Gladdest Hours

A Wonderful End to the Choir Year at St. James Cathedral

 

This year, the three older girls were in the St. James Cathedral Youth Music Choir Program.  It was an amazing experience and all three girls loved it and received wonderful beginning choral and music training.  All my expectations were exceeded, and I'm so glad we decided to commit to this for the year.  (Thank you, LeeAnn!)  It was a lot of effort.....schlepping five kids downtown Seattle once a week.....3-4 hours door-door, sometimes longer depending on traffic.  But, I wasn't pregnant and I didn't have a newborn, so I figured it was a good time to spread-our-wings a bit.

Many of my logistical concerns worked out, and we soon found ourselves at the Cathedral where I used to attend Mass with my girlfriends before I got married.  Now, I was here with five offspring in tow!  

Believe it or not, there were always large enough spaces for our mammoth van, thanks to the reserved Cathedral spots at O'Dea High School!  Otherwise????  Forget it!  That would've been IT for us!  LOL! 

The choir program made an extra room available for those of us with small children....a contained area with a TV when we got desperate :-)   And, I couldn't think of two more wonderful ladies to spend 90 minutes with than LeeAnn and Lauris!

The music selection for these young children is superb and lovely!  They are exposed to and learning the music of our beautiful Catholic Faith!  I have been brought to tears by much of the music that they sang during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. 

There are three youth choirs that practiced on Thursday afternoons:

• St. Gregory Choir, 6-7 year olds.   4:30-6:00 pm.  Erika & Dorothy Jo were in this choir.
• St. Cecilia Choir, 8-9 year olds.  Mrs. Newhall was the director this year, and she was greatly loved by Madeleine.  4:30-6:00 pm.
• Schola Cantorum, 10-13 year olds.  Practiced weekly from 4:30-6:30. Ms. Sunde-director.  Madeleine has dreams of singing with this choir and can't WAIT to be 10!

These three choirs sang once a month at the First Sunday Youth Mass as well as at the Vigil Mass at Christmas, the Epiphany of the Lord, the Palm Sunday Procession,and the truly beautiful Great Music for Great Cathedrals. 

Today was the amazing Corpus Christi Procession to finish off the year! 

Here are our little choristers in their robes for the last time~

The girls met lots of new friends....one in particular :-)   Hello, Helena!  And, Caroline and Jacqueline talk about their new friend, Ewen, constantly!

We are so blessed to have participated in this program this year, and I'm very grateful to all the directors, organizers and parents who made it happen. 

Panties Angelicus

Dorothy Jo (age 5):   "Mom, how come Madeleine and Erika keep singing a song about PANTIES? "  

Me:  "Panties?"  

Dorothy Jo:  "Yes, that song.  You know.   Panties-Angelicus."  

**Also known in more mature circles as Panis Angelicus.  

Julee and John's Wedding Celebration

Our neighbors, Julee and John, got married in a small, private ceremony a month ago.  Then last weekend, they had their wedding reception in OUR BACK YARD!  Whoo-hoo!  

A hundred people whooping it up, complete with delicious food, a bon fire, a huge tent and a live band.  The band was Deadwood Revival and they were great!   My friend, Cathy, says that if she ever wins the lottery, she'd use the money to have a LIVE BAND at EVERY FUNCTION and family get-together.  I'm with her.  

Here is a little clip of the children dancing a modified version of the Virginia Reel at the party:

 

On Sunday during clean-up, John (the groom) was stomping down the garbage can and it fell over and he broke his arm.  He is now known affectionately in our house as "Garbage Can Hibbs."    We can't even claim that it was an alcohol-related accident.  Just plain ol' stupidity.  *wink*

While John was falling out of garbage cans, the girls were eating breakfast with the leftover balloons as guests.

Congratulations John and Julee! 

Because we are all about COLOR over here

Martha Stewart would be proud.  (Of this ONE TINY PIECE of my house.....definitely NOT of the whole house, in general.  Decorating is NOT one of my talents.)

The conversation that followed the presentation of this coloring project went something like this:

Erika (age 5) :  Mom, can I have MORE of this paper? 

Me:  Uhhhh, you mean more scratch paper?  (leading question....hoping to avoid the inevitable)

Erika: No, more of the paper with the notes on it.   

Me: Sure, I guess so. 

Add "Make copies of Moonlight Sonata" to To-Do-List and try not to laugh too hard or roll my eyes continuously. 

Where is Thumbkin?

There is just something oh-so-cute about a three-and-a-half-year-old standing in a corner of the yard all by herself, singing and doing the finger-play for "Where is Thumbkin?"

So sweet.

(What IS that string tied to the Apple Tree?  Who knows.)

Scottish Dancing

Our little group of Scottish dancers, ages 4-7, performed at our Annual Homeschool Variety Show on Sunday.   

Michelle married a Scotsman and has learned Scottish Dancing from his family.  She knows all the moves and is our official Dance Instructor, and I am her (ah-hem) assistant. 

The group is known as "The Riverside Clan."

They had just 3 lessons before the Variety Show.  We meet once a month for an hour.  They rallied at the performance, and we are so proud of them!

Watch them in this 2-part video, performing the Virginia Reel.  Madeleine is the taller blond dancer.  And pay no attention to the crazy ladies occasionally intervening. 

God bless all of our wee lads (Nathan, Brandon, Gabe, Quinn) and lasses (Mary, Roisin, Alice, Madeleine).

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

Cat Chat

  In preparation for next week's Liturgical Celebrations, I pulled out the Cat Chat CD - Amazing Angels and Super Saints yesterday.  We listened to it all the way through, stories and music, during "quiet time" (yeah, right...) and then got CRAZY and danced and sang all afternoon.  Just for the record, I'm not a big fan of much of the Catholic contemporary music out there, but this stuff is FUN! Ok...ok...so Moses, the cat, is a bit corny, but kids love it, and it's REALLY for THEM (not US, Perry)!  The girls also enjoyed some computer time at the Cat Chat website doing the concentration/memory games and the "Saints Quiz" from the "Activity and Game Room" of the website.  Here is an interview with Cat Chat producers.

Happy Birthday Blessed Mother!

It is our Blessed Mother's birthday today!  This morning we used this website - Maria Bambina to listen to the song, look at the pictures, and said a couple of the prayers.  The girls made a BLUE cake yesterday, to eat at tea time this afternoon.  Madeleine is making a construction paper one-decade-rosary for our centerpiece for dinner tonight, and Erika will trace and decorate the fleur-de-lis for a wall decoration.  Dorothy Jo is, well.....you know....just being Dorothy...talking loudly at the table while Madeleine works, strewing things around.  We'll use everything blue....tablecloth, napkins, and a couple of my Polish Pottery serving dishes! 

Jenn (Family in Feast and Feria) has a post about what their family is doing and some great links. 

Madeleine set up the table for this afternoon's tea.....