Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.
God bless,
Mary

A day of Thanks and of Rememberance

Thank you.
God bless you,
Mary

Quote of the Day

"Dear Lord, you know my weakness. Each morning I resolve to be humble, and in the evening I recognize that I have often been guilty of pride. The sight of these faults tempts me to discouragement. Yet I know that discouragement itself is a form of pride. I wish, therefore, O my God, to build all my trust upon You. As You can do all things, deign to implant in my soul this virtue which I desire."

-- St Therese of Lisieux

Do you see him?

Do you see my 6 yr old son?

Nope, me either the other day.

Now you know why when I called his name a number of times and he did not answer me, that I was totally shocked and laughed when I saw he was right there in front of me. 

Of course, the nerd blogger that I am, I just had to run to get my camera and told him not to move!!! ;)

Now do you see him?

Ok, let me give you a better view:

Boys.

Army boys.

Climbing trees army boys.

Bird watching climbing trees army boy.

My boy.

Love him.

God bless,
Mary

What we've been closely watching the past 2+weeks...soooo cute!

Right outside our back door!


They went from just 6 little blue eggs one week....

to THIS a week later:

TO THIS A WEEK LATER!!!:

And HERE is the proud Momma Robin:

God bless,
Mary

Bring out the towels and swimmies!

We went (well...actually just the kidos!) swimming today!  (it was 90*!)

AND it's not even Memorial day...yet! 

It was great to see them splashing around and having a blast in the water.  It reminds me how much I love these warm days near a pool and that it will wipe them out so that they sleep well too!  We do have soccer tonight as well so indeed our night may be a great sleep for all. 

Tis a great day.

God bless,
Mary

Friendship

is...
...having us all  (me + hubby and our 6 children) come stay at their house for 5 days (plus their 4=10 kids for 5 days in one home!)
....feed us breakfast every day and a truly delicious dinner every single night...
...and even some PB&J lunches almost every day!
...not having us bring any bed stuff except for one pack and play
...letting us play with all their kids toys and mess up their house
...encouraging us to use their washing machine to get all our dirty laundry cleaned before heading home for the 7-10 hour drive!

Friendship like this is hard to find.
It is a gift....a blessing from above.

God bless our friends!

THANK YOU GOD FOR OUR FRIENDS!!!

God bless,
Mary

So sweet

Is there anything sweeter than hearing a sweet lil 20 month old boy saying "choooooo chooooo, choooooo choooooooo" as he plays trains with his siblings?

oh my.

so sweet....

God bless!
Mary

He's got brains!

We came across the brain in some of our books and decided to go a bit deeper into learning about it. 

I came across THIS link and my son is making his 'brain box'!  It is very cool- I love science!  Our God is an amazing designer of our bodies!  Our hearts pump 2,000 gallons of blood every day and we have 600 muscles and our lungs suck in 70 quarts of air every minute when we exercise! WOW!

THIS is an intereactive LINK about brains that they are enjoying too.

I thought you may enjoy it too!  There ya go :)

God bless,
Mary

I see kids with them everywhere!!!

I see kids walking around and playing them at the supermarkets.  They do not look ahead but down at what is in their hands.

I see kids playing them at restaurants sitting across from their parents, supposedly having 'quality time' together.

I see them supposedly having a conversation with someone while one ear is filled with a tiny headphone from it.

I even saw kids playing them in the darkened auditorium at a dance recital today.  (one boy was on it for 2 1/2 hours straight!!!)

WHAT IS UP WITH THESE KIDS AND THEIR HANDHELD GAMES, IPODS, PHONES AND WHATEVER ELSE ?!?!

This drives me absolutely nuts. 

It does cross my mind wondering about those people who think that certain homeschooled children do not have social capability.  In my oppinion, I think it is quite the opposite.

God bless,
Mary

Don't worry

Everything is just fine around here.  No big problems.  Sorry that I have not posted lately.  I truly miss it b/c I enjoy it so much but life is busy lately.  We are trying to finish up our school year.  AND I just realized that I never did post about all the programs and different ciriculums we used this year.  Well, maybe that will be a good post of the pros and cons of them.  We'l see what like wil bring and maybe I'll have time to do that ;)

3 kids in soccer and lots of fresh air with my kids pulls me away from this computer-not a bad thing, right?!

We'll be enjoying a sunny slightly warm day today- so excited!!! ;)  I doubt I'll be back today anytime soon!!!  Maybe....or maybe not ;)

God bless,
Mary

In China?

What do you think is the significance of this?  Because, frankly, I have no idea.  Either there is real thought provoking meaning behind it...or...my kids are just really really weird, at times (just like...uh hum...me! heee heee!).  I'm thinking the latter!  Here we go:

         My 9 year old son carrying my 6 yr old son on his shoulders and they both sing:
         "In Chinaaaaaaa!  In Chinaaaaaa!"
         And then the rest of my gang follows them parading throughout the house in and out of every room and they all sing this song. 

So...what do you think?  Yeah, pretty weird, huh? ;)

Now, if this was the first time I saw it, I would think "Oh, real cute. Oh, funny. Ha ha."  But it is not the first and something tells me it will not be the last.  Interesting.  Very very interesting around here.

God bless,
Mary

Happy Mother's Day 2010!

Happy Mother's Day

to all the mommas out there~! ;)

God bless,
Mary

Quick Takes-TGIS!!!

