{This and That} :: Thanksgiving Week

Hello friends! It is hard to believe we are in late November now. We have a short school week this week for Thanksgiving, and then we're officially halfway through our school year! I can't believe how fast this school year is flying by. 

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First happy news: my oldest two were confirmed!

Their sponsor got them these watercolored saint portraits from The Fig and Thimble. They love them!

For their confirmation saints, Gianna picked St. John the Evangelist and Vincent picked St. John Bosco. Both choices were unexpected but made sense to me in hindsight.

We are studying Titian this term, so we thought it would be neat to get Gianna a framed print of Titian's St. John the Evangelist on the Isle of Patmos. Isn't it striking? Vincent got a couple books about St. John Bosco that he has already started reading.

Gianna asked me for an at-home Confirmation Retreat, so I prepared a week's worth of short readings for them to do alongside their novena to the Holy Ghost. I pulled completely from religious books we already had on our shelves -- a little wisdom from St. John Vianney, Cardinal Newman, the Baltimore Catechism, Mother Loyola, and more. It is so nice to have a good selection of books to choose from for projects like this! I am always thankful to my younger self for taking the time to scour used bookstores and church library sales and investing in a long-term library of our own.

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Emilia just turned ten months old! She is so playful and determined. She loves all the attention she gets from her siblings and plays Peek-a-Boo, Pat-a-Cake, and This Little Piggy. She is also a full-time walker now. Such a fun age! If only she could start napping a little more reliably... :)

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We did the seasonal clothing switch-out last week. This is one of the chores I dread each year, simply because of the sheer number of children and clothes. My kids have capsule wardrobes -- very manageable and streamlined. They all wear a "uniform" of sorts, as you may have noticed from posts through the years. But still, if I were a millionnaire, I would donate the kids' wardrobes at the end of each season and start fresh every time! There is just something about this task that always ends up being more complicated than it ought to be.

However, I'm finding that the chore has been getting progressively easier -- even though I have more kids than any other year, having more bigs than littles really has helped so much! And this year, my to-buy list is unprecedently short: just a couple pairs of replacement leggings for my girls and a few tops and bottoms for Vincent, my oldest, who grew several inches this year. Gianna is now as tall as I am and has been for about a year, so I think she's close to finished growing. All of her clothes from last year still fit, which has never happened for any of my children, ever! A new stage of parenting, for sure.

I also gave all of my girls (except Emilia) haircuts this past week! All but Clara had it down to their waists and were super overdue for a cut, but they LOVED their long hair. They finally consented and they love the shorter hair too, thank goodness.

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Are you getting started with Christmas shopping? I am hoping to take some time over Thanksgiving weekend to look through my lists and begin making plans. We keep things very simple around here, just a few things per person, but times that by ten and it's still a pretty big task. But I have been quite determined to get my shopping done before Advent this year.

(Speaking of Thanksgiving, I have a post from ten years ago here on the blog that I always share this time of year: Cooking Up a Thanksgiving "Feast.")

I also took and ordered photos for our Christmas cards this weekend. Christmas cards take a good amount of time to put together and send out, but they always feel worth it to me -- and especially this year. Sending something personal during a year of very little personal interaction is the kind of hopeful statement I want to end the year on.

I am planning to pull together a few quick gift ideas here on the blog this weekend if I get a chance, but in case you're wanting suggestions now, I have a bunch of favorite links from last year compiled here: {This and That} :: Thanksgiving and Advent.

And since we are almost at Advent, you can read more about Advents past in our home. This year we'll once again be lighting the Advent wreath, choosing Christkindls, observing some special feast days, and decluttering and deep cleaning with a hopeful but penitential spirit! And we'll be adding the free printable Advent calendar from Lydia -- so lovely.

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Our Halloween was quiet -- there was no trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, so we stayed home and had an impromptu party. We told the kids they had 45 minutes to dress up as a saint with items from the constume bin. Then we spent the evening playing board games and making cookies. In times like these, I'm grateful that we always have enough people for a party here at home!

