Earth Day 2010

To honor our beloved Earth that our Lord so generously created for our pleasure, we celebrated with friends!  We spent a lovely afternoon Cleaning Smiley's Room ~ at the cemetery.  The children were such hard workers raking, picking up trash, and hauling sticks out of the way. 

What a blessing to have such willing friends to lighten the load!

The next day we cleaned our road that we adopted in memory of him.  It is only a mile of road and it took us over an hour to clean it!

A Lighter Way this Lent

2010 has kept me busy with ORGANIZING! 

I'm working on my 40 bags in 40 days... my journey of "letting go" throughout lent!  So far, I'm at 9 bags!  The Challenge? Get the clutter out!  This doesn't include your *normal* trash!  Donate, purge ~ RELEASE!  Walk closer with God and detach from worldly things that are in your way!  Want to join us?  Head on over to Danielle Bean's corner here http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/40_bags_in_40_days/ and get inspired!


I started with (not done yet!) school... we have gone to a notebooking approach to schooling.  Each kiddo has a notebook with the tabs: Presidents, USA History, USA Geography, Book Reports, Science, Math, Language (which includes spelling, vocab, etc).  They also have a Religion notebook which includes: Rosary, Scripture, Saints, etc.  These notebooks will be built upon through the years and allow the children to review what they have learned and see their improvements.  Utilizing creative bookmaking, photos, drawings, and such, they are proud of their accomplishments. 


My planning has gotten simpler, too.  I have folders for each month and plop handouts in it that I want to cover.  I keep those in a portable filing box with other folders labeled Bible, Science, blank notebooking pages, Rosary,  To Correct, and Resources. Resources has my Master List of topics to cover each month (for example: January ~ Religion - Holy Family, Conversion of St Paul; Virtue - Loyalty; Saints - St Paul, St Elizabeth Ann Seton, St John Bosco; Sacrament - Baptism; States - MI, AK, UT, NM, KS; Science - Atoms/Molecules, winter weather; History - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr; Presidents - Roosevelt, McKinley, Nixon, Fillmore; Country - Italy; People - Louis Braille, Ben Frankline, AA Milne; Art - ?; Enrichment - ? ~~ some items still need work!)  Tweaking as I go....


I saw this the other day and Dawn has really laid it out nicely! Go here to see what she's up to ~ http://dawnathome.typepad.com/by_sun_and_candlelight/file_crate_system/
I want to read through hers to give me more inspiration!  I'll keep mine in my portable box (keeps the little fingers out and I can transfer to other rooms a bit easier) but I'm sure I can learn a lot from her!


I keep reminding myself that God loves order (notice the Universe?! He has ordered EVERYTHING!) and that Satan thrives in chaos.  To walk closer with my Lord, I am striving for more order in my life.  I want to rid my home of any chaos that I am able and kick that nasty bugger outta here!

May you have the peace of Christ, too!

15,000 days and counting...

Woohoo, it has been 15,000 days since my birth (thanks, Mom & Dad!).  What have I accomplished with this gift of life that has been granted me?  My first reaction is so earthly "not enough!".  But come on!  The angel on my shoulder is whispering, "Ahem, who is that on your lap that you are nourishing whilst computering?"  That's right... I've helped usher in six blessings to the planet!  That is quite a feat!  That means I was pregnant roughly 1,680days (240 weeks). I've nursed about 3,200 days.  That does tend to be a lot of sacrificing!  But my dear hubby has really sacrificed ~ we've been married for 7448 days (178,752 hours!) ~ over 20 years!

I was thinking about how fleeting time is...

My precious +Smiley only lived on the planet for 3921 days (560 weeks or 129 months or 10yrs 8 months).  He accomplished so much during that short time frame.  The most amazing feat? He brought us to Christ ~ through His blessed Mother, Mary.  God sent that precious boy to us to teach us to focus our lives on Him and to rely on His Graces.  Faith has been a beautiful gift!

The unyielding pridefulness that guided my life crumbled beneath me as I suffered through many humbling experiences.  Today I am eternally grateful for God's wisdom in granting me those situations because they continue to shape me into a more godly woman.  I seek holiness of which I cannot obtain through me.... rather the experiences He gifts me. The secular world calls it "no pain, no gain."  The faithful know it is His way to draw us to Him.  I appreciate the challenges He sends my way so that I may grow closer to Him and rely only on Him.  He is very generous with His crosses because He wishes to bring us Home to Him when we complete our earthly mission. 

