Gladdest Hours

On the agenda for this Friday

• We start counting birds today for the Great Backyard Bird Count
• A simplified version of Kimberlee's St. Augustine's Hearts for St. Valentine's Day. Listen to Donna Cori-Gibson's song "Restless" (by St. Augustine) and dance around the house.  
• Watch The Song of Bernadette  to finish our celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes
• Finish current read-aloud  Owls in the Family and order owl pellets to complete our little Owl "rabbit trail"  that we've been on for the past couple weeks....complete with an evening Owl Walk with a local-owl-expert!
• Finish narrations of said-owl-walk. 
• Sunday Prep 
• Go for a Walk outside if it's nice 
• Go through freezer, organize and revise inventory.     
• Evening of Recollection, if I'm not completely dead by 7:00 

Saturday we are celebrating Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial with a few fun things to top off our Abraham Lincoln month-long-extravaganza!  It's technically TODAY, but we are saving this for Saturday, since Daddy is a big Lincoln fan!

• Build pretzel-log-cabins
• Make black hats
• Penny Toss
• Little Debbie Swiss Rolls for dessert 
• Centerpieces for dinner will be our beautiful log cabins, lots of pennies and our infamous paperdolls.  They are going to be so excited to be front-and-center, instead of relegated to the floor or a shelf.  Pete's Lincoln picture that hangs downstairs in the Cowboy Room may have to be brought upstairs for the day, replacing the precious Pete at the Summit of Denali photo.  
• Madeleine and Erika are each "performing" their personal favorite picture book about him.   

We have about 3 more Lincoln books to read, but I think I'm losin' my audience.  There are about 25 picture books about  Ol' Abe in this house right now, but the natives are getting restless.  I think Pete and I will be reading those on our own on Saturday evening.  What a great way to spend St. Valentine's Day! 

Visit here for more great links and ideas for celebrating this Bicentennial!!!

Hope you have a great weekend!  Happy Bicentennial and St. Valentine's Day, everyone!

Contemplating the Artist's Life, according to an eight-year-old

Madeleine: 

"Mom, sometimes when you're a real artist and you have a good story to draw, you have to just start drawing.....you can't just sit there and think and think and think!   You have to just start drawing SOMETHING and if you don't like it, well, then LATER you can fix it or change it.  But you can't just SIT THERE forever and ever, STARING at a blank piece of paper!  Because if you DO that, then all of a sudden, your mom will call for you to come help out with dinner or empty the dishwasher, or pick up your sister's mess, or hold the baby....and POOF, your chance of telling your story is finished forever!!!!"

Personal experience perhaps?  

Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

 We celebrated the  Exaltation of the Holy Cross today with a beautiful Mass and a few fun things at home.   

Helen at Castle of the Immaculate has a wonderful series of posts about preparing children for Sunday Mass.   We used her post: What is your cross? today, which seemed especially fitting for this feast day.  The girls each made and decorated a paper cross, and we wrote their "crosses" ( frustrations, concerns, etc.) on the back of the cross.     

Helen writes:      "Ask the child to identify his “Cross.” With his personal Cross in mind, have the child imagine himself holding a little wooden cross while he kneels before the altar. With his little Cross “in hand” he can join with the Lord’s big Cross. The child can participate and can have his difficulties shared by Christ. Remind the child to bring his "Cross" to Church."

The girls brought these to Mass today and we physically brought them to the foot of Jesus' cross after Mass and said a prayer.  

In anticipation of one of Catholic Cuisine's  Autumn From Thy Bounty Fairs, Mary posted a few fun food ideas for this feast day. 

Here are a couple of our appetizers:

Celery and peanut butter.  Cheez-it crackers with cream cheese.   Delicious, I know.  *grin*

I threw flour, butter, salt, water and yeast into the bread machine before leaving for Mass this morning.  Upon arriving home, my little bakers had fun making various cross designs out of their bread dough, while the other two future-bakers napped:

Here is the bread basket for this evening:  

 

Book for tomorrow:  The Tale of Three Trees.   

Be sure to visit all the great ideas, posts, and pictures at the From Thy Bounty Fair - Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.  

Through the mystery of your Cross and your Resurrection, save us O Lord! — Pope John Paul II -- Excerpts from homily September 14, 2003

He Has Risen, As He Said, ALLELUIA!

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!

