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."

Mojo Turns Nine

Mojo’s special day started with our family attending Mass, where she has recently become an altar server. This was not something that her father or I asked her to do; it was her own wish to serve at Mass. Her father and her grandfather were also altar servers when they were young.
 
This afternoon, we had her party at the skating rink. This was one of the most fun birthday parties we’ve had! A lot of our pictures didn’t turn out well because of the lighting in the rink, but here are a few of our highlights from the day…



    


Even some of the “big people” had fun on skates!

Of course, I enjoyed being silly and making a fool of myself…it’s what Pookies do bestest. ;-P

March for Life 2010

A few mornings ago, I found that my 8-year-old and her younger brother had been busy  making signs. One read “Abortion is wrong!” and the other read “Do not kill babies!”  I was very proud that they were inspired to do this on their own. We had planned on bringing them with us, but unfortunately, we left them at home.
 
It was a beautiful day for the march. The temperature reached the 60s today, and the sun shone brightly.
 
I was happy to see some of the doctors I’ve worked with walking with us this year.

At the end of our walk up to the capitol, we heard the testimonies of women who had undergone abortions. God bless them for speaking to such a large crowd about such a personal and painful experience. It was sad to listen to, but even sadder to me was how similar their stories were to the stories that I’ve heard from some of my own friends who have had abortions. 
Abortion is not what it is made out to be by Planned Parenthood. Do you think you can just walk in, get an abortion, problem solved, and go on with your life as before? There are serious physical risks with abortion. Women die from “safe” legal abortions. Women are deformed and disabled by legal abortions. Women suffer infertility and repeated miscarriages after legal abortions. There are serious psychological risks with abortion. Women suffer from Post-Abortion Syndrome. Women commit suicide after abortions. Women live with grief, guilt, and regret, even many years later. These women need our love and support. The reason that organizations such as Project Rachel exist is because SO many women need healing from the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of abortion. If you are one of these women, please know that love, support, hope, and healing are available for you. Please know that someone cares about what you are going through!
 I also saw many young women carrying signs that read "Women DO regret abortion" and many young men carried signs that read "Men regret lost fatherhood." 

And I couldn’t pass up getting a picture of this beautiful little life… This is the face of what is destroyed by abortion. This is the heart that would have stopped beating had his birth mother made another “choice”. This is the family that would have missed out on his smiling presence. 

You see, the abortion crowd is no longer trying to convince us that “it is just a clump of cells”, as they did when the horrible “choice” was made legal. That lie has been revealed by technology. We can see into the womb. We know that a baby’s heart is already beating by the time a woman realizes she has missed her period. We can see that babies react in the womb to outside noises, lights, tastes, and painful stimuli. We have good evidence that pain is felt as early as 8 weeks gestation (can you imagine how painful it would feel to be ripped apart in a vacuum?) NICU doctors and nurses work diligently and lovingly to save even the tiniest premature babies who can possibly be saved. That is, if their parents want them.
But that’s the thing. We’ve determined that they are human lives. It’s just that their value is determined by whether or not they are wanted by those who created them.

Now the pro-abortion crowd’s argument is MY MY MY. MY body, MY choice! I should be able to enjoy what pleasure I can without being inconvenienced by the consequence of it. I shouldn’t have to be pregnant/take care of a baby if I don’t want to. These are the ideas behind the lame arguments that my teen daughter hears frequently from some of her friends at school. They are the same ideas behind the same lame arguments that I hear from some of my adult friends.
MY wants, MY needs, MY desires first. Even if it means painfully ripping apart another innocent body. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta hit the nail on the head when she said “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you can live as you wish.” 
And what argument can we make against this mentality? How can you convince a person that that it’s really not all about THEM?

I’m teaching my five children, maybe even more if we are so blessed, about selfless love, about sacrifice, about placing others first, about right and wrong, about doing the right thing even when it’s hard, and about abortion ending an innocent life. My message is sinking in. My sixteen-year-old is proud that our family stands so firmly for life. She has said that she will teach her future children the same (and she's also hoping for a large family). ;-)
If the pro-abortionists choose to abort their children, and if they teach what children they do have that it's OK--even admirable--for them to avoid the burden and inconvenience of children if they wish...well, I’m pretty hopeful about where this debate will be in another thirty years. 

(My lovely friend Catherine, who is also diligently teaching her children.)