+Smiley was entrusted to a very specific mission and was able to complete it in less than 130 months.  Wow!  Our Father knew how much that young man enjoyed being first so He helped him complete his mission in record time.  Without that special child, I wouldn't have thought I needed God so much because I relied on my own 'wisdom' (ha!!).  But how I was lacking!  Thank you, Lord, for guiding me and letting me know how wonderful life can be under Your loving care.  Although those holy 2by4s hurt like crazy when I get whacked upside the head, I get the epiphany ~ my "aha!"~ and rededicate my life to You.

My goal is to remember to ask God how He wants me to serve Him through my family. 

What is your goal?

Lots of work to do today...

Soooo, Critter really enjoyed our library visit the other day.  He had a ton of work to finish on the computer and got rrrreeeaaaallllllyyyyy cranky if we interrupted his train of thought. 

Dollar worked on his President Garfield (he gets a kick out of THAT name!) report while Jellybean researched Presiden T. Roosevelt.  She really enjoyed looking at the cool pics of his family.

Freckles and Raminator enjoyed storytime and made black paper sack cats.  Poor Raminator's cat was de-tailed by the Critter's enthusiasm!

Oh, and here is a GREAT etch-a-sketch... catch the word???? Wow... guess who made that!??

Now that it is March - our studies will focus on  Science - Solar System
Geography - Ireland, Florida, Vermont
History - Industrial Revolution,Labor Unions,
Religion - Reconciliation, continuation of Lent, St Joseph & St Patrick, the Annunciation of our Lord,  and making the Stations of the Cross
and of course, the usual (math, spelling, writing)

Okay... 'nuf talking... back to WORK!

Celebrating FREEDOM!!

The children and I went to +Smiley's former school to watch their celebration of Black History Month.  They read poetry, excerpts from famous speeches, and performed songs.  I had fond memories watching +Smiley participate and after five years, I was ready to watch another performance. ( I missed Mr D's and Ms Janean's rhythm sticks with their students, though! I'll have to get them to get back to that!)

The students did a wonderful job!  They sang a song incorporating Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's words from his "I Have a Dream" speech:.  When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Tears streamed down my cheeks and my thoughts drifted to my +Smiley and my heart ached as I thought of his true freedom... free from pain and sorrow, irritations and aggravations, inconveniences and frustrations.  His is truly Free... and I thank God Almighty every day for that. 

The last song at his funeral was the African spiritual, "Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King..." way to go, precious son! He LIVES with the King!

Mr K, the awesome art teacher, found this photo to give me.  This is the smile I remember best.... we called it his Gazillion Dollar smile! And I know he continues to smile down on all of us as he dances with Jesus.       

* * * Winter W*nderland! * * *

Let it snow!  We are being greeted this morning by a lovely blanket of snow!  The boys were all ill last week thus the onslaught of CaBiN FeVeR.... remedy???  Make snow men!  After the library visit today ~ where they will work on  president and animal reports,~ they can frolick 'til their hearts are content in the white playland out the back door.  (I'll post the pix a bit later...)

After our last major snowfall, I had just left a mini-retreat with the Trinitarian Sisters of Mary in which we spent over an hour in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (our beloved, Jesus).  I felt so close to God and very grateful for being abundantly blessed.  On the way home, I stopped at the cemetery, trudged through the foot of snow, and placed a blanket at Smiley's headstone.  I spent time thanking God for my precious son's life and for the wonderful memories I have of him. After almost a half an hour of 'visiting' my kiddo through tears, laughter, and silence... I jumped up, went over to the other side, and laid down on his grave.  He was almost as tall as me when he died.  I remember all the joyous times we had in the snow... and gave him a little gift.  A made him a snow angel. * * *

Remember that each day we have with one another is truly a gift.  How will you GIVE yourself to others today?  My goal is to spend time this week with the children making Stations of the Cross scenes to adorn our home.   

Feeling a bit blue today....

The little boys are enjoying a heavy dose of mother nature's bounty -- wild blueberries!! :)  Okay, when I say WILD, I'm just copying what the bag says.  No, we didn't find a whopping goldmine of berries (it IS February, ya know!).  Instead, we plucked a 4# bag from the Costco freezer!  Check out these stained faces! 

And, aren't I blessed to have such an amazing laundry helper!  Sort those socks, baby!