Outside my window… there is a big bucket truck that has been making it’s way up and down the road today, trimming any trees that are too close to the power lines. This has kept some of my children entertained for hours.
I am listening to… The Sheen Catechism: 50 Lessons in Catholic Teaching
. Very inspiring!
. Very inspiring!I am thinking… about the 3 hour seminar I attended with my mom, last Tuesday night, on dyslexia. It was very interesting and I’m still thinking about all the info the speaker shared. Did you know that dyslexia affects 20 percent of Americans? Also, if someone is diagnosed with dyslexia in a family the other children have a 50/50 chance of having it as well. Our oldest son worked with a specialist for a year due to an Auditory Processing Challenge, a form of dyslexia. I guess that means there is a really good chance that a couple more of my kiddos have some form of dyslexia as well… Hummm….
I am thankful for… my mom! She offered to come over one afternoon each week during Lent to help me around the house. What a blessing!!
I am hoping and praying… that, if it is God’s will, Hubby will get the job I mentioned in my last Daybook post. His application has been referred to the selecting official as one of the most qualified, so that is promising!
From the kitchen… a new can opener!!! I have been fighting with my Pampered Chef can opener for years, and was just given a new one
(a late Christmas gift) from my Aunt. I guess she is tired of fighting ours too, every couple years (or so) when she babysits while I’m at the hospital! 😉
(a late Christmas gift) from my Aunt. I guess she is tired of fighting ours too, every couple years (or so) when she babysits while I’m at the hospital! 😉It was actually pretty funny… She mentioned sending the gift home with Hubby, and said that “It’s just something practical. Your Dad said if I didn’t get it for you, he was going to.” I thought about it for awhile and called her back asking “So, is it a can opener or a car battery charger?” The can opener had come to mind first on the “practical” end of things, but then, I’ve called my Dad one too many times to jump start my car! 😉 She laughed and replied “Both! I can’t believe you guessed!” Thank you Aunt Bridget!
From the learning rooms… I am hoping to get back on a schedule by next week. I’m currently working on revising it to reflect our new baby, who likes to cluster feed in the morning and evening, as well as the couple curriculum changes we’ve recently made.
Living the Liturgical Year at Home… continuing our Lenten activities:
I am creating… St. Joseph Memory Cards for Rascal and Coloring books from our Jesus Tree coloring pages. I also spent a little time organizing our Lap Book Posts and Alphabet Path Posts.
I am reading watching… St. Teresa of the Andes
. Despite the fact that it is in Spanish with English subtitles, it is one of my favorite movies of all time and has FINALLY been re-released on DVD. (I’ve been praying for years that it would!) My mother-in-law kindly sent me a copy, back in January for my birthday, and I couldn’t have been more excited. It is SUCH an inspiring movie!
. Despite the fact that it is in Spanish with English subtitles, it is one of my favorite movies of all time and has FINALLY been re-released on DVD. (I’ve been praying for years that it would!) My mother-in-law kindly sent me a copy, back in January for my birthday, and I couldn’t have been more excited. It is SUCH an inspiring movie!Our little Rose… is sleeping so well at night! She falls asleep around 10pm and doesn’t wake up until about 6am. She then nurses and falls back to sleep for another hour or two. I could get use to this! 😉
Noticing that… March is going to be BUSY! First of all, there are a LOT of birthdays this month, seven in just our immediate families! (Hubby’s, one of my brother-in-laws, my father-in-laws, and four of my siblings.) I also have two Little Flower meetings scheduled, a Blue Knights meeting for the boys, Bunco on the 9th, Hockey every Saturday, a Homeschool Party on the 17th, Hubby has traffic court on the 15th and a surgery scheduled for the 19th, and Rose’s Echocardiogram on the 29th. Yikes!! Can we just skip March?
Towards personal care… in addition to walking a mile a day (on average – I missed a couple days and had to catch up!) I spent a couple hours this weekend “exercising” using Wii Fit
. I just had to reclaim my 1st place status in “Soccer Heading.” Yep, I can be a tad bit competitive! 😉 My legs are still sore…
. I just had to reclaim my 1st place status in “Soccer Heading.” Yep, I can be a tad bit competitive! 😉 My legs are still sore… Around the house… I have a wash in the dryer that needs to be put away and then it will be CAUGHT UP, at least until this evening! A HUGE success! I am also making daily progress towards filling those 40 Bags. It’s been hard, but so very rewarding at the same time.
One of my favorite things.. the Traditional Latin Mass! How I wish we had one within driving distance that we could attend… During the homily, at Mass yesterday, our pastor had a 20 foot ladder (aka “mountain”) set up in front of the altar to climb and replaced his vestments with a florescent green jacket and a bright orange and black scarf with matching beanie (supporting his favorite football team) because “It is cold on the tops of mountains.” Perhaps I missed the point, as he tried to imitate the Transfiguration of Our Lord, but it seemed like a mockery to me and brought tears to my eyes. I asked Hubby after Mass if perhaps we could travel somewhere (anywhere!) for Easter.
