Winter 2012-13 Daybook

Outside my window it is… beautiful today.  Bright though cool.

I am thankful for #755 on my official, original list. "Jesse's love for me- flowers!" it reads, but I have also been jotting them on the notepad on my phone and in a paper journal more recently.  In my paper journal, I haven't been numbering them consecutively, but grouping them instead.  This month I took time to list "2013 Gratitude" and #20 reads "all the bedrooms worked on."  Gotta love new year organizing, even a tiny bit of it!

I am hoping and praying for… my sister and some friends with health issues right now.  Also for one friend who is fostering three siblings.  And another who is nearing the end of her first! pregnancy- so exciting for her family.

On my mind… our new homeschool rhythm: M & M are no longer going to the pre-school at our parish a couple times a week.  It was great while it lasted but I have felt God calling me to center us all at home together during our days, especially with the increased running to activities we do at night now.  I'm giving this my all in hopes of discerning God's will for the long term for us more clearly.

Noticing that the kids… seem happy with our new rhythm here at home.  Mary especially.  And I am, too, though adjusting to less quiet.

A few plans for the month… Actually a re-cap now that the month is ending: Jesse & I will talked with our parish RCIA group about marriage as Sacrament.  One older boy had a judo tournament out-of-town this month.  We bought season tickets to our local theatre as a family Christmas gift and went to our first show of the year this month.  We will continue to settle into our new rhythm of play and school work. 

From the bookshelves… I finished March this month.  So good.  In a disturbing, haunting way.  I find myself thinking about the Transcendentalists still.  And abolitionists as a group, especially because I caught some of "The Abolitionists" documentary series on PBS.  I would have been fascinated with them had I lived then.  I am now.  But back to March, I really enjoyed thinking about the family of Little Women from the adults' perspective.  We have watched the movie (with Winona Ryder, well-done I think) since I read this.  All my men (little & big) enjoyed it and one asked to read Little Men, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

In the kitchen… I have been baking a lot of our breads recently, super-breads made with whole wheat flour, wheat germ, and flax meal.  But not since getting sick mid-month so I need to get back on that...

On the Church calendar… well, we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord so we are officially finished with the Christmas season and in Ordinary Time.  I have not been good about sharing our holiday and holy day celebrations lately...  I think because we were not home.  We traveled for Thanksgiving and it was non-stop busy so I took almost no photos.  Then, we traveled for Christmas, after Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at home, and I literally took no photos because we left in such a hurry in our attempt to beat the "blizzard" (This is a relative term.) that I left my camera at home (And we didn't beat it- we drove in it all the way!).  But I did get some shots of our Feast of St. Nick table.  This is when we do stockings and Santa, December 6.

The banner-looking things in the background were very fun Advent calendars, with a date-stamped envelope for each day that was filled with a treat, all made with love by a close family friend.  Christmas came early.

Something new I did this year was celebrate the kids' Baptism Days all together on the Sunday that was the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.   I used to be good about celebrating them throughout the year but since M & M, I have slacked off.  This year I pulled out their Baptism candles and our Family Book of Life with the memories & photos of all our Sacraments on this Sunday.  We reminisced about their Baptisms, ate white sugar cookies, and talked about the symbols of Baptism: light & the candles, water, the white garment.  I used our Advent wreath to hold the candles.  I think this is a fun way to teach kids about Baptism and is even more simple than doing individual Baptism Days.  I think the Baptism of the Lord always falls on the third Sunday after Christmas (1st Sun: Feast of the Holy Family; 2nd: Epiphany).  Correct me in the Comments if I am wrong!

Speaking of Epiphany, I also played catch-up that Sunday because I had not made a birthday cake for Baby Jesus yet.  I like to do this (like lots of others do) for at least a couple years when we have a toddler(s) because they really love birthdays and seem to "get" that Christmas is Jesus' birthday when they sing "Happy Birthday" to Baby Jesus and eat his cake.  This year we did that on Epiphany with our Epiphany "King Cake," where the cake has a tiny baby hidden & baked into it.  No pic of that but it is an old (probably Eurpean?) Catholic tradition.