The hit of the night was Pictionary, which we don't play that often...but every time we do play it, I think we ought to play it more! It is such a fun game if you have preschoolers in the mix.

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Justin turned five! Besides books and a Schleich animal, he got embroidery thread for making friendship bracelets and a bunch of plastic canvas squares for "sewing" with yarn. He was so pleased and has done little else since then. He is truly a delightful kid and I am soaking up this age.

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Scenes from the past couple weeks...

Animalium has a helpful diagram to accompany Life and Her Children

More Fesole -- this time, a still life!

Vincent set up his still life as well, but hasn't finished his painting yet -- isn't it perfect for fall?

Free time painting for Bridget after studying Titian's Saint Christopher

Fireside prepping (my favorite!) for the Form Meetings with the CMEC

California fall!

And some recent work in clay over the past two weeks. We all love this medium!

(We have these silpats and Chavant Clayette clay -- which is unfortunately out of stock right now, but I'll add the link when it's back -- both thanks to recommendations from the art teacher at the CMEC. The Fall Mini-Retreat immersions were so helpful in giving us a good start.)

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Well, that's it for now! What are you up to this holiday weekend -- and what's on your menu? I am going with a classic Thanksgiving line-up this year, though we'll do chicken instead of turkey since my husband prefers it. But I am looking forward to teaching my girls to bake apple pie! I have made it by myself in the past but skipped the past couple years. Now I have eager helpers, and I think we'll have a good time perfecting the method. :)

And before I go, I want to say too that I am grateful to the kind community of readers who read along, leave comments, and send emails -- thank you for your encouragement and I wish you a wonderful week!

(Links above may be Amazon affiliate links -- thanks for your support!)

The Twelve Days and Beyond

Welcome back! It was been a delightful break from this space as we celebrated the wonders of the season.

I love that the Church gifts us twelve days to immerse ourselves in the beauty and joy of Christmas Day.

Our family finds it pretty simple to celebrate through the whole Twelve Days -- I think it's because we have kept our tone in Advent penitential and preparatory. We don't do Christmasy things during Advent if we can at all help it. We bake cookies, but we don't eat them. We buy gifts and wrap them up, and there they sit. We wait on parties, on outings, on fancy food, on even decorations.

This is not the only way to observe the season, of course. BUT when you have spent Advent as a Little Lent, you need more than one day to feast afterward! It's a welcome stretch of delight in the Word made flesh.

That said, our Twelve Days is nothing all that complex. Little special gifts of activities or outings. Plenty of time for family and rest.  During those Twelve Days, we do all the things everyone else was doing during December: singing along to carols, hot cocoa, Christmas movies, crafting, reading under covers by the fireplace, baking together. (A friend recommended this post, and I was very heartened to see that Auntie Leila's celebration so mimics our own. A lovely post with rich and simple ideas.)

In the past we have done an Epiphany party, which is such a perfect time to invite friends over to celebrate! Lots of cultural traditions to draw on. This year, we did a couple outings to visit nearby family and opened a small gift each day. Our theme was card and board games, and we found a few real gems. (The favorites so far are Bold and Qwixx, both new to me but lots of fun!)

We moved the kings a bit each day, journeying along with them. We read Christmas poetry and continued our Messiah readings.

Another wonderful reason for the Twelve Days -- you aren't "behind" if you don't finish up your Morning Basket plans before Christmas! ;)

Then Epiphany arrived, the end of the Christmas Octave. This year Gianna gifted the family a lovely Epiphany ornament that we hung up that morning, and we had our Procession of the Three Kings and a fancy dinner and house blessing. It all felt festive.

And the rest of the world left Christmastide behind. But we didn't! From Epiphany to the Baptism of Our Lord, we are still deep in the season. And beyond that -- for the rest of January, we celebrate the fruits of His Divine Infancy.

When the rest of the world has packed up and moved along, we are there keeping vigil with Our Lady, pondering the audacious humility that is the Incarnation.

