{This and That}

First of all: I just wanted to share that I will be speaking at two conferences this July, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast...

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On July 13-14, I'll be in Philadelphia speaking at the Charlotte Mason Educational Center's annual summer retreat. The topic is "Awakening to a Thinking Love: Its Duties and Delights," and Amy Snell (@leaninghowtolive) and I will be giving two days of talks and workshops that consider the role we as mother-teachers play in the homeschool. I'll be talking about pre-reading as schole, how weekly planning sessions and weekly meetings can bring peace to your days, timetables and checklists that work together to support independent learners, the power of end-of-term reflection and assessment, balancing family management systems with the needs of each individual child in your home, and more. These are some of my favorite topics to ponder and chat about! And I'm especially excited for the opportunity to meet in person some of my dearest e-friends on the other side of the country. I'm also hoping I'll meet some blog readers too -- so if you're in that area, I hope you'll sign up to join us!  Registration is now open and going fast!

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On July 25-28, I will be at the CMI's Western Conference in Southern California. I'll be giving workshops on exams and modern foreign language -- as well as spending lots of time connecting with West Coast mamas, I hope!.

If you will be at either of these events, please let me know. I want to know whom to look out for! :)

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Second, I realized last night that my blog comments were not coming through to my email for some reason for the past few weeks! So if you asked me a question or left me a message, I am going through and responding this morning. I am sorry for the delay!
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My #4 and #5, Xavier and Bridget, received their First Holy Communion on the feast of Pentecost. It was a blessed day!

We always gift our children their own holy water font for First Communion. These two were so excited to see what theirs would look like.

Aren't they lovely? (You can find them here and here!)

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Drew celebrated his 4th birthday, and Damien turned ten months!

It seems like we have a birthday every month in this house...

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A couple weeks ago, I hosted the @charlottemasonirl account all about cultivating restful, happy, holy Sundays. I'll be following up here with a post later this month detailing what Sundays look like in our home.  For now, you can read all the fantastic traditions and tips shared during the week on Instagram.

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We had our spring Shakespeare Festival a few weeks ago!  It is always a delight to get together with these families and enjoy Shakespeare together.

Gianna immortalized the event with a sketch of our family's performance. :)

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We also had our end-of-year piano recital for my oldest four.

It has been a month of events and we were very ready to head into a quiet June!

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I hope you're having a wonderful break so far or are finishing your year strong in these last weeks. What are you up to this summer?