Pictures I’m sharing…both from a north Texas Christmas.  :)  (And when do I get to claim to be Texan- is 17 years long enough??? I've now lived here as long as I lived/grew up in Maryland.  At least the kids can all legitimately claim to be Texans!)

This was still a leap for me to buy these but I have loved them!  I also really like English riding boots.  But one does not learn English riding from a New Mexican cowboy- husband.

St. Valentine's Day

This year, we celebrated by making valentines and then having a cookie feast.  Everyone had valentines at their place from Mom & dad, as well as other family & friends.  A couple people gave us cookies, including delicious red velvet-white chocolate ones from our best-babysitter/nanny-in-the-world, and we made our own which altogether made for a cookie feast.

We also read this truly beautiful book: St. Valentine.  I highly recommend it for both the text and the mosaic art.  We were all enchanted by it, even Jesse.

A Books! and Chickens!! Daybook

Outside my window it is…nighttime, dark.  Winter in north central TX is here- cold, gray, often wet & windy lately, and below freezing at night regularly now.  Too little, too late as far as the rain goes.  So much of our yard is dead-beyond-recovery from the drought.
I am thankful for #…688: "Time to recover, organize, plan."  I started my own list of "1000 Gifts" after reading the book over a year ago.  It was a way for me to focus on the good and all I had to be grateful for as we were preparing for Jesse to leave for his deployment this time last year.  It still helps me in those ways and I use it in my prayer the many mornings I am crabby or hormonal.  I should post an excerpt of my list again...

I am hoping and praying for…my brother this Christmas as he continues to work as an English-language teacher in Thailand; for a friend in the process of adopting from Poland!; for Jesse as he prepares for Oral Boards the week after and we travel w/ him to San Antonio; for my MOMS group as we begin an ENDOW study next week.  I hope and pray that last one is a part of my life for years to come, like CCL and teaching RE.  Not necessarily all at once but each for long seasons.

On my mind…lots of friends and family I haven't heard from this year!?  Is everyone like me and did less this year?  As in few cards for the Gorleys?  :(  I managed to get a photo card out but did not finish decorating or mail any gifts or do any baking.  I started out behind and then had severe & paralyzing back pain that put me in the ER less than a week ago.  It also kept us home this week.  We are not traveling to see my in-laws b/c I am just recovering now, as in able to walk around without serious painkillers.

Noticing that the kids… are growing up so fast.  And it doesn't get any easier or more simple.  I've got to write an update on each of them here soon.  This is becoming my only family scrapbook/journal.

A few plans for the month…family visits for the New Year (hopefully pending full recovery), the trip to San Antonio for Jesse's test, then back into our regular, albeit relaxed, school schedule.  I cannot do an intense one and be a peaceful momma so this must be what is the right fit for us.  I need to do some spring school planning, too.  Goal setting with the big boys.  

From the bookshelves…I have a lot of books on my mind lately...A Little Way of Homeschooling which I have been slowly reading on my iPad this school year.  We do a mix of everything here including a minimal amount of formal lessons for big chunks of the year and I like to do a little reading on unschooling as we head into those times b/c it reminds me how much they are always learning on their own and so, alleviates my guilt.  :)  This is how I do a lot of my reading- several things at once, on-going as I need them.  I often don't finish them before going on to something else but I usually cycle back to them again, too.  Then, other books apply to and are finished in a season.  I read Made From Scratch this past week while I was laid up b/c of my back, after giving a copy to a friend.  She gave me The Joy of Keeping Chickens which I have not read yet but will soon I'm sure b/c we have chickens of our own!  (Finally.  Thank you, dear Jesse, for your work on the coop and pen and making that 2 year dream for myself and the kids come true.  On to horses for you and John Paul, God-willing.)  I gave Jesse a few books to give me for Christmas, which I look forward to reading: A Charlotte Mason Companion, Render Unto Caesar, Charity in Truth.  Best read of 2011: The Reed of God, which I finally finished.  Now my spiritual reading is Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila, mostly b/c of her influence on my beloved Edith Stein/Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
In the kitchen…we just finished a lot of leftovers, including a variation of 7-Can Soup that Jesse had made.  We eat a lot of soup in the winter.  Potato is our favorite.  Thankfully, several friends have shared Christmas cookies with us as gifts, etc b/c I was going to go into depression w/out them.  I did bake a cake.  We bought pies.

