Advent Wreath Making

It was our annual Advent Wreath making activity after church yesterday.
Here is ours. Very nicely done I must say.

Mom's and Russell's, aaayyyyuugghh, not so much. Oh I'm kidding. She kept saying it somehow turned into a square. In this case mom the picture does it justice.

Then we got home and did our blessings.

Looking at the Sky on Friday

This is our first time posting for "Looking at the Sky on Friday".

Clouds Rolling over the rough St.Lawrence.

Thanksgiving 09

It was another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner held at Mom's. She is really a great cook and goes ALL OUT my goodness!! Here are the littles at their dinner table.
Here they are giving a Thanksgiving cheer.

Margie Sue got really sick of watching everyone eat but was really amuzed by this cool bouncy seat. Ours is just an empty tray.

Of course the puppies were the biggest hit (aside from dinner itself). Meet Max and Molly, beagle / black lab mutts. They are really adorable.

The kids found the dog kennel pretty fun. Mom said that it will be great to corral them in the summer!

Trying to take them for a walk indoors.

Ooops, Brendan's pup ran out of the picture.

We hope you had a great day yesterday!!

We are blessed to have you all and wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

xoxo

Garland of Thanks

We took our foam leaves from our Thanksgiving tree and turned them into a garland of thanks this year. The girls just strung them together with some thread and we hung them up along our two doorways into the living room. Some of them were blank from years past (each year we add a little more) so this year we added Margie Sue and Spooky Boo! I can guarantee you are up there somewhere.

Friends at Long Last

They are finally buds. (Bandit have you been reading your Bible stories again!!! You are such a good boy.)
They were playing over a piece of rawhide. Bandit would do a little snarl when he had the piece and when Spooky Boo had it she would give him a whine back and forth, back and forth.

"Mom, get outta here with that camera- I can't be caught socializing with this DOG, and DON'T YOU DARE PUT THIS ON THE BLOG!!!! I'll be the laughing stock."

Her little claws kept grabbing him right in the snout. She wouldn't let go but Bandit seemed to enjoy that she brought herself down to earth to play a little. It was a big boost to his pride to play with upper class society.

The Young People's Book of Saints

The Young Person’s Book of Saints is a chronologically organized book of sixty-three Saints that begins in the 1st century and concludes in the 20th century. It gives a brief overview of the lives of these most holy people, revealing not only their God-like characteristics but also their human ones as well. There are well known Saints mentioned as well as those not so familiar.

I thought the book was interesting but a little dry for reading pleasure. It felt more like a text book to me. However, we are to all strive to be Saints and this book has something for everyone. Among those mentioned there are Saints that have arisen from well to do lives and some from poverty, elderly men and women whom made the vow to give themselves to God and those that were children, many that were martyred and some that lived to a ripe old age. If we are to be saint-like there is certainly a Saint in this book that is bound to strike our fancy and speak to us in some way.

One thing that I particularly liked were the examples of stained glass windows found in churches. A few times Hugh Ross Williamson, the author, explained how a Saint may be portrayed in a window. I found this interesting and also found that it answered some of the questions I had regarding windows I had seen in the past. It was also heartwarming to hear of the steadfast, unwavering faith and love that these people had for God.

This book, as the title states, would be good for a young person such as a pre-teen to teen. It gives a nice description of the Saints and also a trip through history from a Christian standpoint.


This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Young People’s Book of Saints .

Reptile Art

We have been learning about animals lately and I thought we should do some art based around different types of animals. The first one we attempted was the reptile. I found a reptile print online and Georgia traced it on to some heavier paper for me.
Then the girls helped me to do a fact sheet about reptiles to go along with our artwork.

We gathered our supplies which consisted of two different colored dried beans, lentils, peas (etc), glue and the traced picture. In our cupboard we found some lentils and some split peas so we used those.

The girls put some glue on and then glued the dried lentils/peas on.

It turned out wonderfully. I can't wait to try another animal!

Toddler Play Time with Nursery Rhymes

This week we chose "Ten Little Indians" as our rhyme.
I made these silly finger puppets to help us sing the song and count to ten (I got the idea from a pair of gloves Elsie Rae brought over once). As you can see Emmy's sisters helped out.
Her Daddy did too!

Singing the song for Dad.

Counting

Peek Emeline!

homemade dreamcatcher

We made a homemade dreamcatcher. "The earliest dreamcatchers, commonly called Sacred Hoops, were crafted by parents to protect their children from nightmares. Newborns were given charms that were woven in the form of spider webs to protect their dreams so their innocence would not be harmed by the tricksters of the night. The dream catcher charm would be hung from the hoop on the cradle." I went out and cut some vines that grow all over the place and we bound them in a circle. Then I started the first loop around by taking yarn and making half hitch knots about every two inches.
The kids then started putting beads on their yarn and looping it through the loops I had made.

Emeline made one too. She not only is a great sugar-coater but is also great at stringing beads!

We attached some yarn and feathers and there you have it, a Native American dream catcher.

Georgia's red white and blue one.

Oh darn you can't see her colors. She thought about hers too. One is blue for the Blue Bird, white for a dove, and yellow for the American Goldfinch.

And Emeline's! I had wanted to do this for a while and it actually turned out to be really fun with beautiful results don't you think?

kisses for grandma

Grandma B. recently had surgery so we thought we would send over a bunch of kisses by making blossom cookies, peanut butter kisses cookies, peanut butter blossoms, etc. (I've heard them called a 100 different names - whatever you want to call them.)
A pile of (blurry) kisses waiting for Grandma.

Emeline was a good sugar coater. She put on this serious face and went to town.

All three of them started the rolling but Emeline ended up wth it all between her fingers. Needless to say we stopped that pretty quick! That's when she became our "sugar coater" because she was soooo special and we thought she could handle such an important job.

Grandma B. is home and well. (She had her gall bladder removed.)

Two babies playing

The cat goes nuts in the morning chasing the kids all over. There is however, a bit of friction with the dog. He loves her but she can't get off her high horse to give him a chance. Otherwise she is settling in very nicely.