Fall Fever

I broke a cardinal rule yesterday. It was the first day of Fall, my cardinal rule is/was not to decorate until the cleaning checklist is all marked as complete.  If you saw my checklist you will have known I am delusional.  As a lover of all things Autumn (see profile photo), I try very hard to get that checklist done so on the actual day I'm whistling a happy tune while the decorations go up.

As life crushed my reverie into reality, yesterday found our house in a state of minor catastrophe.  This after a weekend of volleyball games, my sister-in-law's 25th wedding anniversary celebration and my idiosyncratic idea that the said checklist can be conquered in two hours that led to my procrastination.

By the time 4pm rolled around yesterday my kids had the boxes of decoration up and ready to go as I laughed at their ambition. They batted their eyelashes as they begged me to decorate.  With my broken resolve I put up the festoonery amidst the clutter and muck.  Don't worry I dusted where the decor was to go up, the cobwebs were not about to move on it's own accord. Whilst the public places of the house got prettified, I submitted myself to the fact that my checklist will take all of this autumnal season to complete. The one lesson I learned from this exercise is that beauty trumps clutter, all the time.  Once the decorations were up the motivation to tidy followed.  Now I'm just waiting for the motivation to wash the floor.

How was your first day of Fall?

festive

mother nature really needs to make glittered leaves

no cobwebs!

Fall is off to a good start with today's feast of St. Padre Pio

The Eve of All Eves

I am not talking about Christmas.  Tomorrow our bookworm will be playing her first game of organized sport (volleyball).  This was the girl who once said "I don't like sports!"  then promptly got lost in her world of story books where no indoor plumbing existed.

I can't tell you what prompted this volleyball thing.  It might be partly influenced by a cousin who is currently on a full-ride college scholarship via her volleyball talent.  One thing I can say is this, she did not get it from me as the bones for sports did not properly fuse on my spine LOL.  Like her, I happily declared my abhorrence for anything that will betray my lack of talent. Unlike her, I have yet to change my mind.

She was very excited when she was officially signed up.  She couldn't get to the practices early enough then she would come home with this joy in her face and a trail of stories that was a challenge to keep up with. How a girl could talk about practice like it's Christmas is so very foreign to me.  But I took delight in this, it was a choice she seems to be truly happy with.  Unlike that ballet class of so long ago....let's not revisit... only to say it was a nightmare LOL.

As we both lay on her bed tonight we laughed at what was the absurdity of this sport thing just a couple of months ago.  We thought we would be perpetually content just sitting side by side on the couch reading our books leaving the boys to their sports folly.

"Just have fun, just have fun", this was the only advice I could impart. She begged me once again to "please, come to my game if you don't have a fever tomorrow!"  Unless I'm contagious in an epidemic sort of way or dying there is no way I'm missing her first game.  For both of us tomorrow is like Christmas morning.

repeat photo from previous post but I love how truly happy she looks in her team uniform

School Notes

I had this silly notion back in the day that once my kids are older life will be a breeze. I'll be sipping pina coladas at 3 pm while they all busy themselves with what was once on my to-do list. Silly me. I'm writing this a little past 5 pm, I'm aching for a nap while some parts of this home could use some tidying.  Today was a long homeschool day that ended close to 4 pm. A couple of our subjects ran longer than usual as our discussions went further than I had planned (that's always the case with History and Religion).

The older the kids get the busier my life becomes.  It's easier but it's busier.  It's easier because my older three can be counted on to do more things a) on their own b) to help around the house c) without being asked (sometimes).  It's busier because the demands of schooling also get bigger with each passing school year.  I have a 6th, 5th, 3rd grader and a "repeat" kindergartner. We're only repeating kindergarten because he has a late birthday, to our school district he is in kindergarten.

My 6th grader is in Confirmation class this year.  We moved to a parish close to our home where Confirmation is in sixth grade.  I am so thankful for this.  He is ready and he's excited and I truly believe the pouring of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit at his age will be so beneficial.  The program they are using this year is wonderful - Virtues in Practice - by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, with Faith and Life  for textbooks. I normally patch together my own Religion program at home (on top of what the Parish School of Religion/CCD requires) but this year I've decided to really get deep with Virtues in Practice at home so they will be prepared when they show up for CCD classes each Sunday.

The 5th grader is playing volleyball for our neighborhood parish school (not the parish we belong to).  Since our (new) parish does not have a school she was eligible to play at this other parish provided that our pastor signed her "permission" slip to verify that she is an active Catholic. They've been practicing for a little over a month now, every one has been so kind to her even if she doesn't go to that school or that parish.  We're very happy and most importantly she's very happy.  She's always excited to go to practice and comes home beaming.  This is the girl who we envisioned as the one who would never play sports because she's buried in her books or her novel-writing.

It's a lecture-heavy school year over here.  Our mornings are spent with me teaching Religion, History/Geography/Government, Science and Latin. My husband normally reviews/follows up on all these lessons. I've also commissioned him to teach Art. Their independent work or one-on-one with me are Spelling/Vocabulary/Language Arts/Creative Writing and Math. In the afternoon we have read-aloud's where I read to them our book of the month (Phantom Tollbooth for September).  I have also assigned them books for independent reading.  My oldest will be reading Pope John Paul II's Gift and Mystery. Yay!

