A New Perspective

We were late for Mass this past Sunday. Not actually late, but at our church you have to be early to get a seat. We usually go to the 12noon, but since T was Teching Peter Pan and had to be there at 2, we needed to go to the 10:30. From the parking lot, it didn't seem that crowded, but when we entered I found out I was wrong. I just headed down the center, in my usual fashion thinking, "I'm sure there's something down front". Nope. So we rounded the front and went to the right (acting like we meant to do that). We ended up on the far right, second row back. We never sat there before and it was out of my comfort zone. I know that sounds wierd, but I am used to a certain place at Mass (at least the general area) and everywhere else feels odd and uncomfortable.
Even as a child in our little church in our home town up in PA, it was always 3 rows back on the left towards the center. And if someone was there in that seat before us, we felt like, "Hey, you're in our seat!". And that's pretty much where I feel comfortable to this day, as an adult.
After we finished our initial prayers before Mass started, Alexa whispered, "Wow, Mom, you can see all kinds of neat stuff over here." She wasn't uncomfortable at all! In fact she saw this as a cool new way to experience the Mass. And she was so well behaved mostly because there was all this new stuff to see. She even occasionally whispered questions to me.
Then I started thinking that this wasn't such a bad seat. It was the first we even realized there's a carpet on the floor right up in front of Father's chair! Hmm....never noticed that before. So maybe we will try some new seat on purpose now and then, if I can bring myself to do it. Who knows what we might discover?

TTFN
~Tina

The Church Festival

This is the main reason S and A look forward to this Spring Festival every year!

I'm afraid S might be too tall next year. She will be truly bummed.

They rode the ponies twice. We did other stuff to, but NOTHING compares to the ponies.
T and E stayed home with dad. I didn't want to have to manage the stroller for E (there's not much he could do there, anyway) and T was tired from all her "Teching" for Peter Pan.

Oh, I guess they do enjoy the facepainting. S stuck to her true tomboy status with the baseball and A got a lovely rainbow (on the hand so as to not repeat the stocking-shaped rash on her cheek incedent).

TTFN

~Tina

How Cute is This?

This little one lives somewhere in the woods behind our house. It's hard to tell from the picture just how little he is, but he could fit in both hands cupped together. He came out to our tree for a bite to eat. We hope to see him again soon!

TTFN
~Tina

Saint George and the Dragon

We had a teatime for St. George on Thursday (one day after his feast day).







And though there doesn't seem to be much factual info. on him, the legends are kind of fun. We read this book and used Skylar's knights and dragons set. The metal candleholder is actually a dessert bucket from Logan's (the emblem is printed on the other side).


We started by reading the story in the school/playroom first. Taylor actually felt bad for the dragon. I kept telling her the dragon represents evil.....it was eating the people! She said, but still there had to be another way than killing it. She has compassion even when it doesn't seem deserved.


For a simple craft each girl made a shield frame for a holy card of St. George. I used black scrapbook paper/cardstock and silver scrapbook paper. They decorated with red marker and silver scrapbooking pen. On this day I precut the shield shapes because we were pressed for time. Then the girls just had to glue it all together and decorate with the silver and red pens.


I had planned to have some yummy English treat since St. George is their patron saint, but we ended up having store bought cookies instead. Next year we might do something like this. I've seen some dragon cakes online, but they seem a bit beyond my skill level, but this castle I could handle. Or I was thinking of using plastic skewers shaped like swords to pick up cheese or cut up fruit chunks. I'll have to remember these ideas for next year, so I better jot them down and put them into my folder for this week.





So here is how the holy card shields turned out. I'm thinking of having the girls put all of their Saint cards like this into the correct place in their Book of Centuries, at least for now. I just don't want to throw them out. And next year we can come back to them and add to that saint. Maybe a poem, a painted picture, or a narration. I might eventually do a Liturgical Year Notebook/binder and if I do these will go in there. It would be kind of neat to keep adding to it year after year.

TTFN
~Tina

Nature in the Neighborhood

We went for a nature walk to the neighborhood pond that we went to last Fall. It was no walk in the forest, but when you are pressed for time and just want to see some signs of Spring, it'll do. The girls brought along pads and colored pencils to do some drawings. We couldn't actually sit at the pond due to the "pushy" geese (shown above). So we headed further down the path to what Taylor so affectionately refers to as the babbling sewer. It's not a sewer. Trust me. It might be some sort of "runoff" area, but it's not a sewer. Anyhoo, she and the rest of the girls found a shady spot under one of their favorite types of trees, the Weeping Willow.

We saw many signs of spring, even goslings. Those Mama and Papa geese are very protective. They even went so far as to stand near a sign to give us a message! It says DANGER. Needless to say, we didn't get too close. That's why I don't have any close up pictures of the babies.

Some signs of Spring.... goslings,

this plant, we're thinking it's poison ivy,.........and this (still unidentified tree) shedding it's bark.......cool.....and Buttercups......oh, and I believe this is a sign of Spring, too. Children outside playing again!

