Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real



Linking up with (Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real) for the first time today to share with you some ordinary moments from our week.

 

Pretty

Our garden and flowers all around are full in bloom and it is truly beautiful!

Happy

I am going to be a Spiritual Mom for a Seminarian at The Institute for Priestly Formation this summer.  I think that it is so important to pray for vocations; for myself, my husband, our children and others.  When I attended Creighton University for my undergraduate education I had the opportunity to get to know many Seminarians during my summers there.  Now years later, having four sons of my own I see the significance and true importance of praying for these young men and their learning and discernment.   

As their program is beginning the spiritual moms had an hour of Eucharistic Adoration to pray for the Seminarians.  Afterwards my little one and I went to the prayer gardens for some quiet reflection time and it made me truly happy.  That garden is where my husband and I first saw each other on our wedding day almost 9 years ago when we were choosing our vocation as husband and wife. 

Funny

The kids set up their first lemonade sale this past weekend.  It was adorable and hilarious and truly a treat!

Real

Our 4 1/2 year old had been crankier than typical and finding a way to bother someone in the house every 10 minutes or so.  When I had not heard from him in over 20 minutes I went upstairs to see if he was looking at books in his room (one of his favorite past times) and I found him sound asleep (and he stopped napping over 6 months ago). 
 

 

Later that night, I was putting the baby to bed and asked the big boys to find something quiet to do.  I expected that they would go downstairs and play for awhile, but when I came out of the nursery I found them all together on the top bunk bed with our 6 year old reading them a bedtime story.  These real moments are the ones I will want to treasure and remember!

 

Trinity Sunday

We celebrate Trinity Sunday the Sunday after Pentecost and remember this day the gift and mystery of the Holy Trinity.  We did a quick craft from Seton Art 1 and prayed a prayer together!  Quick, easy, liturgical living!

 

Organizing Our Children's School Work

 

As we are finishing our second year of homeschooling, I quickly realized that we needed an effective way to sort and organize our paperwork before it got out of control!  With homeschooling I want to keep a lot of our workbooks to show proof of our work for the state if needed, but I also want to keep some of the cute art projects, letters that the children wrote, etc.  Here is what we did to organize all of the children's school work!

 

Throughout the year I use these Keepsake Portfolio's from Lakeshore Learning that my mother in law got and personalized for each of our children.  They are huge and are like big file folders to separate papers/art work by year or by subject!  Each child has their own Keepsake Portfolio that I keep in our school room so I can conveniently just throw things in all of the time as we go!  This makes it really easy to not feel like I am constantly trying to choose what I want to keep or organize it.  Just throw it in and go!

 

 

Also, after each of their birthdays I take all of the cards that they received and put them in a ziplock bag and label them with their name and the number of their birthday.  These ziplocks with cards also go into their bins with each corresponding year!

 

At the end of the traditional school year, I will go through and make two files for the year to go in their personal bins.  One file I include my Teacher's Plan Book for the year with all of their lesson plans as well as all of their completed workbooks.  The second file for the year includes the best of their art projects, letters and fun stuff.  Going through their Keepsake Portfolio I only keep the best/cutest/most important projects for the year so that it does not get too overwhelming. 

 

Each of them have a clear plastic file bin so that I can easily see the labeling and stackable for easy storage.  Even though our little ones do not really have paperwork yet I wanted to make sure that they all have a similar system so I made them each bins now for consistency!  It feels great to have this project done for the year and ready to continue for many years in the future.

 

 

I got this awesome idea over at Team Whitaker and printed the labels over at IHeartOrganizing!  Check them out for more ideas!

Springtime Fun and Living in the Moment- 7QT

The first reading from this past Wednesday was from the Letter of St James 4:13-17

 

"Beloved:  Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit."  -- you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.  Instead you should say, "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that." 

 

Hearing these words were a BIG wake up call to me and just the perfect time and the homily at daily Mass really helped put things into perspective for me.  I have no idea what my life will be like tomorrow, I need to live the Lords will for my life NOW!  This message has really helped me to slow down, stop planning things down to the last minute and instead laugh, pray with my husband, truly engage and play with my kids more and enjoy what God wills of me.  Here's to us living in the moment!

 

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New Parks

 

When the sun is out, so are we!  We have been enjoying the lovely spring weather and have been having so much fun finding new parks around town to play at!

