishop Taylor responded, “Do you want me to?” Caveman gave him an enthusiastic “Yes!”
There is an old tradition of the bishops “slapping” the newly confirmed Christians (which usually amounted to a gentle tap on the cheek) as a symbol of the persecution they must prepare to face. Our bishop did not slap, but rather hugged the newly confirmed.

 Mojo and one her oldest friends were able to serve Mass together for the bishop. A rare opportunity! 

We Just Got a Puppy

(Think "Blues Clues" here.)
We just got a puppy, we just got a puppy! We just got a puppy, 'cuz I must be nuts! haha

No, seriously, we've been talking about it for awhile. The kids have been begging for a puppy. We've just not had a place for a dog. Our yard has no fence.
But now, we have no choice but to fence in our yard to try to keep Juju contained. It's going to happen this week. I've signed up for a couple of shifts at work to cover it (please, Lord, don't let them cancel me!)
So today when we left Wal-Mart, there was a truck with a crate of puppies. Yellow lab mix. Just the kind of dog I said I'd get if we had a place to put it. When I saw her face through the crate, I couldn't say no! The kids could hardly believe their eyes. Mama for real brought home a PUPPY!

What to name her? Galadriel? Amaranth? Lula? Sunshine and I decided it would be cool to name her after a Beatles song. Rita? Sadie? Greg suggested naming her after a virtue. So…Prudence fit the bill perfectly. (Look on the iPod to the right to hear the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence”.)

 

 
It was a big day for us all!

Bear’s birthday

This is kind of a “late entry” post, as Bear’s birthday is the day after Caveman’s. But I’ve decided that rather than scrapbooking, I’ll be printing our blog as a family journal. I just realized that I failed to share pictures of Bear’s birthday!
   

Bear’s youngest brother and sister-in-law came to visit us, and we enjoyed grilled burgers and a few brewskis.
 

Happy birthday, sweetie! You don’t look a day over 44! lol

Happy Birthday to Caveman!

We had planned a trip to the zoo for Caveman’s 6th birthday, but the weather didn’t cooperate with us. He was disappointed at first, but his best friend came over to share cake and ice cream with him, which made his day delightful after all. We will re-plan the zoo trip later when the weather is nicer.

He got a skateboard for his birthday, which he has been wanting for awhile now!

Mama had planned some fun games, including “Pin the Web on Spiderman” (poster courtesy of his talented big sister!) …

“Villain Toss” (a variation of the “bean bag toss”, where we wrote the names of Spiderman’s villains on blocks to toss them into jail)… 
and “Crime Bust” (Remember the game on the old Bozo show where the kids raced with the balloons and sat on them to pop them? Yeah, like that. Except with the names of things that bad guys do, like stealing and lying, written on the balloons.)

But the sun was shining and it was beautiful outside by the time we started. The boys couldn’t be bothered with playing inside! All that creativity put to waste. lol Maybe someone else whose birthday boy (or girl) loves Spiderman can use these ideas.

The important thing was that Caveman said that he had a very happy birthday.

Juju Tries His First Corn-On-The-Cob

This Was Not a “Good-Easter-Pictures” Year

But we still had a good Easter. :-)

Poor Juju was not having a good day. I don’t know what was wrong with him. He was generally unhappy and uncooperative.

 

 

Lunch was a ham, squash dressing, pea salad, broccoli and cheese, deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole, and cheesecake.

We allow our older kids to have a little wine (like less than half a glass) on special occasions. As you can see, Mojo was quite excited at getting served wine for the first time. That is, she was excited about *the idea* of it. After a sip or two, Daddy Bear finished it.

 

Bear gave me the censer as a gift for my homecoming into the Church on Easter Vigil 2002, and we burn it on special occasions, like Easter and Christmas. Frankincense is one of my favorite smells!

Bet You Thought This Was a Cookie

Nope, it’s the moon. More precisely, it’s the full moon.

