Our Lenten Journey

It is about half way through Lent and our grocery spending freeze is going well. I am amazed at how many things you can still make when you have hardly any groceries. Every Lent we have tried to not buy a lot of groceries and use what we have in the freezer and pantry. The kids have also done well, but we have had to be creative at time too. We have found out that some like oatmeal, some actually like peanutbutter, and we can even have fish sticks or buttered cinnamon noodles for breakfast! We are reminded of how much we do have and that we can just go to the store and pick up what we need. It is very hard to not give in to that temptation. Even when we do go to the store lately we only buy simple necessary items, like milk, fruit. I have even made more loaves of homemade bread and we love that! It is a good time for us to reflect on what is important and that would be God, giving to others, and that everything we have is from Him. We must share because God has also shared. We have our Rice Bowl that we add some of the money we have saved to. It has been educational too. The kids were studying about India and the next story on the Rice Bowl was about a fourteen year old boy from India who was an orphan. He is handicapped and has to work to support himself. Through Catholic Relief Services he is able to go to school so he can learn a trade to help his future. The kids were amazed that this young boy had to think about those things now. So as this may be a time for me to clean my pantry more importantly it is a time to clean our souls. We can be quiet and listen, be simple and humble, share with others.
Then the kids say,"we cannot wait for Easter to have a big Easter dinner!" I will have to work on that now.....the bigger message of that day! At least we have this time to reflect and prepare our minds and souls for the Glorious Ressurection!

Sam's First Reconciliation

What a day to have a First Reconciliation...Valentine's Day! God's love for us His children and His mercy is so overwhelming and to be able to participate in this Sacrament on such a day is a true gift. The children went in one by one to Father James, said their confession, lit a candle in the confessional and proceeded to the back of the church with their family to light a votive candle by the amazing saint statues. The ceremony was rich in symbolism and Father James just loves the children. He even passed out candy bars at the end, which was a nice treat for them since it was about a two hour ceremony.

Then since it was about 9:00 and we were hungry, I stopped and picked up Subways to celebrate the day! (Here in our small town the only fast food is Subway or DQ, which was already closed.)

It was truly a special Valentine's Day!
Not to mention, we had a Valentine's party with our homeschooling friends. The boys were very excited to make their valentines, which were 32 origami hearts (made by Sam), 32 origami dogs (made by Oscar with mom's help), and 32 origami fish (made by Zak) for a grand total of 96 pieces of origami things!

What a Surprise! ;)

What type of Mother Hen Are You?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource

Free Week for School

This is our free week! We rotate weeks for homeschooling as follows: 3 R's week, 3 R's week, fun learning week, and free week. During the 3 R's week, the kids do reading, writing, and math. We focus on those not-so-fun things like doing tests, workbook pages, and it can be a lot of work. Then during the fun learning week we get to do the "fun subjects" like geography, Spanish, Latin/Greek, Sign Language, music, art, cooking, science, and history. The free week is free for them, except we try to play a lot of educational board games. Here are a few of our favorites Parts of Speech, See It and Sign It, Made for Trade, Dino Math Tracks, Apples to Apples Junior, Rummy Roots, Postcards Across America, and any Professor Noggin card game. We try to go on field trips or the library during this week also. Well, we are off to learn!