The unseasonable autumn warmth made for a wonderful afternoon and evening in Boston last week when Grandpa was in town for a day.  We ate at the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously running business establishment in the country, and the origin of the toothpick.

Last week we went to see the Spirit of America production with two other families and it was fabulous!  We left early, so we got great "ring side" seats, and I was glad we went during the day along with all the school groups.  The kids did the wave, did a lot of hooting and hollering in appreciation--they even waved their open cell phones during the slow songs, LOL (I remember the Bic lighters.)

The first half dramatically presented the history of the Army while the second half showcased the drilling and musical talents of our soldiers.  The kids really liked the whole production but I think they were particularly impressed by the drill team.

Hey, boys--don't leave the sticks in the yard!

I work in an emergency department, about 20 hours a month.  This morning ds#2, while sitting on the couch waiting for me to come up and start school (or at least that is what I asked him to do,) fell and hit the back of his head on the base of the banister railing.  He came down and told me he was bleeding.

The wound was not very big, but it was gaping.  I could not seal it with a bandage or glue it because of his hair.  I knew it needed no more than 2 staples.  Off to the ED went the four of us.

Trying to keep 3 highly-active boys entertained in a small ED room for 2 hours is a challenge, especially when people keep stopping in to talk to me (mom's distracted, let's touch everything we can in the room!)

Afterward we had lunch and made it home just in time to head back out to the library for me to teach biology, and then off to our homeschool catechism class afterward. Whew!

Friday we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.  It is a small, lovely museum that my rambunctious boys could tolerate for about two hours this time around.

In the theater we saw Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

In the art studio the kids explored Thick and Thin (my kids' favorite spot.)

In the library, with the hundreds of hardcover picture books for all to read, we listened to two books during story hour.

The art galleries have one room dedicated to Eric Carle with a fun picture scavanger hunt fot the kids. The second room featured the Golden Age of Children's Illistration: Kate Greenway, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Ernest H. Shepard, and more. I even picked up a Kate Greenway poetry book at a used bookstore on the way home.

With summer fast coming to an end, our family has been enjoying the glorious weather.  Our homeschooling friends live on a hill perfect for kite flying. 

It's the first time, really, my kids have done this--they thoroughly enjoyed themselves! The moms had to spend some time untangling strings with so many kites going. (It's actually somewhat therapeutic and rewarding, LOL.)

What a wonderful way to spend a glorious day!

July has been so busy, we scarcely spent a day at home!  One of the highlights was when a group of homeschoolers chartered a bus to take us to the doors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.  I took ds#1 with me.  We all agreed that we need to make this an annual event!

Our friends arranged this trip as part of their "Country Club" since the country they were studying was Egypt.  They called this trip "Camp Cairo" and focused on the Egyptian collection at the Met.  Each child was given an artifact to find.  Afterwards we explored other areas of this massive building.  Here's a slide show of the event. 

This annual event is a family favorite!  OSV is filled with encampments and reenactors for visitors to explore and watch.  This year we met up with several other families.

During the day they have a battle, complete with all the BOOMS! 

It started to rain by the end of the battle so we sought shelter in the Parsonage barn to await the minstrel.  We were treated to several songs and stories before heading on to Kidstory, a place where kids can dress up and play in kitchen, store, and barn areas.  We lingered at bit in the bookstore, where I picked up Underground Railroad for Kids on sale, before finally heading home.  I can't wait for next year!

This is our second year of buying local produce through Heaven's Harvest Farm community-supported agriculture (CSA.)  We pay for an entire season of produce in March that gets delivered mid-June through October, and yesterday was our first delivery!

This week we received:

• Strawberries
• Zucchini
• Cilantro
• Romaine and Green-leaf lettuces
• Bok choi
• Mustard greens
• Collard greens
• Kale
• A potted thyme plant

My kids immediately devoured the strawberries (I had to hold some back for Dad) and we enjoyed a green-leaf salad for dinner.  Today ds#1 ate plain bok choi while Ds#2&3 ate Ants on an Asian Log (bok choi topped with peanut butter and raisins.)  I stir-fried the leaves in oil and garlic, and threw in a few frozen shrimp--delicious!  I'm bringing the kale with me to Prudence Island this weekend so my mother-in-law can show me how to make Portuguese kale soup with authentic chorizo sausage.

