Celebrating Our Lord's Day

In the Cathedral of Vienna, September 9: "Without the Lord, without the Lord’s Day, we cannot live."

Pope Benedict is encouraging us all to live our lives on Sundays with our eyes towards God.

We don't always accomplish this, but it should always be our goal.

We attend church with our parish family and visit after the mass, and then we continue our day of rest by spending time with our families. We enjoy each other, and on these beautiful autumn days we can also enjoy God's beauty,

in small things,

and in big things, but most importantly we need to enjoy our families.

Sisters and

brothers play together.

Brothers work together.

Grandpa spends time with his grand daughter,

and we all can enjoy God's bountiful harvest, while we take time to remember the important things in life.

Apples, Apples, Apples

Autumn is in full swing here in Central New York. The temperatures may have been in the 80's this week but the leaves are changing colors, soccer games are being played, and the apple orchard's are producing a bountiful harvest.

We have started our apple unit this week. I came up with the theme "Books are a Bushel of Fun!" from the wonderful website DLTK Crafts.

We have a number of great books that we will share during this unit. My absolute favorite is Brother Bartholomew and the Apple Grove by Jan Cheripko.

This book was brought to my attention through the Catholic Mosaic, and it reminds us that "God will always provide."

Other books we are using are:

The Season's of Arnold's Apple Tree

Apple Tree

The Apple Pie Tree

Apple Tree Christmas

In honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday we will also be reading various Johnny Appleseed books and watching Disney's American Legends.

We will continue adding elements to our "apple wall" until the next idea inspires me to change things, probably that will be Thanksgiving.

Pachelbel Bedtime

I was passed along this very cute YouTube video. I hope it makes you smile.

Pachelbel Bedtime

Real Science

What did we learn about in science this week?

Bones, bones and more bones.

We have looked at x-rays of bones, MRIs of bones and pictures of bones under an electron microscope. It was very cool stuff.

This is definitely our favorite bone book. Very cool pictures, with a four page fold-out skeleton of a diplodocus in the middle. (I think this might lead to a dinosaur unit next.)

We can name all the bones on our skeleton "dead Pete". (We can also make "dead Pete" dance, sit, run, and do all sorts of boney poses.)

Grace has been enjoying putting together "dead Thomas". (They chose the names on their own. Mark named "dead Pete" after out favorite librarian.)

All-in-all we have had a wonderful week of "real learning" about our skeletons and bones.

It Has Been a Hard Day!

Mark's Spelling Test #2

Mark did it again. His second week of spelling and his second 100%! Way to go Mark!!

This is a very big deal around here, because you have to realize that these tests are from a boy, who at the beginning of the week, can't always read all the words. It takes a lot of work and studying during the week to accomplish these results.

Grace, on the other hand, has started reading this week and is soaring. She has started in the Faith and Freedom first reader and is doing wonderful. She seems to be able to read using phonics, and her ability to remember sight works is amazing.
Above, she is practicing her new words using our Scrabble board and letters. We will soon need more letter tiles, if you have any extra, you could send them our way.

BC---AD Visual

I have begun discussing the history of man with Mark and Grace, but they just couldn't understand what B.C. and A.D. meant, or keep them straight.

So, I asked Amy to make a visual to help them remember.
I have shared it here because it has really done the trick, with baby Jesus there in the middle there is no more confusion over the initials, or what they stand for.

Thank you Amy!

Luke's New Thomas Fleece

While my friend Megan took Mark and Grace for the day, I sewed Luke a new Thomas fleece and hat. The shirt has a velcro closure at one of the shoulder seams and a wonderful cozy pocket on the front.

The hat is my trusty fleece hat pattern, but obviously Luke's head is not a size small. I will be giving this hat away and moving up to a medium size for Luke's "medium" head.

New Pants for Grace

Cold weather is here and my younger children are very short on cold weather clothes, so I have begun sewing is earnest.

Tonight I made Gracie some navy blue cordoroy pants. They have a wonderful contrasting cuff. I haven't used this pattern before, Butterick 6281, but I will definitely be using it many more times this fall. It fits wonderfully. I am picturing a whole rainbow of cordoroy pants for both Grace and Luke.

For the next week, Joann's Fabrics has their cordoroy on sale for $3.99 a yard, and it only takes 1 1/8 of a yard of material for one size six pair of pants. So, for less that $5.00 I get a real nice pair of pants.

Holy Cross Soccer Update

The Holy Cross soccer teams are continuing on their winning ways. The girls' team played Union Springs Adacemy today to a nail biting 2-1 victory. The girls' record is now 3 wins and 1 tie.

The boys team, led by my own Matthew, had a very convincing 7-1 win. Matthew leads all players with goals scored. ( I don't know exactly how many goals that is. I will check with the coach-a.k.a. Dad, later.) The team remains unbeaten with a 4-0 record.

Sometimes the games are not all that exciting for the younger family members. Tonight, Gracie found her own sport, rolling down hill with her friend Maddie.

This provided enjoyment for quite a while, until the girls were too dizzy to stand up that is.

The Perfect Sunday Afternoon

4 o'clock on Sunday Afternoon

The only thing that could make this afternoon better would be the photographer sleeping also.

Feast of the Triumph of the Cross--Day 2

We got our cross cut-out cookies baked this morning. We were a day late, but they tasted just as good as if they were baked yesterday.

They were decorated by our decorating experts. We used confectionery sugar frosting and Easter sprinkles.

Mark found that decorating was very tasty.

If you look carefully, you can see the results of the tasting Gracie was doing.

The crosses turned out lovely.

Luke discovered exactly how delicious they were. I enjoyed the technique he used to eat the frosting and sprinkles first.

The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

In honor of today's Feast of the Triumph of the Cross we made a wonderful handprint cross using everyone's handprint cutouts. I need to thank Dawn for this craft.

I used colored computer paper and the cardboard from a case of diet-coke.

It came out wonderful, and when my husband saw it after work he said that we would need to keep it displayed in the living room.

We also read The Tale of the Three Trees. I have read this book to the kids in the past, but no matter how many times I have read it, I always get chills. After reading it we discussed some of the questions from the Catholic Mosaic.

This afternoon we attended mass at Holy Cross Academy.

We did not have a chance to make our cross cut-out cookies. Becky made the dough last night but I just didn't get to it. (Grace is not very happy about this.) Hopefully, tomorrow will bring with it cookie making time.

JOY!

Joy is the first spelling test of your life on which you get 100%.

Soccer Season Has Begun

Soccer season has arrived and the chaos has begun. Last night I went to the store and spent $25 on food to bring for 11 people to last for 5 hours. I began making sandwiches and started getting small children ready at noon for our 2 o'clock departure.
I did manage to be in the van by 2:15.
That was an amazing accomplishment.

We met at Holy Cross, and the coach, (aka Dad) had to make sure 40 kids had rides to the game. We drove for 30 minutes to the game and unloaded. Luke unloaded his trains and he was ready for the next several hours.

Amy had a great game with only one bruised and scraped shoulder.

It is Laura's first year on the team. She had a good game. The girl's team played to a 2 to 2 tie.

Matt led the boys team with 2 goals in a 3 to 1 win over their arch rivals New Life Christian school.

The younger group enjoyed the 4 hours of game time behind the baseball backstop throwing apples.
Dan had a great game in his defensive position. His foot is finally feeling better after his glass incident this past summer.

Luke is showing great progress in his soccer ability, which means we have at least 16 more years of soccer games.