{This and That}

Hi there! Can you believe it's November?! Which also means I am now in the third trimester with Baby Cruz -- just nine weeks left. :)

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Last month, I had the chance to attend the Schole Sisters meetup down in San Luis Obispo. What a treat! We had lunch and then a short walk to the beautiful Mission.

Funny thing: I have done podcasts with both Cindy and Pam and have worked with Dawn Garrett for years online but had never met them in person. So this was so exciting. And it was so nice to see Mystie and Brandy again too!

I took a couple photos in the Mission museum to draw into my Book of Centuries.

I find now that wherever I go, I gravitate toward the artifacts and decorative arts sections thanks to beginning my BoC a few years ago.

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Three September birthday girls had super celebrations!

I am so blessed in these beautiful daughters! Our Baby #10 is scheduled to share a birthday month with Cate (my only girl NOT born in September), so we'll likely have three girls in September and two in January. So special.

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We have moved on to Term 2! So far, this year has gone more smoothly than any year so far. We have had time for almost "all the things," and everyone seems happy and thriving. There have been setbacks and struggles here and there, but really we are all enjoying our school days.

I totally expect things to get wild up in here once Baby 10 arrives, so we have been moving through the year full steam ahead with no breaks. I'm glad everyone has been happily on board. I'll admit: I could use a break! But I am thankful that they don't seem to need one.

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Since the baby will likely arrive just after our Christmas break, I have planned exams to be semesterly: so one full set at Christmas and one at the end of the year. But we still wanted to do a shortened set of exams at the end of our first term for our Family Subjects that change term by term: artist study, composer study, recitation, dance, solfege, special study, etc. We took a Friday afternoon and did an hour of narrations and an hour of recitations/performance with our usual celebration. It was simple and fun!

We had our usual hodge podge of end-of-term treats:

supplies for bookbinding - more on this in an upcoming {Getting Started with Handicrafts} post!
a couple additional pairs of embroidery scissors so everyone now has his own
more twistables for the little boys
silhouette paper (we are going to do some silhouette work this term)
chalk crayons for Clara

and a few related books:
Devaney's Blood and Guts: The True Story of General George S. Patton
Bold Leaders of World War I
Moody's Mary Emma & Company (the next for them to read in the Little Britches series)
The Story of the U.S. Coast Guard
The Gettysburg Address, illustrated by
With the Bible Through the Church Year

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This past week we had Halloween, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day, so we went a little light on studies to accommodate the observances.

But we also had the last Latin class of the term for my oldest two, in which they gave their recitations -- Roman dress required! It was nice to have it coincide with Halloween week because they were planning on being early Christian martyrs anyway (St. Tarciscius and St. Cecilia), so we planned for double duty garb. ;)

Recitations:

And my merry band of saints for Halloween:

Vincent actually switched it up at the last minute after seeing Xavier's St. George costume and decided to be St. Martin of Tours. :)

One of our favorite stops is always the fire station by our house. The firefighters are always so happy to get visitors trick-or-treating! We don't get a ton of kids in our neighborhood.

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Last but definitely not least, I announced last weekend that the 2019 CMEC Retreat Package is now up for sale! Head over to check out the full description as well as read about our suggestions for using both individally and in groups. :)

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Hope your November is off to a good start!