We attended an absolutely beautiful Mass yesterday morning.  Our neighbors, John, Julee and Jemma attended and sat next to us, which resulted in all three older girls immediately moving to sit next to them, which left me......(gasp!) childless during Mass, since Caroline stays with Pete, as there is hardly any LAP left on me these days.  Needless to say, I was a complete puddle of joyful tears by the end of the procession and was never even able to sing one single note of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today."  It's probably a good thing that I'm usually keeping tabs on little ones and am distracted, or Pete would never go to Mass with me if I bawled like that all the time! 

We had ten amazing altar servers, lots of incense, beautiful flowers, wonderful instruments and the beautiful choir singing the Mass of Sts. Peter and Paul.  The most glorious day in our liturgical year and it showed!   

We came home in the pouring rain, when Pete pronounced that "this is just drizzle."  So, we proceeded with the annual egg hunt in our yard.  Here is Caroline (2), Erika (5), Dorothy Jo (4), Jemma (6), and Madeleine (7):   

Obviously they could care less what the weather is like!    

Then we had brunch and the rest of the day whizzed right past.  We read some of our Easter books,  did our Resurrection presentation/play and ate some candy!  Oh yes, and I did lots of laundry from a couple of accidents the night before.   

If you have a few minutes and want to swoon, Diane is busy posting beautiful pictures from Assumption Grotto's (Detroit) Holy Week on Te Deum laudemus :

• Holy Week 2008
• Here are the posts from last year's Holy Week 2007

Happy Easter and Joyeuses Pâques!  May the Resurrection of Our Lord bring you much hope and joy during these fifty days of Easter! 

Have a Blessed St. Nicholas Feast Day!

This Dec. 6 is a bit more quiet than last year's celebration, but loads of fun, nonetheless.  We've been reading our collection of St. Nicholas day books, doing read-alouds from The Real Saint Nicholas: Tales of Hope and Generosity from Around the World and singing the St. Nicholas the Saintly song. 

We began making our Speculatius cookies on Sunday, mixing the dough.  We rolled them out on Tuesday, frosted them red on Wednesday (the 5th)  and we'll do the white part today.  We make them look like the cookies in The Baker's Dozen. 

Last night, the girls left their shoes out, and the holy bishop filled them with chocolate gold coins and a couple other little presents.   He also leaves a little letter each year, that gets saved for our family scrapbook.  This year St. Nicholas tried to print that letter on white paper, because he must have been exhausted at 10 pm.  But, one of the other saints, upon arriving back from the gym, said that wasn't acceptable.....it HAD to be on Christmas paper.   (Good grief!) 

We'll have a tea party this afternoon, gorging on our giant cookies and hot chocolate and then do a few St. Nicholas puzzles and have some on-line fun. For dinner we'll have the annual German sausage and roasted potatoes.   But, before that dinner.....we're off to see if #5 is a boy or girl! 

Tonight Pete dresses up as the loving patron saint of children and talks to the girls about how they can be "good."   They will also unwrap Uncle Ivan's gift as we'll need it for a trip later this month!  Thank you, Uncle Ivan!

St. Nicholas, pray for us!

A Nature Day From Beginning to End

A couple days ago, upon waking, I was feeling "OK," so we headed out the door.   No pond stomping today.  Simply an hour walk around our beautiful neighborhood.  Here are a few of our findings:

When we come home for a walk like this, we just sit down somewhere outside, place our findings out in front of us, and just sit there for awhile and chit-chat about any ol' thing.  On this day, I think we sat and talked for about 45 minutes.   

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The leaves are beginning to change colors.  The girls collected Red Maple leaves and made bouquets out of them.  Yes, those are Red Maple leaves, not Poinsettias.  They kept count of how many Maple trees we saw.  I forgot to ask what the final count was. All I remember is that they determined that there were more Maple trees on the east sides of the streets than on the west.

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Our neighbor's Chestnut Tree was dropping its "fruit," so we collected the husks and a couple nuts still in the  shell.  We measured the leaves.....13 inches!  We dissected the husks, and determined that they are "smelly, mushy and  prickly."  This led to lots of discussion about squirrels and chipmunks, etc. who are collecting nuts for the winter.  We came home and read Chipmunk Song. They spent about 30 minutes looking up chipmunks and squirrels in Mammals Golden Guide and North American Wildlife. 

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The girls were interested in the berries on a Juniper, so we picked a branch, came home and identified it as a Rocky Mountain Juniper. Identified the Rocky Mountains on the US map.