We go back to school, to work -- and we aim to maintain childlike simplicity in the world, where we're called. We maintain a Christmas spirit in the context of everyday life. We look to the model of the Divine Child as we encounter the challenges of our vocation. We ease back in, hopefully maintaining the lessons of humility and simplicity that we have learned, to "ordinary" life.

We begin to pack up the decorations; like Christ, we take on a new flesh, and our home does too. By Candlemas, we're officially turning our eyes toward Lent.

The cycle of feast and fast in our lives as Catholics blessedly mimics the ebbs and flows of the natural world and of salvation history. Through the liturgical year, we enter more deeply into the human condition as we remember: nothing is eternal this side of heaven, everything changes but God.

When we know that, when we aim at emptying ourselves to allow the light of the Divine Mystery to shine through us, we can elevate the ordinary to extraordinary.


"But it takes the presence of children to help us to realise the idea of the Eternal Child. The Dayspring is with the children, and we think their thoughts and are glad in their joy; and every mother knows out of her own heart's fulness what the Birth at Bethlehem means. Those of us who have not children catch echoes. We hear the wondrous story read in church, the waits chant the tale, the church-bells echo it, the years that are no more come back to us, and our hearts are meek and mild, glad and gay, loving and tender, as those of little children; but, alas, only for the little while occupied by the passing thought. Too soon the dreariness of daily living settles down upon us again, and we become a little impatient, do we not, of the Christmas demand of joyousness."

"But it is not so where there are children. The old, old story has all its first freshness as we tell it to the eager listeners; as we listen to it ourselves with their vivid interest it becomes as real and fresh to us as it is to them. Hard thoughts drop away like scales from our eyes; we are young once more with the children's young life, which, we are mysteriously made aware, is the life eternal. What a mystery it is!" (Charlotte Mason's Parents and Children)


"And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them. Which when the disciples saw, they rebuked them. But Jesus, calling them together, said: Suffer children to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Amen, I say to you: Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a child, shall not enter into it." (Luke 18:15-17)

Living Lent

It's hard to believe we're less than a week away from Ash Wednesday.  But on the other hand, signs of spring around town remind me that Easter is not so very far off.

Within the traditional Catholic liturgy, the season of Septuagesima marks the beginning of voluntary penance in preparation for proper Lenten practice to come.  The Alleluia and Gloria have been missing from our Mass for the past few weeks, and our Morning Basket has begun to mirror that tone:



Marigold Hunt's St. Patrick Summer
Inos Biffi's The Way of the Cross
Jennifer's Lent for Children: A Thought A Day
Attende Domine and Stabat Mater
The Divine Praises in English
Confiteor in Latin





The wonderful thing about living the liturgical year with children year after year is that after a decade, we have our favorite ways of marking the season that we do over and over again, and we can spend time pondering those activities instead of researching and planning.  Our Lent this year is going to look very similar to last year's and the year's before--and the children wouldn't have it any other way.  (All you mothers know just what I mean.  An activity once done becomes a "tradition"!)

In light of that, I wanted to point you to a few posts from years past:

A Simple Lent for Children
For Ash Wednesday, a Thought and a Prayer (including a link to the printable hymn card shown below)
Lent in Our Home

Enjoy and wishing you thoughtful weekend as you prepare your own Lenten family observances!

{This and That}

First, I'm guest-posting today about the hands-on aspects of a CM education over at Afterthoughts.  A teaser:

So when I hear "CM isn't 'hands on' like other curricula," I actually might agree: "Yes, CM isn't hands-on like other curricula."  But that doesn't mean a Charlotte Mason education isn't hands-on.  Rather, Miss Mason proposes a way of being hands-on that complements her vision for education, respects the child, encourages the science of relations, maintains efficiency in lesson time, and has the student doing the mind-work rather than the educator.

Want to read the rest?  Head over to Afterthoughts!  