A few plans for the rest of the week:
- Resume “R” week with the Alphabet Path, since we didn’t have much extra time last week for a few of the activities I had planned.
- Organize the photos on my computer! I just realized that my hard drive is out of room and that I have my pictures in two different folders. Deleting the duplicates will free up over 100GB of space. That should help!
- Continue working on filling those 40 Bags.
- Happy Birthday to my brother Paul (who turns 26) and sisters JoAnn and Mary who turn (18). It seems like just yesterday the twins were turning “7 on the 7th!”
A Picture thought I am sharing:
That little babycakes outfit is SO cute!
I am sorry that you had such a sad experience during Mass. That should not happen, and it's painful to hear about. But I'm sure more painful to witness. I hope you can find a nice, traditional parish for your Easter celebration.
Your little Rose is beautiful!
Could you please share more about your St. Joseph Memory Cards?
"The bucket truck"…hmmm that would have to be the boys, right?!? I can just imagine the noses of all three of mine pressed up against the windows all.day.long 🙂
I look forward to seeing your new schedule. Sounds like Rose has adjusted well to the family and seems to be the perfect sleeper! She gets cuter with each picture you post!
Don't forget Holy Week starting at the end of March too, not to make an already busy month worse 🙂
Praying for your hubby and that you find somewhere else for Easter.
Jessica, I am so sorry that you had to witness irreverence at Mass. I will pray for you and your family that God will provide a more respectful and traditional Mass nearby.
We can empathize; after years of enduring liturgical abuse and bizarre 'entertainment' at Mass, we finally have a parish nearby that has a lovely EF Mass.
I am so sorry about your Mass experience.
"Soccer Heading" seems to be the one game nobody around here can really do well. Ski jumping is my best game!
Ugh, what is it with Priests doing everything but what they are supposed to during the Mass?
We have our Parish Mission this year and well, are avoiding it like the plague. The Mission Priest, "proclaimed" the gospel from memory then proceeded to point that out during his homily. The Homily had some heretical points in it and if that weren't bad enough, he finished with a preview of his Mission. He sang us a song. A lullaby. A secular lullaby that had nothing to do with anything.
We try to go to more reverent parishes for major feasts not because our regular priest is bad, he is actually very good, but because the irreverence of the other people at Mass makes me want to weep.
As my husband is fond of saying "Someday we will have our church back."
Oh, sweet little Rose has the most gorgeous eyes! She is so cute! I notice eyes because all eight of mine had dark brown eyes, and it wasn't until we had our first grandbabe that she had blue eyes.:)
Wii soccer huh? I love canoe, and bowling because my hubby can play that one with me. But, shhhh, I love the boxing too. LOL So sorry about the lack of reverence during the sermon at mass, I would get misty eyed too. ugh. We'll also add your husband's job possibility to our prayers.
Rose is beautiful and how wonderful that she lets you get some rest in the evenings, especially after cluster feeding…that always used to wipe me out!
I'm so sorry about Mass, you made me flinch because we are about to leave a very devout/traditional Catholic church and I'm scared to death of experiencing something like you did in Mass.
I have 2 children with dyslexia. My second and my 6th, out of 9 I'd say we hit the odds you mentioned pretty well. Dyslexia has its challenges, but I feel that these two have really learned to get out of the box with their learning (we do not homeschool though). Good luck with all your endeavors regarding this gift of learning in a different way, as opposed to a handicap! I admire you for going to talks and educating yourself, I was SO overwhelmed by it once upon a time!
Thanks so much for your blog. It's such a blessing to me!
Have you heard/read anything by Susan Barton re: dyslexia? Her talks were such an encouragement and help to me in understanding and teaching my DS.
I'm praying for your DH's transfer.
~Teri in VA
For children with any kind of learning issue (and accelerated, as well) check out the National Association for Child Development. http://www.nacd.org
They work with the child and family to fix/correct the broken sensory channels, not just adapt to them. They are awesome at what they do!
Oh, the blessing of a baby that sleeps! My current toddler was/is like that, it's so nice. Surely I won't get as lucky a second time in a row?
Jessica , little Rose is heavenly:) Do you have Byzantine Catholic Rite near you? It is lovely, we went there past Sunday and loved it. Also their Lent, Holy Week and Easter is beyond this world…as it should be 😉 Praying for you and glad you are back posting more inspirational post!!! God Bless!!!