This was probably the highlight of the day for these two!

They Are Learning All the Time

I sat Evan down to lunch and put his sandwich in front of him. I walked away to get his milk for him and then I heard him say, "Amen". I guess he has heard it from us so many times, he knows that's what you do before you eat. It might not be a full "Grace", but it's pretty good for a 21 month old!

Love to all!
TTFN
~Tina

Name That Flower

or should I say tree? This is my guess and though it's hard to tell from this picture, what do you think?

The Song of The Lilac Fairy

White May is flowering,

Red May beside;

Laburnum is showering

Gold far and wide;
But I sing of Lilac,
The dearly-loved Lilac,
Lilac, in Maytime
A joy and a pride!

I love her so much

That I never can tell

If she's sweeter to look at,

Or sweeter to smell.

~Cicely Mary Barker

Love to all!

TTFN

~Tina

Another Rainy Day.....

This is the view out our back window........all day.

But despite that, there was still much beauty to be found.
You just have to know where to look for it.

And there were beautiful things inside the house, too.......like this "squeeze the stuffins out of you" hug shared by Evan and Alexa.
We're wet here, but we're ok.

Love to all!

TTFN

~Tina

A Rainy Sunday

We had lots of rain here today. Going into Mass, it was pouring. Coming out of Mass, still pouring. We even had some thunder and lightening which I actually enjoy from time to time.

But somehow all the rain led me to a desire to post sunny day pictures.

Hope your weekend was a pleasant one.
Love to all!
TTFN
~Tina

A Lovely Evening

We had some running around to do today, along with chores around the house. It was beautiful outside and rather warm. Skylar's allergies were kicking in, too, so she wasn't able to be outside very long. Taylor was at her friend Michael's birthday party for the evening.

The rest of us were here and ordered a pizza for dinner, which everyone was excited about (especially the cook). It was a relaxing, delicious dinner.

After cleaning up the kitchen, I had a few things in the yard to put away for the night because we are expecting rain. While I was out in the yard, I couldn't believe how pleasant it was. It was a perfect temperature with a little breeze. It was already 7:30, which is usually when I start getting the kiddies ready for bed, but I couldn't resist the urge to round them up and go for a walk instead. So I filled the feeders and we headed out. Alexa protested at first saying she was too tired to walk and needed a scooter or bike. I said she could stay home or walk. She decided to walk.

It really was lovely out. I even let Evan walk.....no stroller. He did very well, holding my hand the whole time. We saw some signs of Spring and Alexa found pinecones and Sky found feathers. Both came home pleased with their findings. Our walk ended in the back yard where I let Evan go. A few minutes later, he was running across the yard yelling "bunny!" and he was right! He was chasing a bunny through the yard! It wasn't the baby bunny we spotted yesterday, but it was still so cute. The girls were thrilled and tried to catch it. The poor thing ran around the yard, which is now fenced in, trying to find a way out. It ended up going back into the woods it came out of. I took some pictures of our evening, but no bunny shots, unfortunately. It was too dark by then.

While we were out, we could also smell the blossoms in the yard. Our tree is blooming, the purple one in the corner, and it's very fragrant. I can never remember what it is. I'll have to look it up. All I know is that it is light purple and smells very nice. It's scent fills the yard and is very strong. We could also hear tons of birds, more than usual, so we are thinking we might have some baby birdies out there.

Sorry these are not the best pictures. I think I had my camera set up wrong for evening pictures.

Love to all!

TTFN

~Tina

Teatime for Pope Benedict XVI

Today we celebrated the birthday of Pope Benedict during our teatime. I know I am one day late with this, but we did think of him and pray for him yesterday, and even watched him on TV, but we didn't have time for teatime yesterday. So today we had these yummy cupcakes and even sang a little of the "Happy Birthday" song (some more reluctantly than others).
We also read from our children's Bible this weekend's Gospel. I read further to John 15, which will be Wednesday's Gospel. In that reading, it talks about Jesus as the Vine and we are the branches. So we did a little craft/spring planting with these.....We discussed a bit about how they have to take care of these plants as they grow, trimming off any dying "branches". That's how I tied it into the Gospel.


I found these kits for $1 at Target last night and thought they were cute. We bought 2 strawberry and 2 tomato. I figured they might help me get myself motivated to start planting. The girls really want a garden this year. I also have seeds in the garage and some larger planters. And I read on another blog (I apologize because I don't remember which one) to use cupcake holders as mini-greenhouses for seedlings. So our cupcakes have a dual purpose. The girls also decorated their little pots with permanent markers.



Our teatime for Good Shepherd Sunday that we had last week was cut short, so the girls did their holy cards for it this week. They just matted the card and used tissue paper to decorate around it. And this craft I "borrowed" from Dawn at By Sun and Candlelight. (I read her blog daily!) Each girl will take turns making one for certain special teatimes coming up. Alexa made this one with me. It looks so pretty in the sunlight of our schoolroom! By the way......

Evan loves to "craft", too!

Love to all!

TTFN

~Tina