(And here's the index for Busted: 31 Days of Charlotte Mason Myths.  If you're new to Charlotte Mason homeschooling--and even if you're not--this series contains lots of inspiring reading.) 

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Last week I had the opportunity to meet up with Amber from Flare of Light.  She is a fellow Catholic CM-er and it was such a joy to visit with her and her lovely children.  Amber has been an inspiration to me in her nature adventures (including bears in her backyard!), her CM-inspired personal reading schedule, and so much more.

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I can hardly believe the end of October is already here, but All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are coming up this weekend!  Last year I created a printable prayer card (in Latin) for you to take to the cemetery for your All Souls' Day devotions.  Remember, we have an opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence for the Poor Souls every day of next week!

+ Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them.  And may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen. +

~~~

One of the books from the stacks I posted on Monday was an ex-library copy of the out-of-print Chimney-Corner Stories, a collection of simple folk tales illustrated by Lois Lenski.

The outside looks fairly non-descript, but inside...

...just oozing with vintage charm.  

I added it to my Kindergarten basket, so the littles and I have been reading a couple stories a week, and Lenski's line drawings turn a good storybook into a great one.  My preschoolers call it "the gray book" and clamor for me to grab it every time I sit down to read.

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I caught up on my blog reading over the weekend, and I thought I'd share a couple recent favorites:

Heather always writes so eloquently and I feel like she is a kindred spirit in many ways.  Her recent posts on Making Connections and Mother Culture were particularly inspiring.  (Can you believe that nature journal?  Lovely.)

I have been a long-time reader of Erin's bearing blog, and I am greatly appreciating her series on applying Salesian spirituality to motherhood.  Her description of her Morning Exercise, for example, has made me rethink my own prayer routine.  And her post about not apologizing for blogging?  So right on.

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That's it for today!  Wishing you a happy Wednesday.

St. Michael the Archangel...

Popping in quickly this Sunday morning to share: I made a novena card for the traditional feast of St. Michael the Archangel, coming up on September 29th, and I thought your family might enjoy using it too.

Wishing you a lovely Sunday!

Lent in Our Home

Ash Wednesday is coming this week, which heralds the season of Lent.  Since we celebrate according to the traditional calendar, we have already begun some of our Lenten observances.  Traditionally, the "Lenten cycle" begins a bit before Ash Wednesday with the season called Septuagesima.  This season is composed of three weeks: Sepusagesima (referring to it's falling roughly 70 days before Easter), Sexagesima ("60 days"), and Quinquagesima ("50 days"--the Sunday before Ash Wednesday).  These three weeks mark a transition toward the penitential season to come.  At Mass, the Alleluia and Gloria are already skipped, and the liturgical color has already changed to violet.  But the tone is not yet somber--it gives us time to consider our penances and to prepare our minds and hearts toward Our Lord and His Passion.  And for the home-educating mother, it gives us time to bake our salt-dough-crown of thorns and figure out where we stored the Stations of the Cross box from last year. ;)

There are plenty of lovely websites detailing the many ways this holy season can be made real for little ones, so I'll just share briefly how we'll be marking our Lenten journey.  (You can see last year's plans here.  You'll see they're much the same as this year's plans.  I love that I don't have to reinvent everything with each new year now that we have family traditions in place!)

:: Burying the Alleluia.  I just love this tradition.  At our old parish, they actually did bury it--right outside the chapel in the garden, following the Septuagesima liturgy.  At our home, I just tuck our adorned Alleluias into a box.  The box gets put away, then wrapped and placed on our Easter breakfast table.  The children open it on Easter morning and process with their Alleluias around the house before hanging them on our home altar.  It's quite festive. :)

