Yep, it took me 40+ years, but I finally went to my first prom! Dh and I helped oversee the high school prom ... hey, anything for a date!
MaryM, who covers all bases, got Augustine Institute President, Dr. Jonathan Reyes to give us a talk about history. He has a PhD in History but he said that the two most important aspects of history to remember: God is in charge and our jobs (whether old or young) is to know, love and serve God and to bring others to the faith. That's it. He also talked about the need to teach history through stories -- not dry dates, names or places -- something that the kids can really enjoy, embrace and own.
While the big ones and parents were listening to Dr. Reyes, the little ones played (sometimes not so quietly) with building things and coloring sheets. Many played outside in the sunny day (after a threatened snowstorm the day before).
Saints and Shrines of England:
Nurses and Nursing and Their Catholic Roots:
Here's Lego-Maniac's "Taking of Jerusalem" in 1099 and his friend's display about Our Lady of Guadalupe.
And here's String Bean's project -- one which she thought of all on her own. Saint Faustina in her convent. String Bean sewed the Faustina doll (altho I helped her with cutting out the habit) and she did all the decorating of the Convent of St. Joseph, Cracow, Poland. StringBean has really taken a great liking to Saint Faustina and we've been praying to this great Polish Saint for String Bean's First Communion (which she and LegoManiac will receive on Sunday, April 29th).
So here's my list of Thinking Blogs:
There are SO MANY OTHERS that I could tag, but these are five of my absolute favorites .... enjoy visiting them and let me know if you agree ....
Today we went to a marvelous living history museum in Littleton, Colorado. What a joy it was to see the kids running around the historic buildings (most dating from around the 1860s) and seeing all the steps involved in going from sheep to shawl! And it was an absolutely gorgeous day to be out and about -- not a snowflake in sight nor clouds of any great amount ... just sun, sun, sun!
The schedule included sheep and their babies.
Demonstrations of sheep-dog herding ... did you know there is no specific breed called collie? Collies are considered any working dog -- such as the one shown here, trying to get the three white sheep to behave.
The man shearing the sheep explained about the different breeds -- prevalent at the farm today were Churros, Navajo and some Merino. A large-ish sheep's fleece, so large you can barely get your arms around it, weighed 8.75 pounds when he finished shearing.
Now this weight will be cut almost in half once the fleece is washed and cleansed of all the debris caught in the lamb's coat.
Once the wool is washed, it's sorted -- a process called skirting -- and left out to dry. Here in rather dry-climated Colorado, this wool won't take long to dry.
The wool is then combed and carded, to get all the fibers running in the same direction. Finally, the wool is spun into yarn -- using either a wheel (as shown here) or a drop-spindle.
Last, but most certainly NOT least, the wool is knitted into gorgeous garments, toys and other practical and beautiful objects.
If you have any suggestions for Catholic Cookbooks, please leave comments. I love merging cooking math + liturgical year + dinner all into one activity -- now that's living, loving and learning in the HOME!
Is this not the coolest chair -- it comes in a bunch of different combos from nobody and co -- a furniture company in Italy. But y'know, this might be something you could make yourself! I just love the use of space and easy access to books ... now if it was powered with a light, you'd have a whole library in one spot!
Can't you just see at least one in each kids' room, a few in the living room, one for my knitting books in the master bedroom .....
Not to forget the older folks, here are some GREAT books on camping and hiking in Colorado:
And these are books we've read-aloud during the 40 days:
We were reading just to the "littles" (age range 4-8) but the BIG teens did listen in occasionally. My dh read the night books and I read the day books. All six of these books were well-received and now we have marvelous family memories of these characters and all that happen to them!
The weeping, mourning and gnashing of teeth is over -- Christ is risen and the Gates of Hell SHALL NEVER PREVAIL!
Here's the recipe (note that this is a "high altitude" bread recipe):
Earlier this week, in regaling you dear reader with the highlights of Holy Week, I had forgotten today: Spy Wednesday. This is the day that Judas sells out Jesus and his ministry for 30 pieces of silver.Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What will you give me if I deliver him to you?" And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him (Mt 26:14-16).
Judas is neither a master of evil nor the figure of a demoniacal power of
darkeness, but rather a sycophant who bows down before the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashion. But it is precisely this anonymous
power that crucified Jesus, for it was anonymous voices that cried, 'Away with
him! Crucify him!"
JOHN PAUL II WAS A TRUE SERVANT OF GOD
VATICAN CITY, APR 3, 2007 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI presided at a Eucharistic concelebration with cardinals in commemoration of John Paul II. More than 30,000 people were present at the event, many of them having come from Poland to attend.
The aim of the celebration, said the Pope in his homily, is to give thanks to God for John Paul II, "for 27 years ... father and sure guide in the faith, zealous pastor and courageous prophet of hope, tireless witness and passionate servant of God's love."
Having addressed a special greeting to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who for more than 40 years was the late pontiff's private secretary, the Holy Father turned to comment on the day's Gospel reading recounting the supper at Bethany during which Mary, sister of Lazarus, taking "a pound of costly perfume, made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair."
The Pope said: "Mary of Bethany's gesture has rich spiritual echoes and significance. It evokes the shining testimony that John Paul II gave of an unreserved and selfless love for Christ. The 'fragrance' of his love filled the house, in other words the Church. ... Are not the esteem, respect and affection that believers and non-believers expressed when he died an eloquent testimony?"