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I finally verified that the beautiful tree in our back yard that I look at every day is a Mountain Ash. That's what I thought, but I never actually checked.  We've only been here for 5 years.  Sheez.

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We read the poems for the Mountain Ash and Horse Chestnut from our favorite Book of Flower Fairies.  Caroline tried to eat the inside of the Chestnut husks while we were doing this.

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The girls did leaf rubbings.  We pulled out our Parts of a Leaf Cards.  And, they started tracing leaves from the Botany Cabinet.  I requested a few books from the library from my Books About Trees List.

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Copywork of "Horse Chestnut,"   "Mountain Ash"  and "Red Maple"

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Saw this tree for the first time today.  Anyone know what it is?  Dad?   

We looked at the September and October pages of Nature All Year Long.  Which led to making a list of all the birds that migrate and the ones that will stay the winter.  Which led to a call to Wild Birds Unlimited and also looking up a few things on our Birds of Washington software.  Which then led to listening to bird calls for an hour while I made dinner.  After dinner the girls drew pictures of a few things that they found and of birds.

Whew!  These days always just seem to take on a life of their own.  They lead....I follow, help and suggest.  I had absolutely no plans to do any of this.  They had a busy and fun day.  Me too.   Truth be told, I WAS a bit anxious to get horizontal in bed that night. :)      

Picture Books About Going To The FAIR

"It's the day of the Fair.  For miles around, people are getting their prize animals, their vegetables, their cakes and preserves ready to display.  Before the sun is up, everyone in the Martin family is out and about. What a lot of bustle!"  ~Come to the Fair, Janet Lunn/Gilles Pelletier

We're off to the Fair sometime within the next week.   So, we've started diving into a few of our favorite picture books....... 

• Come To The Fair, Janet Lunn.  Dawn mentioned this one last year, and it is now our FAVORITE!  We read this over and over last year and spent hours looking at the pictures, as there is always something new to discover in them.
• Corgiville Fair, Tasha Tudor
• Old Thunder and Miss Raney, Darrow / Brown
• Oh, Look! , Patricia Polacco
• Mrs. Rose's Garden, Elaine Greenstein
• County Fair, Little House Book
• Country Fair, Gail Gibbons
• Minerva Louise at the Fair, Morgan Stoeke
• Country Fair, Elisha Cooper
• Maisy at the Fair

Enjoy your trip to the fair!

Books about Sisters

I found these recommended on Amy's blog, Among Women.   She has four girls, so naturally she has a sidebar entitled "Books About Sisters."  Well, didn't I just request a few from our nifty little library, and lo and behold, we have some definite winners!

Seven Chinese Sisters - This was probably the biggest HIT of 2006!  They did so many activities with this crazy book that I could barely keep up.  It's the story of seven Chinese sisters, and the gets stolen by a dragon and the other six sisters rescue her with their various talents.  The Finale was a playette performed by the three girls, Jemma (our neighb0r, who is Chinese), Raggedy Ann, me, Pete (dragon) and a doll.  The playette was preceeded by a Chinese noodle soup lunch with everyone in their Chinese silks, thanks to Jemma and her mom!

The Lemon Sisters - This is a wonderful book to read in the winter when the snow is coming down. It's a very sweet story about youth and growing old, and, of course, the beauty of sisterhood.  The three  little sisters make Lemon-Ice for the three elderly sisters who arrive to celebrate a birthday.  It always made me cry because it's so sweet, and the girls thought I was crazy.  It led to many episodes of making Lemon Ice during our snowfall this winter.  What is Lemon Ice, you ask?  You'll have to read the book to find out!

Ukrainian Easter Eggs

This will be a trip down memory lane for my Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters. 

Remember decorating Ukrainian Easter Eggs at the Jerkovics?  With Sam, Joan, Petra and Jess?   And didn't Mrs. Korsen (sp?) do them too? 

Jenn had a post about her interest in Psansky, which made me think about our family experience with them as a young girl. 

There was a recent thread on the 4real boards .  And another on Easter Egg Traditions .

Of course, you can NEVER have enough picture books about Ukrainian Easter Eggs.  The girls LOVE The Egg Tree and Rechenka's Egg .   I just put a copy of The Bird's Gift and Easter Eggs for Anya on hold at the library, per Jenn and Maggie's recommendation.  And, I'll be waiting for Mary's review about This Was The Day once she receives it.    