:: Lenten Reading.  I'll be slowly reading Inos Biffi's The Way of the Cross with the children this Lent.  I personally am looking forward to reading I Believe In Love and Sermons of St. Francis de Sales of Lent.  My children will go through a spiritual book of their choice--I think they'll be trading off with King of the Golden City.  We'll also be revisiting Jenn's "Lent: A Thought a Day" once again this year.  It makes a perfect Lenten addition to our Morning Basket.  (As does this calendar, a favorite with my children every year!)

:: Memory Work.  As during Advent, our memory work takes on a Lenten transformation.  Last year, we learned "O Sacred Head Surrounded" and the Prayer Before a Crucifix.  This year, we'll be learning the Stabat Mater in Latin and English and the De Profundis (Psalm 129) in English.

:: Stations of the Cross.  I think most Catholic families would consider this an essential part of Lenten Fridays.  I like to pray the Stations with our Stations box, which has been a big hit with all my children.  We use the meditations from a couple vintage pamphlets I picked up that are the very same as the ones Jenn has shared.  They are truly lovely.

:: Crown of Thorns.  This is a wonderful tangible analogy for sacrifice--as we remove a thorn from Our Lord's crown with each sacrifice we make, so our good deeds bring comfort to Our Lord's Heart in His Passion.  We did a personal one for each of the children last year and they really enjoyed it, so we'll be doing that again this time around.

:: Fasting and Sacrifices.  We all have special sacrifices we're offering up in the hope of drawing closer to Our Lord during these forty days by entering into a "desert" as He did.

These traditions will carry us through the next few weeks until we get to Holy Week, which has a beautiful set of traditions of its own.

Wishing you a blessed start to Lent!

All Saints' Day Party - and a prayer card!

This is our third year celebrating All Saints' Day with friends.  We always have a very modest celebration--the highlight for all the kids, really, is seeing their friends and dressing up!--but we do try to include a few simple games and treats.  This year we went to a morning Mass and our friends went to an evening Mass, so we had a small get-together midday.

Here is my personal merry band of little saints for this year!

St. Joseph, St. Bernadette, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Juan Diego  -
waiting for friends to arrive

The children stayed busy with a few games:

Name That Saint!

Coloring pages

Canonize the Saints ring toss - made by our friends

Pin Tape the Sword on St. Michael - made by Gianna

Our little get-together was quick, easy, fun, and nearly free.  I will not be winning any best-liturgical-year blogger awards, but if you're looking to put together party decorations and games in an hour, I'm your woman!

party decorations courtesy of my girls

Everyone went home with a Prayers for the Holy Souls card to use at their indulgenced cemetery visit(s) this coming week.  Did you know you can earn an indulgence DAILY from November 1st through 8th for visiting a cemetery and praying a Credo and a Pater for the Poor Souls?  Going on All Souls' Day itself is wonderful, but there are lots of opportunities throughout the week if you can't fit it in that day.

And here's a link to the PDF of the prayer card--feel free to download it if you'd like to use it with your own families.

Happy All Saints' Day to you and yours!

Veni, Sancte Spiritus

On this Pentecost Sunday, the holiest feast of the year after Easter, I'm thankful for

:: a birthday cake for the Church (with a red candle, naturally)

:: children who were thrilled to be receiving their second Holy Communion (it was a blessed First Holy Communion last week!)

:: a husband who surprises me with an apostolic blessing from the Vatican for our upcoming anniversary

:: free time for nature journaling and a bit of writing about our vacation (more on that soon)

:: a happy, holy fifty days of Easter

:: the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the prayers of the Church

Come, Holy Spirit,

send forth the heavenly

radiance of your light.

Come, father of the poor,

come, giver of gifts,

come, light of the heart.

Greatest comforter,

sweet guest of the soul,

sweet consolation.

In labor, rest,

in heat, temperance,

in tears, solace.

O most blessed light,

fill the inmost heart

of your faithful.

Without your grace,

there is nothing in us,

nothing that is not harmful.

Cleanse that which is unclean,

water that which is dry,

heal that which is wounded.

Bend that which is inflexible,

fire that which is chilled,

correct what goes astray.

Give to your faithful,

those who trust in you,

the sevenfold gifts.

Grant the reward of virtue,

grant the deliverance of salvation,

grant eternal joy.