My kids find it interesting that the produce comes directly from a farm.  They view it as better than other produce and are more willing to try out some of the new things.  It's a new sign of summer in our house.

The latest edition is posted!  It is really growing and is full of lots of great information.

Today ends the Easter season and Ordinary Time begins, or continues really.  As the name implies, it is the parts of the liturgical year not part of the other seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.) The priest wears green vestments for hope and growth during this season.

For our family, we are winding down our school year.  Seven weeks left, and with each week another curriculum will end until we are left with nothing but our literature.

Today, we actually did some art!  Nothing formal--it was sparked by our Come Look with Me: Enjoying at Art with Children book by Gladys Blizzard.  We were looking at Jonathan Eastman Johnson's The Old Stagecoach (1871)

She asks if you (the reader) could draw you and your friends playing on a vehicle.  At first, ds#2 was reluctant but cheerfully joined in with ds#1's enthusiasm.  They drew spaceships, solar systems, and constellations.  I even let them use the oil pastels and the Elmer's paint-in-the-brush, which moved on to glitter pom poms and glue.

Ds#1 surprisingly, instead of moving to paint and pom poms, decided to make his own newspaper.  After stapling some pages together and leaving others loose (just like the real paper) he wrote some articles, and even glued in one tiny pom pom.  He then put it in the mail box for dh to get with the mail when he got home.

It's not the Nobel Prize, or a scientific breakthrough, or a prominent position, or the next great novel, I know.  It's Ordinary Time.

Day nine of the Novena to the Holy Spirit for the Seven Gifts. 

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday.  We wear red, and the priest's vestments are red, to remind us of the fiery tongues of the Holy Spirit as it came upon the apostles.  "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, which set upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit..."  Acts 2:2-4a.

I just finished posting grades for the paramedic class I teach at the community college.  This is my second sign of summer, with our homeschool co-op ending being the first sign.  Finishing week 36 of our family schedule is the third--the official start of summer!

Day six of the Novena to the Holy Spirit for the Seven Gifts

We are going to actually try to grow edible things in our back yard.  I have long grown culinary herbs and tomatoes in pots, but I've never had a garden.  Neither has dh.  We're going to try, none the less, with help from my friends... 

We actually went to buy some plants today.  Peppermint for the strawberry pot; leeks, red onions, shallots, and cauliflower for the garden...seeds for carrots, zucchini, beets, bush beans, and scallions.

Ds#1 really wanted to have part of the garden, so I told him he could have the whole thing.  I would help him, of course.  He was so excited he had to tell his friends and his father.  As soon as we got home he went right to work raking it.

He is very enthusiastic, and I hope he stays interested in it--he certainly loves to consume the products!

Day three of the Novena to the Holy Spirit for the Seven Gifts

I am coming to terms with the fact that ds#1 has ADHD.  No, I mean he really does have it.  I actually feel so much better now that I have said out loud what I always suspected.  I have been thinking and blogging a lot about putting my trust in Christ regarding school, to stop being so obsessed with the schedule, to have my children learn together, to do more fun teaching.  This is where He led me, and I realize all of that prepared me for this diagnosis.  Ds#1 is in the best possible environment he can be in; he would have had many more academic and social issues if he had been in school.  And he's the same ds#1 he's always been.  Jesus, we trust in you...

The latest collection is available at The Family Zoo

As you can see, I’ve changed the look of my blog!  I hope to fill it with more resources for Catholic Charlotte Mason homeschooling, and continue my personal musings.  Maybe I’ll even host the CM blog carnival now that I’m getting the hang of customizing the html!

Christ is risen!  Happy Easter, day 4 of 8.

Dh is on vacation this week, so I was able to take a trip to my favorite used book store.  Books are not catalogued, and hand-priced by the owner.  It takes me a couple of hours to look through the Old Stuff and Kids sections, and today I found some real gems!

An 1896 hardcover copy of Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin in great condition.

David Macaulay’s Cathedral and Underground in hardcover with dust jackets for $6 each.