Shape of the Week

Any guesses?  Come on.....just GUESS! 

We're a bit heart-crazy around here these days.  And, these are only the ones that have NOT been distributed yet.  You'd think they'd get tired of this.  They don't.  They just keep working on the SAME thing day in and day out, which is FINE with me.  Pete thinks it's becoming a bit obsessive; I tell him that I keep hoping for a bit of their focus and ability-to-stick-with-ONE-thing to rub off on me.

We've also been reading some books for the Feast of St. Valentine:

Saint Valentine, by Robert Sabuda

Saint Valentine, by Ann Tompert, Kestutis Kasparavicius

And, memorizing the ejaculation, "Jesus, make my heart like unto thine"

On Wednesday, we'll color, cut and paste our pictures of the Sacred Heart , and renew our Family Consecration to the Sacred Heart .

My Valentine

I have a little valentine

That someone sent to me.

It’s pink and white and red and blue,

And pretty as can be.

Forget-me-nots are round the edge,

And tiny roses, too;

And such a lovely piece of lace –

The very palest blue.

And in the center there’s a heart,

As red as red can be!

And on it’s written all in gold,

“To You, with Love from Me.”

      ~Mary Catherine Parsons~

St. Valentine, Pray For Us!

 

Bunnies in Jackets, Indeed!

Unfortunately, movies like this are few and far between these days.  Whether it's in the theatre or at home on your comfy couch, don't miss this one!

Miss Potter

"The life of Beatrix Potter was the most enchanting tale of all."

Raggedy Ann

Madeleine's Narration from Chapter 1 of Raggedy Ann

Marcella found Raggedy Ann in the old barrell with a picture of a little girl, a mother and a father.  She snatched up the doll and ran downstairs to show her grandmother.  Grandma gave Marcella the Raggedy Ann dolly.  Grandma introduced the other rag dolls to Marcella. 

"Oh dear, where have you found the rag doll?" 

"Up in the attic," Marcella said. 

"My oh my, you were locked in the attic for a long time, Raggedy Ann."  The end.

   

 

Whose books are these, anyway?

I was in need of a serious December-Mommy-Attitude-Adjustment.  I was feeling tired, ungrateful and generally overwhelmed. What's a gal to do?  Slump in a chair and cry?  Hide?  Eat?  Call my mom?  Blog?  Clean? 

No, no, no.  None of those was quite the fix I needed. 

I sat down in a chair and picked up a book....then another.  I proceeded to read a few of my favorite Christmas picture books that I claim to purchase for my children (wink, wink).  Little did I know when I bought them that they also have high attitude-adjustment-capability, as well as being beautiful books for my girls! So, I devoured a few of my favorites....the ones that make me weep:

Christmas Day in the Morning

Annika's Secret Wish

Clown of God

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree

Attitude adjusted.  Perspective restored.  Gratitude reigns.

On to the next load of laundry.  On with the meal planning and kitchen clean-up.  On with clearing paths admidst dolls and blocks so we can walk around.  On with diaper changing and baby holding.  On with kissing hurt fingers and wiping bums. On with crowd control and project management. And, just plain onward....

A book which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story.  The good ones last.  A book which is not worth reading at age 50 is not worth reading at age 10.  ~ C.S. Lewis

My Dad's Holly Hat

Everywhere I look this time of year, I see sketches, pictures, cards of HOLLY.  It reminds me of my father's infamous "Holly Hat."  A tan corduroy hat with 2" of fur around the edge with a little piece of fake holly attached to it.  I can see him leaning back in his chair rubbing hand lotion on his hands after bringing in a few loads of wood for the wood-burning stove, wearing his Holly Hat, wool pants and shirt with a dickie underneath, and red suspenders.  He wore this favorite hat all winter for many, many years.  Alas, I believe it burned in our house fire in 1988, so no more Holly Hat.  But it is forever etched into my mind as a fond childhood memory and resurrected every Christmas. 

Uncle Ivan (my brother) is giving the girls one of my favorite Christmas books The Story of Holly and Ivy, by Rumor Godden/Barbara Cooney this year.  I have already read it several times by myself (I haven't wrapped it yet) and of course I cry every time!    

Then there is one of my favorite Christmas poems, now a song:

The Holly and the Ivy

The holly and the ivy,
Now both are full well grown.
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.

The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Savior.

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.

The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas day in the morn.

The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.

