Happy 5th Birthday Connor

Dear Connor,

 

These past five years have flown by, as it seems like just yesterday that I held you for the first time!  You have been such a blessing to our family, right from the very first moment.

You are spunky, fun, energetic, and incredibly caring.  The word that I would use to describe the past year with you would be GROWTH.  You have grown up so much this past year from an emotional toddler, to one of the "big boys" in our family who is responsible and incredibly helpful!  You have started your own chores and you take so much pride in setting the table every day, unloading the dishwasher and helping to start coffee in the morning.  Emotionally you have also grown so much.  You handle yourself well and are so great at thinking of others before yourself.

 

Your little world changed when Peter was born last November, for the best!  You were so little when Luke was born (only 19 months old), so this is the first time with a new baby in our house that you really understood what was going on.  From the moment that you met you were so in love with him and always want to hold or play with him!  You love to help feed him, sing to him, and teach him new things like how to clap or even new words.  Once Peter was born you were already asking for more brothers or sisters and would say that you want to be a Daddy when you grow up!

 

 

Your brothers are your very best friends and you are such a good friend to each and every one of them.  Your relationships with them are all different, but that is what makes you so special.  You love sharing a room with Ryan and we love hearing the two of you reading late into the night and giggling together.  This past year you and Luke have become great playmates and you are a great role model for Luke!  It is so much fun to watch all of you explore the world together everyday.

 

 

 

You love to play and be active!  This past February you decided on a whim that you wanted to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels and you accomplished it in mere minutes!  We went skiing this past spring and you did a great job learning a difficult new skill.  You enjoy being outside all of the time, swimming, biking, and exploring!

 

Homeschooling is a great fit for you and we are so blessed to work at your speed and mold our learning to your strengths.  You learned how to read this past year and now cannot put books down! You love to read everything, but your favorite are Elephant and Piggie books.  You are very good at math and also love art and music.  You started taking piano lessons this fall and already are doing simply fantastic!

You love our Catholic Faith and have grown so much in your faith over this past year.  You went from being a wiggly little boy at church to being very attentive and loving to go to daily Mass.  Catechesis of the Good Shepard has been such an amazing blessing for our family and you have learned so much.  Your favorite Saint is St. Francis of Assisi, who you dressed up like on All Saints Day last year and always pray to every night.

 

Everything that you do, you do with purpose, good or bad!  You love to tell jokes, do puzzles, and play games!  You are incredibly imaginative and love making up stories or things to play.  You bring a laugh and a smile to all of those around you.

You had to go to the Emergency Room for the first time this last year, and although you were not feeling great I think it was one of your favorite experiences! You love firemen and doctors and paramedics and so you were THRILLED when we told you that you were able to have your birthday party at a firehouse this year.  It was so much fun to watch your excitement and see you explore the fire trucks and ambulance!

5 years old is going to be a blast with you little one!  Thank you for making our lives so much fun!  We love you SO much!

 

Love,

Mommy

 

Christopher Columbus

 

After having fun learning all about the Fall we got back into the swing of things with our Memoria Press Enrichment Guide to study Christopher Columbus this week!  We celebrated Columbus Day on October 10th this year to learn more about him we studied the book A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus by David Adler.  It was great to look at the globe and see where he traveled and how he thought that he reached the Indies and not America. 

 

We also learned the little poem:

 

"In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue"!

 

It is very simple, but great to help them remember basic facts in history!  We also studied the image The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrant, Minuet in G by Bach and read the poem "When You and I Grow Up" by Kate Greenaway.  For a fun science experiment we learned about what different things float or sink and thought about how hard it must have been to sail across the ocean!

Catholic All Year

Puppy Love - Meet Lucy

We have a new little lady in our house and we are all in LOVE!  Meet Lucy, our new miniature beagle puppy!

 

 

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

 

We celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7th, which is the anniversary of the victory of the Christian army at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.  The victory of the battle secured Europe against Turkish invasion.  Pope St. Pius V had asked for all people throughout Europe to pray the Rosary and attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Mary. 

Teaching our children to pray is very important to our family and has been a learning process for us all.  Different phases of our lives (my husband's medical residency/fellowship, miscarriage, new babies, starting to homeschool, etc) has all added to an ebb and flow of our family prayer life.  Last Lent we made a goal to go to daily Mass and to pray the Rosary together as a family daily.  Having a 6 year, 4 year, 2 year, and 6 month old children made that goal VERY difficult.  We did get into a great schedule of attending daily mass and I was able to pray a rosary myself most days of the week, and included all of the children a handful of the days.  We would most commonly use the Holy Heroes Rosary CD's, watch the Children's Rosary on EWTN or simply pray the rosary as a family.  Summer time came and we came and although we made it to daily Mass most days we really fell off the bandwagon of praying the rosary.  As fall came and homeschooling and activities started back up it only seemed to get busier and taking the time for a daily rosary seemed harder and harder!

Well, as October approached I decided it would be a great time to start our family Rosary again (in 1883 Pope Leo XIII dedicated the month of October to the Holy Rosary) .Well, we got to October 7th and had not prayed it once, but we were able to get back into it today to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!  We went to daily Mass, ran a few errands, came home to do some school work and then had lots of family Rosary fun!

We got the idea to make and edible Rosary, which was great to help us get back into the swing of praying and also have lots of fun!  We took our time and really discussed each of the prayers of the Rosary.  One part of our oldest son's sacramental preparations with Preparing to Receive Jesus has included not only learning his basic prayers but truly understanding what each prayer means.  He has been studying the Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be, Angel of God and Act of Contrition. 

We also got a fantastic new book, The Illustrated Rosary, which is an amazing guide to praying the Rosary.  We used the Illustrated Rosary book and also our Sacred Art Rosary Flip Book to talk about the different mysteries of the Rosary.  We counted out chocolate chips and M&Ms for each Hail Mary and Our Father to construct our edible rosaries and then prayed the rosary together.  Our 3 year old used Rosary Roses from Annery's Handmade to help him count each prayer.  These really help to keep his little hands busy during prayer time!

 

 

I think the biggest thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that prayer time with all of our children is not going to be the same calming prayer as if I would pray individually or with my spouse.  Prayer time with little ones might be prayed "badly", but it is still better than no Rosary at all!  Thanks Kendra from Catholic All Year for this great image of this fantastic quote from Father Mark Kirby and wonderful reminder for us all!