Weekly Wrap-Up.....{two weeks worth}

Weeks go by so quick so these weekly wrap-ups are turning into more of a two or three week wrap-up.  I have a variety of miscellaneous pictures from March, which I'll use to recap the month so far.

At first glance it appears to be Joseph's birthday, but of course, his is in August.  March brings us Warren's birthday.  The little kids really wanted Dad's birthday to be a party.  The best place I know of to get party supplies is Dollar Tree (where everything's a dollar, except some candy bars, which are only 69 cents).  $4.00 later we had all the makings of a party - 1 balloon, 1 centerpiece, 18 birthday plates, and a 60 pack of candles.  We didn't use all the candles, but it was nice to actually have enough.

Once the balloon was tied to Dad's chair, Joe sat down and literally didn't move all day.  He kept saying, "It's mine, it's mine."  I see lots of helium balloons in my future - because let me tell you, knowing exactly where to look for him was pure joy and I need more of that in my life.  Keeping track of his wanderings is a full time job.  Often I need a few LTE's to help out, too.

That's a lot of fire.

Sadly, Nick had to work so he missed out on the fun, but we saved him some fish and cake.

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 Sam, Joseph, Peter, and Maria have been following along with Holy Heroes' Lenten Adventure.

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Peter's been sneaking off with my camera lately.  He fills the card with pictures like these. ↙

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Counting down, remembering to pray for the daily intention, placing coins in the Rice Bowl - Lent is well under way.  You can find directions and a free printable for making your own calendar here.

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Always playing communion.  This little activity keeps her busy for a long time, and she has no problem distributing them to the entire family.

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One day the ground is clear, the next it's covered in snow again.  I just want the sun - cold March temps are bearable if it's sunny.  Amber's already working with Rhythm getting ready for fair.

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Now that Sam has turned intermediate, he's advanced to clip shoes.  He just bought them in size 13.  And he's still growing!

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Amber is dog sitting; there's 3 of them.  Family? recognize these dogs?  Bella, Daisy, and Teddy(not shown)

Amber and Bella

Joe and Bella

These little dogs live a pretty posh life.  They wear sweaters and ski jackets.  They eat salmon and bible bread.  They have their own stroller and rolling luggage.  We get to keep them for another 10 days.

That sums up our March so far.  

On the homeschooling front, we're in week 25, which means we should wrap up the year on May 27, just in time to get the garden in.

I hope to be back soon with a number of recipe reviews and a recap of what we're using for math this year and how it's working.

Linking up with

Learning About the Saints::St. Frances of Rome

 

St. Frances of Rome video at Catholic.org

March 9 was the feast day for St. Frances of Rome.  I happened upon her story in Book of Saints on March 8, and since we hadn't celebrated a saint day in a while, I did a quick Google search for a few coloring pages and made plans to read her story the next day.  

My coloring page search didn't turn up anything for St. Frances, so I improvised quite a bit.  The St. Frances story in Book of Saints starts out having kids try to understand how they see things differently as they get older.  The older they get the more details they see.  As they see more details they begin to see more deeply what God has in mind for them.  That's how it was for St. Frances, anyway.  St. Frances also obeyed her parents and married a noble prince.

With that my Google search turned up a couple anatomy of the eye coloring pages as well as a girl wearing glasses and a married couple.  

Coloring is a great way to keep their attention during longer, pictureless saint stories.

Are my kids the only ones who think there's only one St. Francis and he's wearing a brown robe, calling in birds?  We had a little discussion about how one letter sometimes changes the gender of a name.  I pulled out Bread and Jam for Frances and let them figure out if Frances is a girl or boy.  They were stunned to learn that Frances is a girl.

I also ran across this lovely little saint book in the room where Sam takes Suzuki violin lessons.  Interestingly enough, it too, had the story of St. Frances of Rome - more detailed than the one in Book of Saints.  If you've never read her story and you're a mother and you have a hard time prioritizing (children, God, housekeeping, husband) you might enjoy it.

Sometimes she must leave God at the altar, and find him in her housekeeping  -St. Frances of Rome

Saints Budding Everywhere is the copy I'm referring to.

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In other news, I told my family (and myself), "NO new recipes for a while."  Whenever I try new recipes the grocery budget takes a hard hit from the extra spices and other ingredients needed.  And sometimes they're complete flops which is money wasted.  Argh!

As usual I didn't stand by my plan.  So far I've made:

-Hawaiian Chicken

-Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches

-Double Crunch bars

-Crockpot Philly Cheesesteaks

-Southern Fried Fish with Cornmeal

I'll try and share those recipes along with my reviews soon.  The Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches were a TOTAL HIT!!!  It came from this cookbook.

We're having a beautiful sunny day here in Central Wisconsin, which is a real treat even if it's below average cold.

Gardening Growing Pains

Having a garden is a ton of work.  There's the planning, tilling, planting, waiting for germination, weeding, weeding and more weeding.  And don't forget the watering if you have sandy soil like we do.  When I'm down in the garden swatting mosquitoes, sweating and totally wrecking my nails I keep in mind the end product - fresh home grown produce.  

Most times things go right, but when they go wrong it crushes me.  I become so emotionally attached to my plants that when the leaves curl or brown or wilt or become laden with chew holes I feel personally attacked.  I did all I could and yet, and yet this is what I get.  I know I sound unstable, but I bet those of you who have ever grown a garden know just what I mean.

So when my green bean leaves started looking like this:

And the beans all grew in tight corkscrews:

And they were covered in brown spots:

I nearly cried.  Actually I did have a few tears well up, but I held them back for fear of looking unstable.  Three rows of beans planted, weeded and watered all for naught.  I was ready to give up, ready to pull out the plants so I didn't have to look at them everyday.  But then I regained my senses and prayed Jesus, I trust in you over and over again.  And I guess He thought this insane gardener really needed beans because after ignoring them for days I took a peek under the leaves and found thousands of straight, unmarred beans ready for the picking.  So I picked and picked and picked some more until 4 bags were full.  They weighed in at 40 pounds.  

And then I (with the help of Warren, Emily and Sam) canned 32 quarts.

MORAL OF THIS STORY

When you feel like giving up, pray, wait and then check back in.  No matter how silly you think your prayer request might be He's listening and will provide exactly what you need.  Amen.