~Traditional

Nicholas the Saintly

We had our St. Nicholas Day Party today.  Nine little girls (ages 4-7) and four older brothers who were helping and "in and out."  I love St. Nicholas Day, and have made it a grand celebration in our house for religious reasons as well as cultural ones....Pete's father came to America from Germany in the late 40's as a young man. 

We're all set up and waiting for our guests~

Working on some St.Nicholas puzzles~

Mrs. McGill, my lovely neighbor who is a retired 1st grade teacher, reading The Baker's Dozen and Saint Nicholas to the party attendees~

And, then......knock, knock, knock...

THIS brought the 4 boys in from playing football:

  Nicholas the Saintly wanted to know what we were up to.  So, we told him about this, puzzles and Mrs. McGill's storytime.  We sang this song.  We bowed our heads in prayer and the children asked St. Nicholas to pray for:

• ~a grandfather
• ~elderly people who are alone
• ~children who don't have a mommy or daddy
• ~children learning to read
• ~pop-pop (grandpa) who just passed away
• St. Nicholas, pray for us.

St. Nicholas reminded us to be good, because it's almost Baby Jesus' birthday!

He handed out bags that Madeleine, Erika, Dorothy Jo made, with a few gold coins and other goodies from our saintly friend. 

The girls sleep, while their shoes eagerly await this beloved saint who adores our dear little ones!

We hope you all have a blessed St. Nicholas Day! 

O Saint of love,
            be a guide for us
            in our lives, we pray,
      that we may
            create joy for each other,
            as you have done for so many.

From St. Nikola an der Donau, Austria

Cranberry Thanksgiving

  This is our third day reading Cranberry Thanksgiving, (from Five in a Row) and the girls adore this book.  I would not have guessed that they would appreciate it so much and want more, more, more.   This book is truly becoming a “living book” in this household.  It has led to many discussions about cranberries, cranberry bogs, whiskers/beards/facial hair, large fireplaces/firepits/firewood, cold weather, recipes, lonely and poor people, men wearing ties, “trilling,” stealing, hair styles, grandmothers, Thanksgiving, etc. 

Here are some of the things we've done while "rowing" Cranberry Thanksgiving:

• Made cranberry bread to eat at our Cranberry Tea Party
• Sang “We Gather Together”
• Laughing about Mr. Whiskers saying “How about some more?”   (This has become a regular phrase while eating, followed by lots of giggles)
• Found pictures of cranberry bogs and cranberry bread on the internet

And then, this whole morning was basically dedicated to making letters, counting and adding cranberries.  This wasn't exactly the plan, but it just sort of took on a life of its own!

Here are some pictures from our Cranberry Math Morning Extravaganza:

Counting as per Mommy's directions:

Making letters (M,A,D) with cranberries:

Erika - Matching Math-U-See Rods to number of berries:

Dorothy Jo doing whatever she wants:

Madeleine's steps - counting out berries as she lines them up.  How many berries total? 

Hmmm...starting to get the "10 plus 1,2,3" concept:

Erika did this FOREVER:

An Arial View of "Cranberry Math":

And, there you have it!

Scarecrows

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends: they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.  ~ Charles W. Eliot

This week, our new friends are the SCARECROWS, thanks to some of our Favorite Autumn Picture Books.

1. Waltz of the Scarecrows
2. The Lonely Scarecrow
3. Scarecrow
4. And, our favorite, Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Bown.  This book inspires us all to practice our very FIERCE FACES!

“No, No, little boy.  You can’t go.  You’re not fierce enough to scare a crow.  Wait till you grow.” 

Five In A Row

We have been using Five In A Row (aka: FIAR) vol. 1 for our morning reading for the past 6 weeks, and I really like it.  We use the ideas loosely, and all three girls have enjoyed these books and the activities we've done and the conversations we've had." So far, we have "rowed":

The Story of Ping

Lentil

A Pair of Red Clogs

The Glorious Flight

The Very Last First Time

Night of the Moonjellies

Good Finds....

....at the Library Sale!  Thank You Grammy Anne for your Friday night pass! 