1.  It is Saturday morning at 7am and 3 of my children are still sleeping!!!  This is huge b/c our little guys are usually up quite early.  But I guess I should add that our baby was up at 5:48am...but still!  I will take some late sleepers around here! THis is great!
2.  WIth this late sleeping going on....I am making homemade waffles-yum!

3.  My 3 year old is cutting strawberries up all by himself for us all for breakfast today!  What a big boy ;)

4.  My oldest son had  his last Astronomy class for the year on Wednesday night...his did great!  He got a certificate and they stayed outside with the teachers' super deee-duper telescope till uh, 9:30 pm!  AND let me tell you that the house we have the class at is almost 40 minutes away!  I was a weeee bit tired that night as you can imagine.

5.  Also that day I decided to pack it all up and head to the beach to have a little science field trip.  It was awesome, great weather too and we went w/ a friend w/ her 4 kids.  It was a blast-AND there was a Nature Center teacher there teaching these middle school kids and they invited our kids to learn about all the stuff too.  Talk about a free science trip! COOL!
6.  My husband is doing some painting around the house, we have to make some runs to the local town dump, and we are cleaning.  Spring cleaning at its best!

God bless,
Mary

Homeschool Talk

My 9 year old son, kid #1, said about his1yr old laughing hysterically running around brother who was being chased by his 3 yr old brother:

"Mom!  He is trembling with excitement!"

HAAA!!! 
This day is full of funnies lately! :)

God bless,
Mary

School today~outside~nature studies

Overheard my 6 yr old bug-savvy boy say to his new found catepillar friend:

"Don't worry, little buddy.  I'm a friend to all animals and creatures, big and small."

HAAA! HAAA!

TOTALLY LOVE IT! ;)

We also had the privledge of finding a robin's nest full of 3 blue eggs yesterday and were so surprised by seeing a 4th today!  Incredible!  The nest is low enough that most of my children can monitor it and check in on their little eggs every chance they get ...or remember.  It is quite cute and I bet St. Francis is proud!  We decided to try to keep quiet and watch as the mother robin kept coming and going bringing little twigs or whatever she found to her little nest. 

At one point, my daughter yelled out...

"Mom!  I think the momma robin is having her baby!" 

We read about the robins HERE and colored some pics of nests and robins HERE.

We also read THIS book about birds and THIS one about catepillars :)

I love this nature studying for school today.  And since it is raining now, I am really glad we got so much fresh air learning and coloring and drawing about catepillars and robins and their eggs this morning, all morning long! :)

God bless,
Mary

The Giving Tree

Dear Big Tree in my front yard,

Please do not let your long and strong branches break as my children swing from them.  They enjoy you so much and love how you pick them up and swing them high in the sky.  So very high that I get a bit frazzled watching them do this.  You are a great tree, don't let us down.  Thank you.

Kindly,
Momma Mary

p.s.  This reminds me of the book The Giving Tree.  Terrific book-I remember my elementary principal and pastor of our school/parish would read this to us a few times a year.  What great memories! ;)

Quote of the Day

"God commands you to pray, but forbids you to worry."

-St. John Vianney

God bless,
Mary

Homeschool Perk

Words simply cannot contain my excitement today! 

My oldest son, 9years old, is going to play at his first ever piano recital!  It is the same feeling that I had with my now 7 year old daughter who danced at her first dance recital-ballet and tap.  Be it that she was almost only 4 years old (yikes!) and there she was on the stage in a huge high school auditorium.  We treated and took both my parents and my husbands' parents to that recital.  That day will forever be etched in my memory as one of the proudest mom moments ever.  Awesome day 4 years ago.

I am overwhelmed with the thoughts of how time flies.  I am ever so grateful for this gift of homeschooling.  I truly believe that if my son was not homeschooled, he would not be taking piano lessons-thus not partaking in this beautiful piano recital today!  You see, all my children truly love music...making it or listening to it.  We knew this and prayed for about 2 years for God to lead us to a piano teacher that would be willing to come to our home to teach my son on the keyboard that someone lent us.  Wouldn't you know it, but the coach of my 2 childrens' soccer team last spring, mentioned that she knew someone who taught piano but has not seen or talked to him in a few years...but then she remembered something...she opened her purse and pulled out her wallet and gave me this old beat up business card of a piano teacher!  I called him this past August and he told me that he did not make house calls for piano lessons but....since we homeschooled....we could be flexible, right?....and anyway.....he was so busy teaching after school time and throughout the evening....he did not have any more free time slots.....but since we homeschool....he could come to our home....early in the day...TO OUR HOME!  Got that?!?!  How cool!  He is fantastic and my son likes him as a teacher. 

Perfect timing.  Perfect match.  Thank You God.

If we did send out kids to school, I know for sure, that our time would be limited to what we could possibly sign our children up for, ie:  extra ciricular activities and since he is so very boy-ish and athletic and full of energy-that extra stuff, for sure, would be a sport...soccer or whatever.  I doubt it highly that it would be piano.  That would be a shame b/c we would never get to see the blossoming beauty of his hidden talent of playing the piano.  I am so grateful.  Thank You God.

You see now?  This is all such a rush for me and a very grateful day for my children, my family, the gifts of homeschooling (no matter how tough and crazy and chaotic it usually is) and for music and piano recitals! 

Thank you God.  Thank you Mary and St. Joseph for protecting my children and leading us to homeschool.

So, here we are, getting ready for a 3:30 pm recital and I am so nervious for him!  I wonder if I'll be able to eat anything before the show! haaa haaa! :)

Gotta go get ready!
God bless,
Mary