We’ve been talking about the moon in our homeschool, coloring pictures of the moon, learning poems about the moon, and singing songs about the moon. Today, we talked about the phases of the moon. Gem learned the difference between the new, crescent, half, and full moon. Caveman learned the following chart (which we made with sugar cookies):

Mojo learned that the moon’s position relative to the earth and the sun is what causes these different shapes. We illustrated using our globe, and we also took our cookies out into the sunlight. When we hold them up between us and the sun, they look dark. This is the new moon. When we are between the sun and our cookies, and the sunlight is hitting our cookies directly, they are bright. This is the full moon.

And then we ate the moon.

“Behold, I Make All Things New”

I had seen this ugly piece of junk sitting on a friend’s porch for several weeks before I finally asked about it. “Are you planning on doing anything with that? How much do you want for it?” You see, every time I passed it by, I thought of all the different things that could be done to fix it up. I thought of all the different uses it could have. I had been driving around town that day looking for furniture and shelves for the girls’ room, and I knew that this old armoire could be put to use in there. My friend dismissed my offer to pay for it. “It was given to us,” she said. “We’ll probably never do anything with it. Go ahead, take it.”

My brother-in-law and husband were nice enough to go pick it up and move it into the house for me. I know they both thought it was ugly. I know that Bear wondered what I was possibly going to do with such a thing. But I had an image in my head of the final product, and I set about making this old piece of junk match the vision I had for it.

As I was painting, this verse kept echoing in my head “Behold, I make all things new.” (from one of my favorite Scripture passages, Revelation chapter 21.) It was exciting for me to transform this old piece of furniture into something new, useful, and pretty. I delighted in each brush stroke. I wondered if that’s similar to how God feels about me? Sometimes, I feel kind of like an old piece of furniture. Sometimes I feel old, not much good for anything, ugly, unwanted. Yet, I know that if I will just allow it, God can transform me into something new, beautiful, and useful. I wonder what I will look like when He is finished with me?

Here is what Gem’s new armoire looks like finished:

I spent about $15 on paint and used some leftover plywood for the shelves. The curtains are from an old lonely pillowcase (and the flower decorations are cut from the same pillowcase.)  Now Gem has drawers for her clothes and shelves to keep her toys organized!
She exclaimed “Oh, it’s beautiful, Mama!”

What We're Doing

I quit my job. Well, I didn't actually *quit*, but I did transfer into the pool, where I will have to work a minimum of two shifts a month to stay active. So that's almost like quitting. We're poor and broke again. But I'm starting to feel almost like my normal self again. I'd rather be poor and broke and a good mother to my children.

So anyway, since I took a little break from blogging about our homeschool for awhile, I thought I'd once again share what we are doing. While I was struggling to keep up with working nights, homeschooling, keeping the house halfway clean, and chasing around a very busy toddler, we dropped down to the bare minimum in our education--reading, writing, and math. I know that Mojo, being the avid reader that she is, has picked up plenty on her own in the science and history realm, so I don't worry about that sort of thing. She's always telling me things she's discovered that I didn't know!
Caveman has also started to take the things I've been teaching him to the next level on his own. And in my opinion, that's how it should be. That lets me know we're headed in the right direction.

Gem is learning about the letter "K" this week, the number 11, the moon, and the shape of a crescent. We will talk about moon phases, bake cookies and cut them into the different moon phases, and learn some poems about the moon.

We are listening to the music of Dmitri Kabalevski (look for the "iPod" to the right of my page, and click on the songs to hear the music we've been learning about).

Our Scripture verse this week is Exodus 20:8..."Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy."

Our saint for the week is St. Turibius de Mogrobejo.
And our virtue for the week is Peace.
"Peace is more than the absence of conflict. It is the tranquility of good order, the serenity that accompanies the agreement of human wills.
Every well ordered society, whether marriage, parish, municipality or nation, is based on peace."