Happy 13th Birthday House Cat!

We had a beautiful day, celebrating the gift of our first blessing, thirteen years ago. She and I enjoyed baking this delicious cake together. I LOVE baking their birthday cakes with them.It's a treasured tradition for us. We spent the day out at my mom and dads. Lots of good food, smiles and surprises!

She was truly shocked when she opened up her new mini laptop! Thanks so much Nae Nae and Pop Paw. She is sooooo excited! She is typing every chance she gets, adding her poetry, stories and music.

A special memory for me:

When asked by her dad what advice she would like to give to her siblings on her last day of being a "child", she answered,
"Just remember, we will always be children of God."

What a beautiful response from our new teenager.

A Blessed Woman's Daybook August 24, 2009

Outside my window....

The weather is so much nicer! It feels as if we may have an early fall here in Alabama.

To Live the Liturgical Year...
This week we celebrate the feasts of St. Bartholomew, St. Monica, St. Augustine, and the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist.

I Am Thankful For...

Such a blessed day - yesterday!

First, I had the honor of serving Our Lord at Holy Mass. Then we had orientation for PSR (Parish School of Religion). It was so good being back in the Atrium. Snuggle Bug was excited to see friends and find out which class she will be in. The House Cat was equally excited - she will be confirmed this year! We are so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful parish community!

My honey and I also met with our Teams of Our Lady prayer group yesterday. We love having this time together to pray, talk, and laugh with other couples who are fighting to keep their marriages holy and pleasing to God. With so many marriages ending in divorce, we can't let our guards down for a minute!

One Of My Favorite Things...

Cool breezes in August!

I Am Creating...

Plans for the week. I'm hoping to have a few minutes this week to check out this post and maybe make a folder for reading lists etc.

Some Plans for the week(outside the home)...

Bowling today.

PSR family supper with Eucharistic Adoration on Wednesday.

Our first sewing group meeting on Thursday.

Honey Bee and Snuggle Bug both have doctor visits on Friday and

The House Cat turns 13 on Saturday. Wow - I'd better eat my Wheaties this week :)

My Picture Thought...

Snuggle Bug's Nature Journal.

A Blessed Way To Begin Each Day

Beginning our day gathered together with our morning basket is such a beautiful way to start the day. I'm so thankful to Wildflowers and Marbles for sharing this inspiration. Actually, this is not the only thing I have picked up from her. And to think - she's here in Alabama! I really hope to meet her one day.

My schedule states 8:30 is our start time. However, this is very flexible. We begin our day at the Holy Water Font by blessing ourselves with Holy Water. We repeat a beautiful line a special priest uses, "Let us begin, as we begin all things; "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We tell Jesus good morning and pray our scapular morning offering.

Then we move over to the sofa and have our morning "together" time. We look up the saint of the day and light our candle. A dear friend once gave us globe candle holders representing the different liturgical colors. We check the church calendar for the color of the day and light the insertable candle, which we buy at our church's gift shop.

We read about the saint of the day and also the Daily Mass Readings. The House Cat and Snuggle Bug take turns reading aloud the first reading and the Gospel. I read/sing the Psalm and Buck and Honeybee lead the Alleluia for us. We might reflect for a moment on a line that has touched us or I might have found the Bible story in one of our Children's Picture Bibles to re-tell the story with. Next we incorporate some sort of music. We have been studying songs for Benediction in English and Latin. So we will sing those. Sometimes we will pop in a CD and listen to a song that goes with one of the readings of the day. There are so many wonderful Catholic artist out there! We especially love Danielle Rose, Donna Cori Gibson, and Adrianne Price.

What comes next varies, I may read from:

Once Upon A Time Saints or

Angel Food For Boys and Girls or

Catholic Mosaic or

Our Birds and Their Nestlings

This is such a treasure I stumbled upon on Amazon.

I have reserved an hour block for our morning gathering. By no means is it to the minute, or sometimes even hour. If I'm getting a slow start and the big girls are ready on time, they might go ahead and complete their math lessons before we begin. The important thing is that we do come together sometime in the morning to offer our days to God.

We close our time together by praying The Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, O My Jesus, Come Holy Spirit and the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. We thank God for the gift of homeschooling and ask Him to bless dad in his work and be with all of those we have promised to pray for.

May God Bless You in All You Do!

Celebrating Saint Bernard

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Clairvaux, meaning "The Valley of Light," was the location of the monastery where he served as abbot in his later life. We enjoyed reading about his life over brunch muffins.St. Bernard had a great devotion to Our Lady, and to Jesus Christ Crucified. He greeted Our Lady with a Hail Mary each time he passed her statue. Once, when he greeted her, Our Lady responded, "Hail, Bernard!" This showed him how much his devotion meant to her.

He is the author of the beautiful prayer, the Memorare. Here is the House Cat's copywork illuminating it.

I purchased these beautiful sheets from Notebooking Pages.

May we, like St. Bernard, ask ourselves each day why we are here. May we never forget that our ultimate goal is heaven!

St. Bernard, pray for us!

Math Fun With Buck

Just a quick post to share a couple of fun ways we enjoy math around here :)

Hope your week is blessed!