On the Church calendar…it is now the Octave of Christmas and today is the Feast of St. Stephen.  Really, Christmas has just begun and the season does not end until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  We had a good and simple Advent this year, by the grace of God: nightly day's Gospel after dinner w/ wreath lighting & singing of "O Come, Emmanuel" and a decade of the Rosary at bedtime prayers.  We also read from our Advent Storybook each night and the boys each had a traditional chocolate calendar.  We made "O Antiphon" paper ornaments and sent them to god-siblings but did not get them hung on our own tree that last week before Christmas.  We always wait to put our tree and other decorations up until at least Gaudete Sunday, only empty nativities out before that.  We put Jesus into our indoor and outdoor nativites on Christmas morning which I really liked this year b/c it is harder to keep the gift-hype down as the kids get older and more of them know what to expect.  We still do St. Nick and their stockings on his feast day, Dec. 6th, which is also Mark's Baptism Day.  But since we go to Mass the night before now (when they were little, we would go Christmas morning!), I like the pause to put Jesus into the mangers b/f the dive into and focus on the gifts on Christmas morning.

Pictures I’m sharing…from our big trip to beautiful Oregon in November to see close family friends, including one of our godsons.  I used these on our Christmas card in black & white.  More pics soon now that I have my own camera again.

A Lenten Daybook (& Your Flowers, J!)

Outside my window...it has been so windy.  Hot & windy (almost 100 already one day) and cold & windy (in the 50s the next day).  Texas spring.  And the bluebonnets have blossomed here!

I am thankful for...so many things. I'm still counting them since I posted the first 1-100...now I'm on #275: surprise flowers & chocolate from Jesse yesterday:

How did Penelope, Abigail Adams, WWII wives survive without the internet, not hearing from their husbands for months and years?  I am spoiled.  And, no, I did not give up chocolate (or coffee) this year.  God already had my Lent mapped out for me.  :)

I am hoping...to see my mom & sister soon!  It is so nice to have another adult around in the morning & at night.  Most of all, we will get to see my new nephew again finally!!!

On my mind...and in my prayers...dear neighbors who lost a mother last week, Felicity & family, an auntie also in need of prayer.

Noticing that...I'm drinking less coffee & walking more.  Who'd have guessed?  I'm getting the walks in during baseball practice w/ the younger pair in the jogging stroller.  It makes for several nice evenings a week b/c there is a pretty park w/ a pond & ducks across from the baseball complex.  It does take an Act of Congress to get us out the door.  I committee w/ Mark about what he wants to do after my walk.  It takes me 45 min to pack up snacks, diapers, change of clothes, more snacks for big pair afterwards, water bottles.  I've started bringing Mark's big dump truck & scooter and he played happily w/ those last night after my walk in a quiet spot we found on the church property where they practice.  I even got to do some more exercises after my walk b/c Mary had fallen asleep.

A few plans for the week...baseball and more baseball.  Schoolwork as always.  The visit w/ my mom & sister.  Taxes.  Yuk.  :(  Sayeth the lawyer.

From the bookshelves...Jesse just sent the boys/Mark a new picture book & DVD w/ him reading: Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.  Pretty cute.  And the book is too.  :)  The big ones are re-reading some favorites: Swiss Family Robinson and The Indian in the Cupboard. 

In the kitchen...a store-bought cinnamon bread we ate during some tea & reading on ants today.  We set up an ant farm for some insect observation.  Not in the kitchen.

