Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Monday, March 25, 2013

Happy Birthday #4

Happy Birthday to my Awesome 9 year old.

 Note the lovely floral gift bag.



And for his birthday he gets a Kindle and a word game. Just don't tell they are both actually educational. He  got back some of the Legos which were "put away" by mommy last week since they were not cleaned up. He also received about 4 or so inches of perfect snow, not to light not to wet.



The view from our front porch



Our Home


Our Apple Trees

Our Backyard

Note - the horses are not ours we just get to see them everyday without having to care for them. The little girls named our house when we were looking at it "The Horsey House".  





Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Happy St. Joseph's Day

Happy St. Joseph's Day. Started with wonderful breakfast with the girls, thank you Kate Downes and Rebecca Hall. Then lunch with friends (Reesa Barklage and Lisa Melnick) for Traditional Italian followed by outside time on this awesome March Day before the March winds began to blow. Now for a movie with the kids before I send them to bed early.

 Getting ready for Mass
 Working on her math skills, typical Eriskon, it is her favorite game.
Bananas for the first time

That is the sugar coated version. Leaving out that I woke up early to clean the kitchen run a broom over the floors and straighten up a bit before breakfast.  After breakfast the shouting to get into the car followed by the this is my seat fight. Lunch was fun but a bit crazy with 17 children and 3 moms. Sorry to the church staff at the other table I am sure the noise level went down after we left. On the way home we had a 10 year old melt down, apparently I "never" let her have time with her friends. Let's not leave out the pulling over and sitting on the side of the road refusing to move until everyone gets in their seats and buckles their seat belts, 15 minutes of my life I would like back. Here comes the next shoe to drop. The trash, I told the 12 year old no less than 3 times yesterday to take the can to the curb, yes you guessed it no can to the curb. The 12 year old was sentenced to empty the can into large trash bags so it could be transported to the dump. Once he gets all of it done and the 10 year old has finished her punishment for the meltdown of cleaning out the car. He puts all the trash in the car to take to the dump and by the time we get there, yes you know it the dump is closed. Shortened hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, I will remember for now on I guess. So went to the Amish furniture store to shop for a table big enough for our family, ouch sticker shock. Now we sit here in the calm, I am jinxing myself, watching Alice in Wonderland the original Disney. So when I say an early bed time it is because mommy is exhausted because during all this I also started packing up the winter duds and cleaning the back porch.

Yes I signed up for it and when I think about it I will remember the top paragraph and know that most likely the kids will too. Hope everyone else enjoyed this beautiful day. Back to Lent tomorrow and preparation for Holy Week and Easter.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Habemus Papam!

Today was an exciting day for our immediate family and our church family. Eight years ago when Pope Benedict XVI was elected my oldest was only 4 so he does not remember the excitement. Today all of my children were together with their friends in classes and had the pleasure of an excited priest running the halls yelling there is "white smoke". Just imagine over 100 children running the church halls toward the one large screen TV to see "White Smoke". 
Courtesy of my wonderful husband we set up a live feed from EWTN so everyone could see. We set everything up so during their lunch they could watch for the "smoke" but all they saw was the bird on the chimney.





They all went back for their last hour of class and just as everyone was letting out at 2:00 the excited started and the flock of children came running down the halls. I need to see if I can get a security feed to see the excitement. These are children who were too young to remember last time but have been working on their lap books and cardboard chimneys to prepare for these exciting days in our faith. 
Once they all assembled in the hall they began watching the "smoke", this can only be fun for so long but they were patient and waited over an hour to hear the words from the balcony. "Habemus Papam!"

This was a wonderful and memorable day and I am happy all these children were able to share this moment.

This was a wonderful and memorable day and I am happy all these children were able to share this moment.

This was a wonderful and memorable day and I am happy all these children were able to share this moment.





 Waiting 
 and waiting 
 and waiting
 and waiting
 After the announcement, sorry no photo of the announcement too excited, LOL.


The day after as we hear more about our new Holy Father we are filled with joy. We know he will quickly dismiss the irritating questions of women priests and the church "changing" with society. My Matthew is already asking to go on retreat to Rome next Easter with the Legionaries of Christ, start saving little boy.


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Unschooling Meeting

This morning we deviated our usual morning coffee for a discussion on "Unschooling". A fellow home education mom has been reading up on the subject and thought a discussion would be interesting. We had 8 moms join us and had a wonderful discussion, moving it up an hour helped. We launched our discussion with the help of a book "A Little Way of Homeschooling:" by Susie Andres. There were some great points made and it was wonderful to have the insight and knowledge from all of these moms. Hearing the different perspectives from one another and their experiences helps each of us.

The journey of a family that has decided to take on the amazing job of educating and learning alongside their children is one that needs the support of others. So many times in these discussions you hear how these families are isolated from their extended families. Having this knowledge we know that the friendship and support from the other moms is so very important for us to carry out our vocations as SAHM and Educator.