"The intense and fruitful pastoral ministry, and even more so the Calvary of agony and the serene death of our beloved Pope, brought the men and women of our time to understand that Jesus Christ truly was his 'all.'
"We know," the Holy Father added, "that the fruitfulness of his testimony depended upon the Cross. In the life of Karol Wojtyla the word 'cross' was not just a word. Ever since his infancy and youth, he had experienced pain and death." And, "particularly with the slow but implacable progress of his illness which little by little deprived him of everything, his existence became a complete offering to Christ."
"His pontificate was marked by his 'prodigality,' by his generous and unreserved giving of self. What moved him if not his mystical love for Christ? ... 'Magister adest et vocat te' - the Master is here and He calls you. On April 2, 2005, the Master returned ... to call him and take him home, to the house of the Father. And he, again, responded readily with his intrepid heart and whispered: 'Let me go to the Lord'."
"For a long time he had been preparing for this final meeting with Jesus, as evinced by the various drafts of his will. ... He died praying. He truly fell asleep in
the Lord. ... The fragrance of the faith, the hope and the charity of the Pope filled his house, it filled St. Peter's Square, it filled the Church and spread over the whole world."
"Servant of God," Benedict XVI exclaimed, "this is what he was and this is what we call him now in the Church, while the process of his beatification continues apace. ... Servant of God, a particularly appropriate title for him. The Lord called him to His service on the path of the priesthood and little by little opened ever vaster horizons before him: from his diocese to the Universal Church. This universal dimension reached its greatest extent at the moment of his death, an event that the entire world experienced with a level of participation never before seen in history."
"May the 'Totus tuus' of the beloved Pontiff encourage us along the path of giving ourselves to Christ by the intercession of Mary," the Holy Father concluded. "To her maternal hands we entrust this our father, brother and friend that in God he may find peaceful repose and happiness."
HML/JOHN PAUL II/... VIS 070403 (630)excerpted from the Vatican Information Service's Daily Newsletter
Drawing with the kistky -- turns out the M's had a thick-line kistky, while we had a medium line (and also, our kistky didn't seem to have the right angle). Regardless, it is meticulous work to draw a nice line of melting beeswax, using a candle to keep the wax liquid.
It helps to draw with a pencil first and figure out what color you want things. You'll be doing this egg in multiple dye baths -- lightest to darkest -- and so you want to know before-hand what you want white, yellow, orange, pink or red (those are the dyes we used today).
Once the egg has been in all the dye baths desired, than you can dry it and melt the wax off the egg. This is a slow, meditative process that reaps lovely results. Once the egg is cleaned of all wax, you have to drain the egg from the shell -- a rather unattractive (but fascinating) science experiment on air press and shell hardiness. (One egg had developed a hairline fracture at some point in the process which "reared it's ugly head" when we were de-egging! No worries - the egg scar can be hidden (it happened in the back of the egg!).
Here are the four survivors ... pretty good for the first attempt huh?
Don't worry -- I haven't sworn off pysanky after my two calamities -- as a matter of fact we'll do some more later this week so the boys who were off playing Xbox can try their hand at this ancient craft.
This was the cartoon my very talented brother Paul did when John Paul II died. My family has always felt a certain closeness to the Pope -- he's from the same area of Poland as my paternal grandfather and he was elected in the midst of a rash of Polish jokes which ceased once people realized that Karol Wojtyla was not the stereotypical Polack! Almost 27 years after his election by the College of Cardinals (with lots of assistance from the Holy Spirit), this Great Pope died in his apartment in St. Peter's, and with the words "Be Not Afraid" on his lips.
This is how I remember JP2 looking that March day -- increasingly crippled by the Parkinson's that would end his suffering on Earth, having to hold his head up with his left hand.A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups made of porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal. Some were ordinary looking, some expensive, and some exquisite. He told them to help themselves to hot coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in their hands, the professor said,"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap looking ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and worse, you were eyeing each other's cups."
The professor continued, "Now if life is coffee, than the jobs, money and position in society are the cups . They are just tools to hold and contain life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Sometimes, by focusing only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."
But I just found one for which I'm willing to break the budget to place on my shelf NOW. Valerie and Walter's Best Books for Children is an absolutely fascinating, opinionated, full-of-information read. I'm having such fun going through this tome and finding all kinds of books for ALL my kids -- teens and toddlers alike. The authors -- one an independent bookstore owner from California and the other a media specialist/read-aloud guy also from California -- have collaborated to bring the reader of this book insightful, honest and often humorous descriptions of books that they have found WORK with kids. These guys know: one sells books successfully to and for kids since 1979 and the other makes his living (and is able to live in San Francisco based on his work) visiting schools and reading aloud to kids and talking about books to kids and adults.
Palm Sunday heralds the beginning of Holy Week, the holiest of weeks. This is our chance to really focus on the last days of the Lord's life. We start with his Triumphal entry -- with crowds shouting and cheering for their new king!
Good Friday, we see Jesus at his most humble. At ANY TIME, he could have stopped it all and shown his divinity; but even Jesus (God himself) freely chose as a man to follow God's plan and suffer indescribable agony for US! Something I REALLY need to remember when the small injustices in life crop up...
Holy Saturday and his family and friends lay him in the tomb, roll the stone before the cave and weep because their beloved is dead. How hopeless and despairing they must have felt -- and yet they stayed near the tomb, praying and hoping when it seemed hopeless, ready to do whatever the Lord directed.
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