Large hardcovers of Tomie dePaola’s An Early American Christmas and Walter Edmonds The Matchlock Gun.

A pocket-sized 1897 copy of Love-Songs of Childhood by Eugene Field.  While it does not have Winken, Blinken, and Nod, it does have The Duel, which I love!

Joan of Arc by Josephine Poole.  Beautiful illustrations; told in the Catholic tradition.

American Heritage Junior Library Americans in Space and a Troll Young Biography of Thomas Alva Edison, both very cheap.

And the most interesting book is a thick, oversized, hardcover, Mylar-wrapped dust jacketed book called The World in 1492.  The lead author is Jean Fritz, since she writes the first section about Europe, but the book also has sections on Asia, Africa, Australia & Oceania, and The Americas in 1492, each by a different author.  It contains a lot of photographs and color graphics.  I’m looking forward to reading through it. 

And to think I didn't buy a single science book. 

The trip was good for my soul.  Thanks, Dh!

Yesterday ds#1 turned 9—yes, a St. Patrick’s Day baby.  As I mentioned, yesterday was also the day Fr. S does the televised Mass in the chapel of the cathedral and so we went.  The kids thought it was a great adventure, yet none of us ever anticipated just how special it would be.

We entered the door not quite knowing where to go and Fr. S was right there—and he asked ds#1 to altar serve the Mass!  He was very excited, and his brothers were impressed, too.  Ds#2 & 3 and I sat with Sr. J and other people I know from the parish.  Ds#1 did a great job!  After the final blessing Fr S asked ds#2 & 3 to come up to the altar (ds#3 refused) and we all sang Happy Birthday.  To finish it all, the crew at the chapel gave us a DVD of the whole event.  We all got a real kick out of watching the video later.

The rest of the day was a real whirlwind—driving down to see my sister-in-law and niece from Virginia at my moms, spending time at the mall with them, driving back home to make the cake, having them come to our house for the party, going back to church for the final Lenten scripture study class, and heading out to a friend’s house to have a new Mary Kay representative practice her skills on us.  I was a bit tired at the end of it all.

It was a special memory for our family, especially for ds#1.  Thanks Fr. S!

The news is chilling.  A California court orders a family to send their children to public school.  Read the details here.

HSLDA is urging people from across the country to electronically sign up for this petition to "depublish" the decision.  As of this writing, over 82,000 have signed, including our family.  You do not have to be a member of HSLDA to sign.

I changed the name of my science blog basically to reflect it's broad science scope.  Charlotte Mason focused heavily on nature studies for younger children, so I did not want people to think that my blog was just for Nature Studies or CM HSers.  At Home Science seemed a better choice.  I've finished copying over the entries (though I lose the comments  ) as well as changing LibraryThing, Del.icio.us, and my blidget.  I think I found it all--good thing the blog wasn't that big yet...

Come pay me a visit at http://AtHomeScience.blogspot.com !

I had it all planned out for Advent.  We would still do "school" during the morning, like always, but instead of our regular books we would do Advent activities, make gifts, do some lapbooking, do some living math books, all very casual and fun...wrong!!!   Not even one day have we done any of that!  But it had been wonderful, none-the-less.

We made our Jesse Tree, which we really enjoy.  I also made an O Antiphons house (I'll have to upload the picture of mine) and my husband even made an Advent wreath since we couldn't find one we really liked.  We've spent long days with our friends, went to see the Air Force band, the Waltham Reagal Players, and the Boston Ballet's Nutcracker, and visited Historic Deerfield and the Yankee Candle Factory.  We made gifts and played board games.  And snow, lots of snow, for the kids to play in. We've really enjoyed our Advent time.

I have put off my Christmas preparations, though.  I just today mailed out one present to Washington state, and almost all of my Christmas cards (except those for my HSing friends that I will hand-deliver.)  I still have shopping to do.  And the house, as usual, is a mess (though I did thoroughly pick up and clean the kitchen today!)  And I have to work on the schedule for next term--an after-Christmas project.  I'm already making a list in my head regarding how to do this better next year.  Now if I can only write it down, and remember it around Thanksgiving next year, LOL!