7 Quick Takes from a Blessed Week

1. This week started off wonderful as all do. We got to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
2. After Mass, we ate the picnic lunch I had packed as we drove to our first faculty meeting of the new school year. It was wonderful seeing so many beautiful friends who are walking this adventurous path of home schooling with us!
3. Monday morning we started our "official" new school year. We are really enjoying our new school area. Our morning gathering time has been so blessed. My morning basket is coming together. I hope to do a post on that soon :) We had fun bowling again this week. It was good to spend time with old and new friends.
4. Buck's doing great on his reading! I'm amazed at how much he remembers after taking time off for summer. When I asked him how he remembers certain things, he says, "Mom, I sound them out!" :)
5. We survived another one of dad's business trips. He's started having to travel some with his job :( We are keeping a grateful heart though. A friend once told us. "The devil has no room in a grateful heart."
6. Took the kids to the library. I normally run in and out picking up and dropping off books. This time, however, we all went in for a leisurely visit. The House Cat went over to the teen section with her sketch pad. She's finding Drawing For Older Children and Teens very helpful. Snuggle Bug gathered a few horse books and The Hobbit to read. Buck had fun gathering movies, books, and creating a leaning tower with them all:) Honeybee found a Cinderella book and a rocking chair her size. As I perused the books, I heard her "reading" the book to herself through the pictures. I wish I had what happened next on video. "They've got it all wrong!" she says to herself. "They've got it all wrong." She proceeds to find the librarian and explain to her how the book she's looking at isn't telling the story the way her Cinderella movie at home does. It was priceless! :)
7. Yesterday was once of those days that explains the title of my blog. My honey's out of town working. Through the grace of God I was able to have a productive school day, cook supper, bathe Buck and Honeybee, put them down for a nap, shower myself, iron all of our clothes, and make it -with the kids- to my monthly Confraternity of Christian Mothers meeting. God truly does give us all we need - When we live for Him!

Have a blessed weekend! Love, Lori

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Our Little Engineer

Buck's been busy making lots of "boy stuff".

A chalkbox car

A bus like "The Duggars" at the gas pump.


Also called a 4th of July car :)

And yesterdays invention, with a little help from Snuggle Bug...

A crane to lift them all!



I guess it's true that kids have more fun with the empty boxes!

First Day of School and Feeling Organized!

Good morning everyone! Today is the "official" first day of the new school year for us. Although we believe homeschool is a way of life - so there is actually no beginning and no end. It is such a beautiful way of life! It is such a blessing to hear my 8th and 5th graders so excited about starting their new books! Thank you Lord for I really want them to ENJOY learning!
I truly believe there is always a silver lining to every cloud. Last night as I was talking with my beloved, I realized the fruit that had come after my recent surgery. Had I not had the recovery time to SIT and rest, I'm positive I would have kept going and going like the Energizer Bunny :)
God provided me with lots of time to thumb through my favorite home schooling catalogs and to talk with our girls about what would be best suited for them this year. I also thankful to so many wonderful bloggers who share awesome ideas with us all!

One in particular, By Sun and Candlelight, shared her file crate system with us. I have begun to use it and I must say I feel so much more organized. It's basically a weekly planner that holds loose paperwork, mail, or whatever you may need to have handy for the week. I kept feeling like I had sticky notes and papers all over the place and could never put my hands on what I needed when I needed it! So, I went to the office supply store and bought a planner and a file crate. First I sat down and filled in as much info as I had for the upcoming school year. Then following Dawn's example, I got to work on my weekly folders. I have one for every week of the year, sort of divided into seasons. Also, there is a folder for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and my favorite book lists.

Here is my planner with my weekly folder kept neatly inside :)

The front of the folder...

Inside the folder...

So, now it's time to get started! Hope ya'll have a blessed week living for God!

Our Cowgirl

Snuggle Bug's first time on her pony, Buddy. A happy little girl!

7 Quick Takes on a Blessed Friday

I have definitely been busy with my blessings lately. We are preparing to start school next week. I feel like I've been preparing for months :) Anyway, here are some things that have been going on around here. Hope your week has been busy with your blessings too!

1. Joined some other homeschoolers for bowling on Monday. Only had to pay for the shoe rental $2 per child! Had a great time! Looking forward to next Monday.
2. Finished ordering our school books for the year. At least for now :) Can't wait for the new ones to come in. (Angel Food for Boys and Girls, CHC: A Year With God, Our birds and their nestlings to name a few.) These will all be part of our morning basket. Thanks Jennifer for such a beautiful idea!
3. Took Snuggle Bug and Buck to meet my parents at the tack shop on Wednesday. They bought a saddle and all of the fixins for Buddy. He's been at the trainer for a few weeks now. We are planning on going out for a visit/ride on Saturday. The kids are super excited about this!
4. Wednesday morning began with Children's Adoration and Benediction at our parish. It was so good to be there. Father Booth did such a nice job talking to the children. He encouraged them to talk to Jesus just as they talk to us (mom and dad). When this was over we walked across the street to the library. We were blessed to spend the day with special friends. I even got to love on my God daughter while she napped :)
5. Got my hair trimmed with my mom.
6. Had a wonderful book group meeting last night. We were finally all able to get together and discuss the first section of Graced and Gifted by Kimberley Hahn. On page 29 she states, "The Proverbs 31 woman ...works with willing hands. Another translation - makes cloth with skillful hands." She asks if there are skills we can acquire from others to help us cloth our family. Come to find out, we have several seamstresses in our group! I'm really hoping to learn to sew skirts with my girls. We all feel so much more feminine dressed in skirts!
7. Today I'm finishin' up our school supply shopping list. We are having a tax free shopping weekend so we are hittin the stores! Have a blessed weekend!

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Wordless Wednesday Robot