Saint Nicholas Day

We have been preparing for Saint Nicholas' arrival tomorrow morning.

The best place to find activities related to Saint Nicholas is to visit the St. Nicholas Center website.

The pattern for the bead magnet can be found here.

Saint Nicholas is now also with the animals at the manger awaiting the arrival of the Baby Jesus.
One of our favorite St. Nicholas' books is The Legend of Saint Nicholas.

We also enjoyed The Miracle of Saint Nicholas and The Legend of St. Nicholas.

You can check out Saint Nicholas' Day past in the old blog posts.

Our Celtic Advent Wreath

Thank you, Danny...for this wonderful gift!

Advent Paper Chain

Head on over to The Catholic Toolbox to print out wonderful activities to do each day as you follow your Advent chain to Christmas Day.

Painting Thanksgiving Cookies

We started with simple sugar cookie cutout leaves. (I cheated this year and used it premade)
I mix food coloring with egg yolk.

Then the kids get busy.

After painting the cookies, we sprinkle them with a little sugar.

Ready for the oven.

After ten minutes of baking.

I love the cracked look of the final product.

This taste yummy, too. The egg yolk cannot be tasted at all.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy 16th Birthday, Laura!!

We are so proud of the beautiful young woman you have become!!

A Letter to My Mother

Dear Mom,

Unearthly trembles fill the even sky,
And crashing thunders fill my heart with dread.
The flash of lightning tears my soul apart,
So in my fear I scamper to you bed.
Your gentle kiss relieves my doubtful heart,
And by your warmth my demons turn to fly.

A child, six or seven, closed the door,
But now, though grown, I come to you again.
The storm of yesterday has never gone,
It rages now in bitter, driving pain.
Your gentle words will hail the coming dawn,
A man of age- your child all the more.


Attack the grey until the day is done
And vanquish monsters hiding in the night.
You never stand alone upon the earth,
You have a Lion by your side to fight-
A beast of fearsome loyalty from birth.

Adieu for now, but know my love.
Your Son.

Don't worry!!!

We are still here!!

And here...(notice window sill medicine supply)

Here---with remote
Here-in bed

We are here....

and here on the floor....

here in the basement.

And, yes, don't worry...the dog is still here, admidst the toys.

We have been bitten by the coupon bug

Year ago, when I only had 4 of 5 kids, I shopped all the area sales and used coupons every once in a while. But as the family grew and we got busier and busier, it became easier to make one big trip to the big "box" store right down the street. (and spended tons of money to feed our large family)

Well, times have changed and I find myself counting every penny to make ends meet (which they don't usually do), so I thought I would give this coupon thing a chance.

I read the blogs and found the websites and then sat down and started making my "binder." (an organized filing system for the many coupons I came across)

Amy made a cute cover for the binder and I started out on the mission of filling it up.

Of course, there are the usual Sunday morning paper coupons, but I was amazed at the amount of coupons that you can find to print out right at home.

My favorite resource for finding internet coupons is The Krazy Coupon Lady website.
There are also coupon forums, coupon blogs, facebook coupons and many other "surprise" coupon finds. In fact, my hubby and grown children have joined the bandwagon and are bringing me home coupons from newspapers at work.

In fact, I have found so many coupons, (for things we use everyday) my original 1 inch binder has been replaced with a 2 inch binder in only 3 weeks of couponing.

I have consistantly been saving between 40 and 60 percent on every grocery and drugstore trip I have made in the last three weeks.

This is a tremendous savings for our family, but it does take some work.

The most important point I have to make is to make sure to match up the store sales with the coupons you have on hand. I am also getting a good idea of where the best prices are for the things we use everyday which rarely go on sale, because,

EVERY PENNY COUNTS!!

Gracie is 10!!

Our beautiful little miracle turned 10 years old today!!!

Where did the time go?

It seems like yesterday.

In true Gracie style, she conducts while we sing "Happy Birthday"!
Yes, I still as using last years Christmas wrapping paper in October.

HORSES!!

Grace and Grandpa H

A bunch of cousin fun.

We love you, Grace!

I pray you have a wonderful year!

Our Blessed Mother

Our Blessed Mother is visiting our house tonight, on her way around to many parishoners of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church.

It will be a blessing to pray the Rosary with her as we beg for her intersession in our family.

"Happy Fall Y'all"

This is today's craft....from my favorite craft supply company, Oriental Trading Company.

One child is ready for the snow!

Monster Theme Unit.....in time for Halloween

My two little learners are having a great time with this new, free Monster Theme Unit from 2 Teaching Mommies.
It is perfect timing, with Halloween approaching.
It has many more parts than I have pictured here.

Here, they are rolling the "monster dice" and graphing the results.

Reading practice by gluing the body part words to the monster.

Learning about fractions

fractions

One of the two puzzles to put together...(in proper number order)

Money sorting
Thanks so much, 2 Teaching Mommies, for this great Monster Unit!!

Marco Monday---apples

Skipping stones

Fall fun

Today Daddy had the day off of work, so I decided to give the kids a day off of school and go on a field trip.

We headed off the pick apples and have some fall fun at Critz Farms.

We were greeted by this enormous "slide mountain". The kids jumped out of the car and ran immediately to the slides.

Any boy, does it pay to homeschool children....we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

After a quick slide or two, we headed into the apple orchard.
Right now, my favorite variety of apple is the Honeycrisp...and these were absolutely delicious.

Luke, hard at work.

Are you supposed to eat in the orchard, Mark?

Mark and Grace had a plan to reach the tops of the trees.

Ready!

Reach!

Success!! But they could only stay this way long enough to pick one apple.

Daddy and Kimberly

That's quite an apple, Luke.

My scarecrows.

I doubt the crows will be scared.

Luke loved this train.

It was a school day, so we had the place almost to ourselves.

There were also a lot of animals to visit on the farm.

This minature donkey was my favorite.

The rooster kept crowing and crowning...the kids loved it.

Kimmy was a little nervous around the goats, especially after seeing our they behaved when you brought in a handful of food. But after checking Kimberly for goat treats, this one was content with being petted.

I love the whiskers on this goat. Maybe he is the old timer around the farm.

Heading to the pumpkin patch.

Heading home with our pumpkins.

Which way did they go????

I bought everyone a bottle of fresh cider to drink on the way home, and the perfect spot to stop for our drink was at Chittenango Falls.

What a little monkey!

I could only manage to make it a short way down the trail to bottom of the falls, but Daddy and the kids made it the whole way....it's quite a hike!!

They did bring me back this beautiful photo!