 

 

 

 

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Good Friends-Saying Goodbye for Now

It is always so great when we meet friends who really make an impact in our life and are just that person whom you can go to for anything and everything!  It is even BETTER when your kids and husbands love to spend together as well.  Well, my dear friend and her wonderful family moved to Okinawa, Japan this past week.  I am so excited for them and the adventure that they are beginning and also very thankful for modern technology which will make it much easier to stay in touch.  Saying goodbye for now though was rough!

Check out more of what this awesome family is doing over at the website that they founded Epic Pew!

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Wildlife Safari Park- Learning on the Go

 

When we can learn hands on and explore, we throw down the books and GO!  Our kids LOVE the Wildlife Safari Park where you get to drive around in your car to explore lots of awesome animals.  You can also get out to explore wolves, bears, bald eagles and more!  We had so much fun learning together and enjoying the outdoors.

 

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Sports Mom

I was never much into sports growing up, and still sometimes have to pinch myself that I am a momma of FOUR little boys!  We are finishing up soccer season and start t-ball in a few weeks.  I love cheering my little guys on from the sidelines and watching them play.  I know that these years will go by so fast and I am trying to soak up these memories while I can.

 

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St. Paschal's Feast Day

We celebrated the feast day of St. Paschal on May 17th!  Learn more about him HERE!  We read the book Pascual and the Kitchen Angels by Tomie dePaola and did the activities with Catholic Mosaic as we were going to bed for some fun and easy liturgical living.  Bedtime can be a little later to read that EXTRA book for the day!

 

 

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Happy Birthday Saint Pope John Paul II

 

Saint Pope John Paul II's birthday was on May 18th and so it is a great day to remember him and also pray for our Pope and all of our priests.  We read one of our favorite books A Boy Who Became Pope during family read aloud time.  Also, since Saint Pope John Paul II loved the wilderness and outdoors so much it seemed like the perfect excuse to just take a day off from school and go for a bike ride and play!

 

 

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Living in the Moment

With only a few days of a new perspective of trying to really focus on living in the moment and listening to God's will in my life I have already seen a big change.  I am blessed to be in a position where I am able to be home with our children and family during these formative years.  This is the time, RIGHT NOW to be making the memories.  This is the time to give an extra hug, to put down the chores to play another game, read another book, or stay up late for a fun ice cream run!  Here's to hoping that God can continue to provide me with the graces to continue living with this perspective.

 

 

Linking up with Seven Quick Takes!  And yes, I'm a few days late...but I'm living in the moment!

Finishing Up Explore the Continents

 

One of our favorite curriculum studies this year was Explore the Continents History and Geography program from Catholic Heritage Curricula.  Read about what we did with the program HERE, HERE, and HERE! 

 

Our final two continents to explore were Africa and Asia!  We continued with Africa and learned all about the culture, the animals, the geography and special Saints from the continent!  As with our other countries learning we loved the book list that CHC provided to enhance the learning. 

 

Honey, Honey, Lion by Jan Brett

A True Book:  Africa by Mel Friedman

Africa is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema

Africa by Mary Lindeen

A is for Africa by Ifeoma Onyefulu

Introducing Africa by Chris Oxlade

3 Little Dassies by Jan Brett

We also found a Reading Rainbow Video of Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain at the library which the children loved as well! 

 

We also have a brand new African Grasslands exhibit at the Omaha Zoo so we had to go explore!  We visited the brand new elephants, giraffes and more!  We love taking field trips to learn more in real life about what we are reading about in books! 

We finished Explore the Continents with studying Asia.  There were so many great Saints that we studied from this Continent including Blessed Mother Teresa, St Peter, St Paul, St Nicholas and more!  This was a fun continent to learn about how different the climate varies throughout the regions and how many different animals live in the different areas.  We then continued with some awesome books to enhance our learning.  Our children LOVED the Five Chinese Brothers, so much that we purchased our own copy to read it again and again! 

 

The Five Chinese Brothers by Bishop

The Story About Ping by Flack

Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett

We're Riding on a Caravan:  An Adventure on the Silk Road by Krebs and Cann

A is for Asia by Cynthia Chin Lee

In the Snow by Huy Voun Lee

Introducing Asia by Anita Ganeri

A True Story: Asia by Mary Lindeen

As we finish this curriculum and look back over the year and all that we have learned it is truly remarkable.  All of our children (ages 6, 4, and 2) were all able to participate in some way and learn about our world and the people and animals that inhabit it!  Our oldest son can name and locate all 7 continents, many countries within the continents, and understands many of the different cultures.  I hope to be able to repeat this curriculum again later as our younger children continue to grow!