That little bundle, Rose, is just beautiful! What a blessing your children are to you and yours! As for that Mass, it makes me cry to hear and read that and it happens all over this United States from North to South to East to West and that is really devestating…..what can we all do to bring back the solemnity of it all and to bring it back full circle ..prayers don't seem to be enough…are we speaking up enough? That is the question.
What's going on with hubby? A surgery? (or did I exercise poor reading comp. skills???)
God bless your beautiful family. I love reading your blogg and look forward to trying out many of your activities when my children are older and I start homeschooling.
I recently came accross an interesting website that I have enjoyed learning from.
This article includes info on dyslexia and how it's linked to a persons gut flora:
http://www.westonaprice.org/Gut-And-Psychology-Syndrome-GAPS.html
I am sorry, along with many of these other posters, about your experience at Mass. Our parish is a diocesan, Novus Ordo parish, but our priest is orthodox and loves the old traditions. In between the Rosary and the beginning of Mass he has been teaching us several different Mass parts (i.e., the Agnus Dei and Sanctus) in Latin for Lent. We are so thankful for him. So many people we talk with are shocked that we have priest who loves the Eucharist and the Rosary and is devoted to Our Lady. It is sad that he is such a rarity—it would seem to me that all priests would be like him. Otherwise, why did they become priests to begin with?
Thank you all for the comments and prayers!
Marie ~ I will try and post about them soon.
Kelly ~ Yep, it was mostly the boys, but the girls were pretty curious about what was going on out there too. They are all looking forward to watching them take down a couple of the trees in front of our house.
Charlotte ~ I am not that good at the the Ski Jump. Captain is the best at that one, and Hubby is the best at the downhill ski. Hubby came home from work yesterday and beat my top scores in both the Beginner and Advanced levels of Soccer Heading… (1. That's what I get for posting about reclaiming first place. 2) How do you beat a (beginner level) perfect score! 😉 ) He also got a perfect score on the Advanced Level and, when I got back on, I *almost* had it but missed the *very last soccer ball* since I thought I was finished. Bummer! lol! ANyhow, it is good exercise! I couldn't believe how winded I was after playing for awhile. 🙂
Kathyrn ~ One of my favorite parts of the seminar was when she talked about the Gifts of Dyslexia, and hearing her point out some of the areas in which a few of my children excel. There are definitely some challenges associated with Dyslexia, but many blessings as well.
Teri ~ The seminar was, in fact, given by Susan Barton. I had never heard of her before and wasn't expecting much before attending. My mom convinced me to go with her (I have a few dyslexic siblings) but she thought there was just going to be a short video presentation followed by brochures and that we'd be there for maybe an hour or so. It was rather surprising for our little town (though we are a rather central location for the other big towns in this part of our state) and very motivating and encouraging to attend.
Mary Beth ~ Thanks for the link. I will have to check it out! Our oldest, who has/had the Auditory Processing Challenge, did work with a specialist for about a year, correcting his pathway for Auditory Processing. It really was amazing!
Mel ~ I hope you are blessed with another good sleeper! It's SO nice! :o)
Dessi ~ I believe the closest is about 3 hours away…
Anonymous ~ Hubby and I have spoken up, written letters, and continue to pray. I guess another alternative is to do our best to raise our children with a deep love of our beautiful Catholic Faith and pray that God will call some of them to the Priesthood! With all the big Catholic Families around the country, it may indeed come "full circle." 🙂
MS ~ Yes, he has a tumor on his back that needs to be removed. The doctor said it will be a fairly simple procedure.
Can you share more about your Little Flower and Blue Knights meetings?
I've been looking for something to get my children more involved with our parish and the children that attend.
Thanks.
Jessica ~ I haven't posted much about Blue Knights, but here is where you can read all about Our Little Flowers Group.
I wish my mom lived in town. You are so lucky.
And, I have been fighting with my pampered chef can opener too. I'm going to go check out the one you mentioned.
The memory cards are fabulous…thank you so much for sharing them!
I'm so sorry for the experience you had at Mass. I can't tell you how many instances of blatant sacrilege our family witnessed in our previous parish in Kentucky. Interestingly enough the priest at that very parish gave a homily that helped me greatly. He asked us to think back to the worst Mass we have ever attended. He gave examples such as "the music was horrible, the priest seemed irreverent, the people too, too noisy, too snobby…" Whatever hurtful memory we could conjure. I noticed several people wiping tears from their eyes…me included. Then he said this: "as awful as that Mass may have seemed, Jesus came to you…was truly present. He is just as present at a badly offered Mass as He is in the most exalted of ceremonies. Offer up your suffering in reparation…you give Him comfort when you see Him poorly served."
Those words sustained me for many years at that parish. I praise God for the privilege of attending our current parish and will never take such a blessing for granted again. Prayers for you, sweet Jessica. Your tears were a comfort to our Lord…may you take comfort in that knowledge.
Thank you for sharing that with me Kimberly!