On the Church calendar...Laetare Sunday or the 4th Sunday of Lent just passed. I did not know until Mass this past Sunday that the 4th Sun of Lent has this name and is a liturgically joyful one, like the pink-candled 3rd Sun of Advent, marking the half way point in our time of preparation for Easter. We have had a good one this year. I've tried harder this year to make it a special time to prepare for the most important feast of the year. From Catholic Icing, I got the idea to make a Crown of Thorns and remove the thorns by Holy Sat with our sacrifices, to be replaced w/ jewels for Easter. Here's ours:

We made the crown and the desert scene below for our dining room table on Ash Weds.  

I also put out the purple cloths for our family altar and the kids' prayer table.  I love changing out the pieces in our prayer spaces- I find it very filling for some reason, to mark the seasons of the Church...Montessori for moms...  like being a sacristan of our home church.  I loved being a sacristan of our Regnum Christi chapel in San Antonio.  And Jesse just trained to be one at his Camp in Kuwait.

Those are icons of Jesse's patron, St. Luke, and mine, St. Catherine of Siena.

We also "Buried the Alleluia," which I think is supposed to be done Shrove Tues b/f Ash Weds.

I'll end with a pic of Mary, who has started trying to pull herself up on Mark's train table.

New Beginnings w/ Advent...or Where to find an Advent wreath?!

Better late than never.  A Dozen for Delight #1: Begin Anew with Advent.  Hi to any SH parents who may be reading and looking for ideas to live Advent as a family.  I've been wanting to post on Advent all week.  It is here and began last Sunday, Thanksgiving weekend.  After a fun Thanksgiving w/ family and a good Saturday working around the house, the kids and I had a quiet Sunday pulling out our Nativities and making our Advent wreath.  I keep my decorating to a minimum until the 3rd Sun of Advent when we usually put up our Christmas tree and the other typical red/green decorations. 

Until then, we have several Nativities throughout the house (the kids have fun choosing which ones they want in their room each year), including the big one that goes on our family altar, again without Jesus until Christmas or the 3 Kings until Feast of the Epiphany.  (The kids also have fun moving the 3 Kings around the house each Sunday on their "journey" to the Christ Child.)

I cut evergreen branches from a bush we have in our backyard and put them throughout the house w/ a lot of our sacred art, including here on the nature side of our family altar.   I also used it to make our Advent wreath this year.

For anyone just beginning to use an Advent wreath, it's a  simple, beautiful symbol of the waiting of Advent.  We light one new candle each Sunday, also lighting the candle(s) of the previous week(s).  The pink candle is the one for the third Sunday of Advent, also called Gaudete Sunday, which marks the halfway point.  Liturgically, pink is seen as a joyful color and we use it to say "We're almost there.  He's almost here!"  Until this year, I've always used a metal wreath that uses taper-style candles but mine has gotten covered w/ wax.  Lots of different Advent wreaths can be purchased here, from Autom.

We had a lot of fun crafting the week before Thanksgiving.  The kids made the figure of Isaiah above and another of Micah below, as well as the Angel Gabriel & Mary and, at the bottom w/ Mary, Elizabeth.  We'll use these on the Sundays- first two of the prophecies of Christ's birth (Isaiah 9:1 & Micah 5:2), then the stories of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) and Visitation (Luke 1: 39-45), in that order.  Each night during the week, we light the week's candle(s), repeat that Sunday's wreath scriptures, and sing the refrain of "O Come Emmanuel," with the lights out.  The darkness really gets Mark's attention and he is usually (same as mentioned above) very interested.  This is a modified Catechesis of the Good Shepard approach to celebrating Advent with children found in a little book called "Home Catechesis" that I found from this family business: Our Father's House,  although I could not find it just now!?  This could be a fun Sunday craft to go along w/ reading the prophecies or narratives from Scripture.  It's never too late to start, especially this year since Advent's first Sunday fell so close to Thanksgiving and many families were probably still traveling.

