A Wonderful Visit

My sister Sue came down from the north today with four of her beautiful daughters and their six children. Today was the first time my mom and dad met two of their great-grandchildren. It was babies babies everywhere.

Great-grandpa and Emeline.

Brad and two of his pretty girls, Emeline and Georgia.

Four generations: Jessie, Great-Grandma, Grandma Sue, and baby Elsie Rae

Great-grandpa is wondering how he ended up with all these babies on him.

Uncle Pat and Ava

Ava, Russell, Georgia and Josie
Josie
Brenden
Elsie Rae doing a trick.
Brenden

You win some, you lose some...

Thursday night the Holy Cross boys basketball team had a very convincing win over a team from the great white north. Matt scored 28 points in the game, making his points per game average 19.5.

Friday night though, they suffered a heartbreaking lose to the only undefeated team left in the league. With this lose, they are now tied for second place in the overall league standings.

Before game prayer

Matt's great form.

Danny's foul shoot--it went in!

half-timeDanny contemplating dinner after a great game.

Schoolwork in the Sunshine

It has been to cold to play outside lately, so the next best thing is to sit the kids at the table and let them soak up a few rays.

Luke is the only 2 year old I have ever seen with such a good scissor grip. Gracie is six, and she has just started using scissors this way.

What do we feed 12 carnivores...

a lot of beef.

20 Degrees Outside, 85 Degrees Inside

Mark went to his third swimming lesson today and I couldn't resist posting these pictures. Three weeks ago he didn't real like the water, especially on his face,

he preferred sitting on the steps,

but now we are amazed.

He did use a lot of floatation divices, but he was in the water and he was wet.

Way to go, Mark!!

Tonight's read alouds

I wanted to share some good read alouds that we shared tonight. Of course, winter is a very sutiable subject for these cold snowy days, and these books added to our winter joy.

Winter Waits, by Lynne Plourde. " In this story, Winter is the playful child of Mother Earth and Father Time. The plot is simple: Winter waits for his father to finish work so that they can spend some time together. Winter amuses himself in the meantime by turning the world into a wintry playground. Sample text: "So Winter waits / for an hour or two, / painting the grass / with a frosty hue." amazon review

Lucia and the Light, by Phyliss Root. " Lucia, her mother, and baby brother live in a small isolated cabin in the Far North. As the snows mount and the winds howl around their tiny home, their food supplies dwindle. One morning, the sun does not rise. Darkness envelops Lucia's world and when the cow stops giving milk, the brave child decides to go out into the world and bring the sun home again. She skis and trudges on in spite of adversity and fear and faces the terrible trolls. Of course, Lucia succeeds, returning home to her mother's love and a beautiful light-dappled world. This heartwarming adventure will delight girls and boys with its terrifying trolls and triumphant travails. GrandPré illuminates the tale with soft, fluid multihued paintings that vividly convey both danger and sunlight-filled safety and warmth." Amazon review

Eight is Great!

In honor of the important football day, Becky made Mark a football field cake. (One team should be the Giants, but she didn't have the right color blue-yeah Giants!).

We celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Eight certainly is the greatest!! Just look at that face! This marble run was a real big hit for everyone,
but, hands down, we have had the most fun with our new Wedgits.

Happy Birthday, Mark!!!

Happy birthday to our favorite 8 year old. We love you very much!

Basketball season...

is in full swing around here and everyone is very busy, especially coach.

The boy's team is off to a great start with a 4-1 record. The girl's team....we will just say that the girl's team has entered in to a very important building year, and they have a lot of heart.

Way to go, coach!!

A Gift of Gracias

It is January, and we have put away our Christmas Mosaic and have gotten the Catholic Mosaic out again. And I am so blessed that we did! Thanks to Cay, we have learned about Our Lady of Altagracia. Legend says she appeared in the 1500's in what is now the Dominican Republic. She is so beloved that her saint's day, January 21, is a national holiday.

We were introduced to Our Lady of Altagracia in the beautiful picture book, A Gift of Gracias. It is the story about Maria, who fears her family will lose their farm, and the help she gets from a beautiful and mysterious lady whom appears in her dreams. And as it say in the book, "Who was the magical woman who appeared in Maria's dream--and will Maria ever find her again to say gracias?"

After reading this wonderful book, we took Cay's suggestion from Catholic Mosaic, and made a collage of things that we are thankful for. (Ours is more like a poster) Mark and Grace both quickly came up with family and friends and Our Blessed Mother. They then spent a little more time thinking. My favorites are cheese and tomato soup!

What is happening to Grandpa????

It's spreading....

I do need to let you know that Grandpa H. has a little too much time on his hands. He made this set of eyeballs several years ago. He cut a ping pong ball is half and then carefully painted a beautiful blue iris, a black pupil, and completed them by putting a peeky hole to see out of on each one.
They are kind of creepy!

Rub a dub dub...

two kids in the tub!

Exploring China-Part 3

We finished our week exploring China by learning about the Chinese New Year and by making these wonderful Chinese dragons. I found many different patterns for making dragons online, but I am sorry that I can't find the exact link for this particular one, sorry.

I also found two videos to go along with our study.

Big Bird in China : This video was wonderful. It showed many of the places and animals that we had learned about during the week. Even my older kids enjoyed watching.Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China: We read this story when we focused on Cinderella stories from around the world, and this video was a fun addition to our study.

I am afraid this will finish up with our China study. I believe it is time to get down to the nitty gritty of concentrating on "reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic", but I am sure that it won't last for long.

There was a little

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead

And when she was good

She was very very good

But when she was bad she was horrid

Not that my Kinberly would ever be horrid!