Town Mouse Country Mouse, Jan Brett, The Rose in My Garden, Anita Lobel, Caps For Sale, Corduroy, Legend of the Poinsettia, Ox-Cart Man, John Blake and the Great Hinckley Fire, Paul Revere's Ride, Time For Bed, A Child's Garden of Verses, Casey at the Bat, God Bless America, The Easter Story, Christmas of the Reddlemoon, Cobweb Christmas, The Christmas Tomten, Story of the Three Wise Kings - dePaola, Christmas Trolls-Jan Brett, Annie and the Wild Animals, Wild Christmas Reindeer, Saint George and the Dragon, Mary's Story, The Biggest Bear, Grandfather's Lovesong, Snowmen at Christmas

“Yes, dear….any book you want!”

This is what I tell the girls when we make our trips to the library.  Even though I know that there is a 99.9% chance that the book they choose will be absolutely stupid and we will read it ONCE, and Pete and I will conspire to “hide that one” until the next library run.  They just pick the first 3 books they see within the first 20 seconds and put them on the stack, then they move on to the more important aspects of visiting the library.  Such as staring at the various array of people coming in and out of the doors, (they don’t get out much), playing with puppets, coloring (cuz we don’t have nearly enough crayons in our own home), moving chairs around (we don’t have those either), and comparing and contrasting the cushions on the benches. 

Yesterday, I received an e-mail about the due dates of several books.  This is one of the books that is due this week: Allisi man you qi yu ji / Liuyisi Kaluo'er zhu; Han Yiheng gai bian ; Liu Zhenjun hui tu.

In case you don’t speak or read Chinese, this is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  One of Erika’s latest “picks.”

Song of the Blackberry Fairy

Pete's mom and dad (aka: Opa and Oma) gave The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies by Mary Cecily Barker to Erika for her birthday. We LOVE this book!  September we'll be memorizing...

THE SONG OF THE BLACKBERRY FAIRY

My berries cluster black and thick
For rich and poor alike to pick.

I'll tear your dress, and cling, and tease,
And scratch your hands and arms and knees.

I'll stain your fingers and your face,
And then I'll laugh at your disgrace.

But when the bramble-jelly's made,
You'll find your trouble well repaid.

My Favorite Time of Year....Autumn!

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, because HOPEFULLY we will have another month of summer left. But every year, around the end of August I get just giddy thinking about Fall!  September and October are my FAVORITE months....and it's especially fun now that I can look at the changing of the seasons with my little "pumpkin-heads."  Here are some of the things we'll do...

September

Pick Blackberries

It's "Back-to-School"

Go to the state fair. I LOVE this book! And this one.

Trip to the Library for all our favorite books about Autumn.

Field Trip to the Market or Children's Farm. Read Hurry Hurry Mary Dear

8 – Celebrate the Blessed Mother's Birthday!

Labor Day – Daddy's Home!  Dance and Sing the song by the Oak Ridge Boys

14 – Exaltation of the Holy Cross Tale of Three Trees

21 - St. Matthew's Feast Day

27 – St.Vincent de Paul - do a "toy and clothing purge" donating to SVdP down the street

29 – Feast of Archangels

Apple Picking – Make Apple Pie and Applesauce

Watch a September sunset at the beach (probably the last for the year)

Watch.....the harvest moonrise, for flying seeds, squirrels hoarding their food, migrating birds.

October

Respect Life Sunday.  Read Angel In The Waters

2 – Feast of the Guardian Angels. So many things to do with little ones on this day!

4 – St. Francis of Assisi  Read this book.

7 – Our Lady of the Rosary

Columbus Day

13 - Erika’s Baptism Anniversary!!

16 – St. Margaret Mary Alocoque. Sacred Heart Activities/Food.

Make a Scarecrow

Clean and Put Outside Toys Away

Go to the Pumpkin Patch

Decorate Front Porch

Cook w/pumpkin...soup, pie, bread, muffins, bars, pancakes, bread.

Pete Goes Hunting! (Hopefully, "anatomy of a deer" will be the lesson of the day!)

Take our annual "girls-in-pile-of-colorful-leaves-with-matching-clothes-holding-pumpkins" picture

Leaf Color Projects~Press, Print, Stencils, Rubbings!

Add fallen leaves to compost

Plant spring bulbs

Collect Pinecones

Roast Pumpkin Seeds

Get All Hallow’s Eve / All Saints Day costumes ready

31 - All Hallow's Eve ~ trick or treating and Party to prep for All Saint's Day!!!!

Nov. 1 - All Saints Day! Party with our homeschool group

Nov. 2 - All Souls Day ~ Get our Altar ready for prayers for the dead, and read these books.

The Reading Mother

You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be-

I had a mother that read to me.

~Strickland Gillilan~