I finally worked on our Catechesis space in our school room, too.  The big boys have actually set up the prayer table several times using the Advent purple cloths, candles, and prophecies (same ones as mentioned above) prayer cards.  I'm sure it has more to do w/ the fact that I let them light the candle themselves than any new enthusiasm about prayer!  :) 

In the middle is our Playmobile Nativity,  which even the big boys still love. (I'm sure that can easily be found on-line by googling Playmobil- they have so many excellent building sets.)  I love that Mark has been fascinated and very gentle with it when he plays/works w/ it.  On the bottom is an image & book of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day of Dec 12 falls on a Sunday this year.  We'll probably watch our video on her and feast on Mexican food (nothing too special in this house!) on the 9th of Dec which is the feast of her beloved Juan Diego.

*Edited to correct some typas (ha, ha) and add some additional info on how we use the wreath each day, for all those readers with questions.  (Man, I'm hilarious tonight.)

Let's Begin "A Dozen for Delight" at the end... #9 & #12.

So, I will do my best to work through the entire list during the liturgical year.  Today I want to start by posting some pics of our family altar, including our All Saint's Day altar.

9.  "Make a FAMILY ALTAR or PRAYER TABLE..."
I use the mantle over our fireplace as our family altar right now.  During Ordinary Time, our altar is often somewhat bare b/c our fireplace is of a huge, southwestern variety.  We've just started using one side as a nature display.  The boys collected leaves and pine cones for that side last week.  I've been so excited to discover this part of Texas does have a fall season, relatively speaking!  :)  Mark added those pine cones at the bottom when we were working on it b/c that is where he could reach.  And he must always do things
all. by. himself.

During Advent and Lent, I usually keep our wreath and Lenten centerpiece on the dining room table b/c then we see them even more often and they become a focal point for the season; so, the Advent wreath is not headed to our mantle altar but the Nativity Scene will go there, without Baby Jesus, who will arrive on Christmas morning, and the 3 Kings, who will arrive on the Feast of Epiphany.

This is a close up of the current right-side of our family altar, remnants of the Feast of Saints Day.  The big crucifix is from our pilgrimmage to Mexico City to see the original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  The statue of the Blessed Mother is Our Lady of the Atonement, patroness of the big boys' incredible Catholic school when we lived in San Antonio.  The crucifix and statue of the BVM always stay on the altar.  Also, I often keep a cloth and candle of the color of the liturgical season on our altar, too.  We're wrapping up Ordinary Time so the cloth and candle are green, w/ a fallish design on the candle holder.  (Catechesis of the Good Shepard materials call for a prayer cloth that covers your kid-accessible prayer table, but we've moved to this high family altar and I drape or somehow arrange the cloths now b/c they really are too small for the new space.  I'm working on gathering some CGS materials accessible to all the boys at our low prayer table in our school room but it will be more a CGS work space, w/ this remaining as the family prayer space/altar.)

12. "Round out your celebration of Halloween w/ the FEASTS OF ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS." 

So, for the Feast of All Saints, I borrowed an idea I read on Elizabeth Foss' blog to gather all the images of our family patrons on our family altar.  Now, we don't all have icons of our name or patron saints yet and this is one reason I wanted to start this series of posts at the end of my "Dozen for Delight" list.  I thought you may not have them either but we can work on collecting them throughout the next liturgical year.  The icon of St. Catherine of Siena, my patroness, was a gift to me from my mother-in-law and she purchased it here: http://www.monasteryicons.com/.  I think it is beautiful and I have already ordered a few more from there for Feast of St. Nick and Christmas gifts this year.  The small icon on the right above is, I believe, a true Orthodox icon and was bought for Jude on his Baptism by a special friend of mine from law school who is Greek Orthodox.  That should have gotten me started on icon collecting earlier!  John Paul chose that photo of Pope JP the Great from a calendar we have and I plan to have it mounted on foam board as his patron image.

