Summer Highlights Daybook

It’s ...
triple-digit hot outside but I am on our shaded front porch because even when I oversleep the morning cool, I still need to get outside. #catethegreat is napping in her crib in our room.
Also outside...
Dragonflies are abundant this summer and I’m seeing so many of their beautiful double-winged bodies on our property in the blue & green variety.

From the bookshelves...
Mary & I recently finished Hellen Keller from the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  I remember enjoying Florence Nightingale in that series myself and we enjoyed reading this one and talking about our Cate so much.
With my hands...
I’m sipping iced coffee and typing, resisting the urge for another Chessmen with it. I’ve baked a lot of chocolate chip cookie bars lately for our school faculty, Mary’s class for her recent birthday, and the football team but Chessmen are my good & easy go-to for afternoon coffee time cookie, “biscuit” as it would be called on the Great British Baking Show. :)  

Since I'm thinking about food, here's a pic of this summer's seafood feast with My Cowboy.

In my head...
I’m musing on a podcast I recently discovered: Emily P. Freeman’s “The Next Right Thing.” So. Good. Leaves me feeling peaceful and inspired. And empowered. A new favorite of mine, to add to Danielle Bean’s weekly “Girlfriends” and Leah Darrrow’s less frequent “Do Something Beautiful.” (Such a good one recently on integrating faith & psychology! Need to remind My Cowboy to listen to it.)  I’m adding all Emily’s books to my reading list.
On my heart...
Lately? Constantly. How to love Cate and everyone else, beginning with myself, better.  More truly, more resiliently. More humanly. I know with God’s grace that love expands and multiplies to meet the needs. My downfall is still in not trusting enough to slow down and recognize my own needs before I feel desperately overstretched.
Clinging to Christ by the “Little Way” of Cate’s middle-name patroness Therese has become a source of insight and grace in my days again. More on that another time.
#catethegreat update...
She has finally been fitted for her wheelchair seat and back! It was an impressive process involving measurements then vacuum-packing her in two beanbag-type pillows which were 3-D scanned and uploaded right in front of us. A 3-D model will be made from images and her seat/back supports from the model. Her first wheelchair, a manual one, should be ready in about a month. I’m trusting we’ll be ready for it ourselves by then.  

Below is the Montessori space I set up for her this summer, an IKEA trip and my project while M&M were at The Pines.

Recent road trip adventure...
We went to OK City one Sunday this month. It was too hot.  Kids were grumpy.  Parents got that way too.  We visited the cemetery where Bl. Stanley Rother is currently buried- all but his heart which remains in Guatemala.  We prayed there for Cate's healing.  We saw JP’s (and all of ours!) good friend who recently relocated for lunch at his job. We bought a new set of steak knives at a popular kitchen goods store we don’t have at home.

Outside the chapel where Bl. Stanley Rother is interred.  Lake Nocona pic above was our early summer weekend adventure thanks to some friends' sharing their lake house.  Port A vacation still to come this Labor Day weekend...

Quote of the month:
From James Bryan Smith, interviewed on “The Next Right Thing” podcast-
“I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights. I live in the strong and unshakable Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is not in trouble and neither am I.”
It reminds me of St. Teresa of Avila's-
“And all will be well...”. I recently read that her deeper conversion happened at 39! I’m only 42- there’s hope for me yet!!

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.)

More Adventures in Homeschooling: Oct & Nov

Took some pictures today as we put on a "Daddy Expo" to show him everything we've been working on the last 6 weeks or so.  (Jesse is home for Veteran's Day.)  From the top: calculating area & perimeter; our infant timeline; a lot of geography b/c the boys love it including quizzing them w/ wet-erase markers on their old shower curtain re-purposed in our schoolroom, Montessori continent boxes, & clay models of all the continents; a homemade bird feeder & butterfly feeder actually made not at home but at our local nature center's awesome Science Sat. which my even more awesome homeschooling neighbor takes our boys to w/ her own boys, and the elephant masks the same neighbor-friend designed when it was her..um, our... turn to lead the HS Book Club craft for our leisurely reading of The Jungle Book this fall.

B/c I'm busy tweaking next month's original school plans...

"Help us, O God, to enter into the secret of childhood so that we may know, love, and serve the child in accordance with the laws of thy justice and following thy holy will."

Maria Montessori