As much as I ramble on about these things in seeming discontent, I do love our life together and I have no complaints.  It is a lot of work but it's rewarding work both in the temporal and hopefully, the eternal.  I am not a good teacher of other people but I can proudly say, my kids will not have a better teacher in their parents. But even that will have to be seen in the light of eternity.

this is an old picture from last year when we made a lapbook on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

trying on her new volleyball team uniform, see how happy she looks?

now this is what I'm talking about...because a girl can dream...

(source)

12/ Year - August

 

Whew, it's already September!  Back in the old country when the BER months come it is time to think about Christmas.  But before I can even think about Christmas, there's August to look back to for this edition of the monthly photo diary.  August was rough.  August was filled with grace. August has a ton of photos. I'm not posting them all because there are over 600 photos to sort through between us siblings.  I do intend to create a Vancouver photo album here sometime this week, err..month.  I promise not to let you go through 600 pictures.

There's very little photos from Vancouver on my own cellphone camera. I didn't take a lot since I relied on the family with the dslr and smart phones.  It also allowed me to just be in the moment of grieving, laughing, eating, whatever it was I needed to be in the moment for I was there with no camera.

So in random order, only because I'm having difficulty putting them in chronological order, here are some snapshots from August.  As always, when you are done here go visit my real-life blogging friend, host of this link-up,  Barb at Praying for Grace.

a hotel pool all to themselves, the oldest two race for it

food from the old country in Vancouver

view of downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

they love being here

the weather was beautiful when we got there

I can't help but take a photo of bride and groom

fireworks from our hotel room

our travel buddy at the Vegas airport, the slot machine is a dead give-away right?

he was so happy to pick us up at the airport, he had been begging for us to come home already!

he wasted no time playing with his new umbrella imported from Canada

the baby pushing me on the swing, I love this photo

she's just glad to be home again

ummm, he's really happy

a sugar-laden Canadian flag cookie made by the girl

a sugar-laden American flag cookie made by the girl

my happy boys

and then we went camping

the cook lights the fire

while we were in Canada, the others went to the State Fair with their cousin Kelsey

not sure if he's thrilled or scared

don't know the reason for the jaw dropping

the all-knowing Smokey the Bear

the middle child chose baseball over going to Canada, a decision we all struggled with. It was somewhat prestigious to be invited to play with the All-Star team.  When he changed his mind, it was too late, plans have been made and there was no way we can pull him out of the team.  He was a very unhappy child.  Lesson learned for all of us. I think this photo was from my husband's cellphone. I love it. I love that the child dedicated this note to his dad and I love what my husband wrote on the bottom

but as soon as game time came, all the gloom about not traveling was gone.  He played really well and their team made it to the semi-finals, something this team hasn't done before.

the tournament games were early so he slept through some of it

that right there is a good man (with the super- ornery baby LOL)  he is the rock and pillar of our household

their baseball league had a special night at the ballpark, they got to march around the field in their jerseys

fun!

and expensive  and I thought the airport food prices were outrageous

oldest got a home run ball, the background light beam is almost angelic LOL

we forgot that this was a plastic vase, oops! burn courtesy of the mosquito coil, thank God our porch isn't wooden!

'Til next month!

Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic - Back to School 2013

Today was our first day of school.  Prior to that we spent most of the Labor Day weekend shopping for supplies, writing lesson plans and getting the house in order.  I bought pretty notebooks and pens (for myself) since I'm a sucker for all things sparkly.  My cursive is prettier in glitter LOL.

I don't even know how I got to this day (okay I know, grace).  Even up until last week I didn't have the desire to think about anything else outside my own grief. There is a blog post coming about that - living life in the absence of desire.  With the beginning of the school year slowly creeping up on me I remembered that it was the same way when my mom died.  I didn't know how to put my life back together in time to make lesson plans.  So I just plowed through each day whether I was  up for it or not.  Lesson plans have to be written, pretty pens have to be bought since a dotted line was signed under "Thy will be done".  Pinterest and Google were also partly to be credited for my return to life LOL.  Once the materials came, I started having a vision again of what I want our homeschool and home life to be like this year.  I'm still not sure how many of those are realistic but hey, I have plans, they are pretty and covered in prayer. 

So enough talking, I have pictures to post!

my precious

ugly bin about to be prettified, thank you Pinterest

pretty Contact paper...

you know where this is going...

on the now not-so-ugly bin

and the kid's bin just can't be outdone, thank you Contact paper

I came home to this after morning Mass, the girl made breakfast and set the table. I knew then it was going to be a good homeschool day

their official first day of school photo with schultute which I first saw on Barb's blog in 2008

creative writing class via Sarah Small - we are having a blast so far, yes I am doing it alongside my kids.  My favorite assignment was the first one - buy a pretty journal. So I did!

and then there was an egg-less fondant to roll out.  The girl made this on her own for the fourth child's birthday, part Science experiment and all Culinary skill!

umm yeah, this needs a pretty fondant to hide the delicious ugliness

and voila! pretty cake...she's making balloon shapes from the left over fondant, a birthday boy will be so very happy tomorrow!

I hope you are all having a good school year so far.