Costumes of saints is another, more fun way for the kids to celebrate All Saint's Day.  This could be as easy as adding saint-costume-friendly dress-up supplies to your collection and encouraging the kids to use them often, especially on the Feast of All Saints.  I am not a seamstress and I have not made my children special saint costumes, on top of gathering Halloween costumes, except for those years that we've belonged to a school or parish that celebrates w/ costumes.

Finally, we end our celebration of All Saints w/ a Litany of the the Saints.  This year I wrote a Litany of Our Family Patrons.  To ask the saints to pray for us, the prayer can be as simple as the parent naming the saint and the rest of the family responding with "Pray for us!"

A Dozen for Delight: 12 Ideas for Living Joyful Family Life Through Out the Church Year

Note: This handout I wrote is going out to our 2nd grade faith formation class and others at our parish in the next week.  Welcome to any new readers from SH parish!  I will blog on these ideas in more detail, including some links for materials to do them throughout the next liturgical year.  Feel free to use the comments here on the blog for any questions or to add your own best ideas!

1. Begin anew w/ Advent, the beginning of the Church liturgical year. Use an ADVENT WREATH to mark the 4 weeks of waiting. Even wait to put up your Christmas Tree until the 3rd Sun of Advent, marked by the pink/joyful candle. Then celebrate all 8 days of Christmas.

2. Leave Baby Jesus out of your family NATIVITY SET until Christmas morning. And the three kings as well! Have the kids move the kings around the house & gradually closer to your manger scene to symbolize their journey, finally arriving on their feast day, Epiphany (2nd Sun after).

3. Celebrate the anniversary of your child's BAPTISM DAY w/ a white dessert. Light her Baptismal Candle & look at photos. Remind her that she is a beloved child of God created w/ a unique mission of love & service for Him & others. What can she do this month to serve in a way only she can?

4. Use a LENTEN CENTERPIECE, such as a homemade desert scene, for a visual reminder of the season (like the Advent wreath & nativity set for Christmas). "Undecorate" the house for this season of more sacrificial waiting, including draping purple cloths in appropriate places- such as over the TV, if this is something given up during Lent- and stripping surfaces of clutter & excess.

5. Be sure to link EASTER BASKETS to the Resurrection of Jesus w/ spiritual treats & treasures.

6. Everyone loves (St) Valentine's Day & St Pat's Day- wearing red & green, eating treats, even giving little gifts. Do the same for other FEAST DAYS throughout the year, especially feast days of family patrons, such as those after whom members are named, or any saint your child especially likes. Make a unique dinner related to the saint or just have any favorite dessert to celebrate. Talk about that saint's life & example. Use a Catholic calendar to find the feast dates of saints.

7. May is the month of MARY. Join in the parish May Crowning. Say a decade of the Rosary on Sundays or everyday this month. Add some religious art to your home by hanging an image of Mary.

(She’s a powerful friend. What adult doesn't still need and want their mommy sometimes?)

8. Celebrate the feast day of our parish, the FEAST OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS on June 11. Write Fr. Hoa a note thanking him for all he does (or send an e-mail or voicemail). Add some more religious art to your home by hanging an image of the Sacred Heart.

9. Make a FAMILY ALTAR or PRAYER TABLE on or near your meal table or in another quieter spot where you can gather to pray regularly. Use liturgical colors to mark the seasons of the Church: purple for the Advent & Lenten seasons of waiting & preparing, white for the great feasts of Christ- Christmas & Easter, red for feasts of martyrs & the day marking the descent of the Holy Spirit called Pentecost (May 23), and green for the growth-filled Ordinary Time between these seasons & feasts. Keep a Bible there, as well as a candle.

10. Don't take a break from Sunday Mass over the summer just because faith formation classes are over! Use the extra time to MAKE EACH SUNDAY A MINI-EASTER w/ a family dinner & time for family fun. Pre-read the Sun Mass readings. Many special Sundays fall during the summer.

11. BLESS YOUR CHILD w/ words & by making the Sign of the Cross on his forehead at bedtime and on special days, such as the first day of school.

12. Round out your celebration Halloween w/ the FEASTS OF ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS.