Down the Homeschool Rabbit Hole – 7QT

Posted on July 15, 2016July 15, 2016 by Amy

I’ve had homeschooling on the brain for the past few weeks, with thoughts about how things are going to go next year and excitement about all our new curricula (which I eagerly purchased in April and will tell you about soon). I’m beginning to feel that urge to get out all the things and get everything organized for fall. But then Baby Boy needs to eat or be changed or rocked, and so I don’t get into all that yet.

I have, however, been looking at resources online and learning lots of new things through various websites and podcasts and books. I found a new book and fun summer activity. And as I’ve been reading about this endeavor, I’ve been led to other great resources, and I’ve found myself falling down the homeschooling rabbit hole. It’s been quite enjoyable and informative, so today I’m linking with Kelly and sharing seven of the (nursing-and-newborn-friendly) things I’ve been exploring to prepare myself for our upcoming homeschool year.

ONE

It all started when I saw that Jamie Martin of Simple Homeschool has a new book and is hosting an online summer book club to promote it. The book, Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time, is a collection of recommendations and summaries of children’s books about different people, places, and cultures around the world. The books are grouped by geographical area, and the online book club going on right now focuses on one area of the world, and the corresponding chapter in the book, per week. So far we’ve done a multicultural week, an Africa week, and we are now finishing up our Europe week, with North America coming up next.

TWO

Sarah MacKenzie has been kind of a co-sponsor of Jamie’s book club. I have read plenty of Sarah’s blog posts at Amongst Lovely Things, and have read her book Teaching From Rest, but I haven’t been into much of her content in a while. So when I saw she was doing the book club with Jamie, I thought I’d go over and check out some of her stuff. I watched a bunch of her scope videos on how she does homeschool, and then I decided to look into her Read Aloud Revival (RAR). This is a podcast and, for members, a set of online master classes about ways to cultivate a reading culture in your home. Right. Up. My. Alley. So I joined up and have been master-class-watching for weeks, along with watching her videos and listening to podcasts (all nice things to be able to do while nursing a baby!).

THREE

When I was watching one of Sarah’s videos, she mentioned a series of podcasts called “Your Morning Basket,” hosted by Pam Barnhill. These podcasts are about ways to implement or improve on morning time in homeschool. I did something in our homeschool last year that could roughly be considered morning time, but I have been wanting to improve this starting point of our day, so I was interested in checking out these podcasts. I have been listening to them from the beginning and I have learned so much from them! I’m a little addicted to them, to be honest.

FOUR

When I clicked the link to buy Jamie’s book, one of the other books Amazon recommended for me was How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare. I recently got the Usborne Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare, and my kids were devouring the stories, so I decided I would get the book and be a bit more intentional about teaching them about Shakespeare and his stories this next school year. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m eager to. Sarah MacKenzie also has a podcast and an RAR Master Class about this, and Pam Barnhill has a podcast on it too, so I’ve got lots of resources to help me when I’m ready to implement it into our school.

FIVE

I got a mass email from Jamie about the book club, and in it she linked to her free ebook, Secrets of a Successful Homeschool Mom (which you can get by entering your email on her blog in the sidebar). I clicked through to the book and read it real quick. One of the links in the ebook was to a resource for putting together unit studies called Konos. I have always felt drawn toward unit studies in our homeschool. Even though the curricula I purchased last year and this year are not unit-studies-based, I have a love for them and am always looking for ways to incorporate units. I’m really, really dying to buy some of the Konos curricula, especially the Obedience unit, which includes a medieval section and would fit in nicely with our history reading this coming year, but I haven’t done it. Yet.

SIX

One of the Your Morning Basket podcasts I recently listened to was about incorporating music appreciation into morning time. Pam talked to Mary Prather, who is the creator of a music appreciation curriculum that is affordable and seems simple and fun. It’s called SQUILT, and it has me quite intrigued. I am really hoping to implement this into our curriculum for this year.

SEVEN

On another YMB podcast about narration, I learned a bit more about the philosophy of Charlotte Mason, and discovered the website Simply Charlotte Mason. I have not been an official follower of the Charlotte Mason method, but our curriculum for this year has some CM-esque elements to it. And as I learn more about the CM style of homeschooling, and get more into the information on this website, I am thinking that I might want to incorporate even more in the future. I love the idea of teaching through using living books, which is why I like using literature-based curricula. I could spend days looking through just the Bookfinder of the Simply Charlotte Mason site. So much good stuff.

And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. Looking through all of these resources has me very eager to get out all of my stuff for next year to get planning and figure out if I’ll be able to add in a Konos unit and/or SQUILT, and how/when I’ll incorporate Shakespeare. Right now my school room is a mess, because I just don’t have enough shelf space. So I’m not going to pull out the materials for next year until I get some new shelves built and can organize everything better, and have a place to put the new stuff. New shelves are being installed on Tuesday, so by Wednesday I should have it all out and be gleefully poring though all of it. I can’t wait.

For more Quick Takes, check out This Ain’t the Lyceum.

Baby Boy’s Birth

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Amy

I just love birth stories. And I really enjoy reflecting on labor and delivery of my own kids. So, three+ weeks after the fact, here’s the story of my little man’s birth.

Note: I’m not going to go into crazy detail, but there are a few birthy-type words coming up, so be forewarned.

My due date was May 31st. I had an induction planned for June 1st. All my kids have been born past their due dates. But, up until the first few times that my OB checked my “progress” toward being ready to deliver, I thought I might go into labor early this time. My last two kiddos were breech until being turned at around 37-38 weeks. This little guy was heading in the right direction the whole time, which led to him being much, much lower than any of his sisters had ever been, to the point that I kind of thought he might fall out. Therefore, for a while I was sure I would deliver him early.

So, I was a bit surprised to find out that, at each OB appointment in the few weeks up to my induction, I had made almost zero progress toward being ready to deliver. One centimeter at each appointment. One. At my last appointment one week before my induction, I had to see a different OB because mine was out of town. He said I was at one centimeter “on a good day.”

This lack of progress made me a little nervous, because my doctor said she might want to give me some pitocin for my induction if I wasn’t any more dilated than that, rather than just breaking my water, which is what I had done for my last induction.

Knowing that I planned to deliver without pain medication again, I really wanted to avoid pitocin if at all possible. So I was really, really hoping to make a bit more progress before induction day. Fortunately, the night before my induction was scheduled, I started having some stronger contractions at about 3am. They weren’t regular or very close together (just enough to keep me mostly awake for the rest of the night), but they were much stronger than any I had had previously, so I was hopeful that maybe they were doing a bit more work than had happened up to that point.

The contractions never did pick up or turn into actual labor, so on induction day, we showed up at the hospital as scheduled at 6:15am.

My doctor came up to break my water at around 8 am. At that point I found out that the contractions from the night before had been working. I had progressed to 3cm, which was a big relief.

I asked my doctor to hold off on the pitocin, and she didn’t have any problem with that. About a half hour after she broke my water, I was about to get up and start walking to get things going.

My husband and I walked, and he hummed or sang “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” (a favorite hymn) as we went. With my previous induction, it took several hours of walking for my contractions to really pick up. This time around, it took much less time. It was only an hour to an hour and a half before I was ready to stop walking and stay in my room to manage the contractions on the big yoga ball. That’s what I did with my last labor and it was the best way to deal with the contractions then, so this time I figured I’d start out by trying what worked before.

The yoga ball was the most comfortable way to labor this time as well, though I was struggling a lot more this time with back pain during contractions, so they seemed harder. During each contraction I tried to offer it up for an intention from the list I had made. Offering the pain I was experiencing for the intention of another was helpful, but I did have a few contractions where I couldn’t seem to focus my mind enough to think of an intention to offer up (and by the end I lost my ability to focus on this technique at all!).

After a couple of hours, the contractions were getting really intense. The nurse checked me and I was only at 5-6cm, which was pretty discouraging. I think I was remembering my previous labor too much and how quickly that ended up, and hoping for the same fast resolution this time, which led me to feel disappointed when it wasn’t wrapping up as quickly as before.

My back was killing me. My husband was awesome. He kept reminding me to keep relaxed and to breathe slowly. Up until I got close to the end, I think I did a pretty good job with this, thanks to him.

After a little longer the nurse checked me again, or maybe it was my doctor, I’m not really sure, and I was at 7-8 cm. After this, everyone seemed to think that delivery was rapidly approaching. My doctor even stayed up on the delivery floor, not far from my room. So when the nurse asked me if I wanted to get out of the bed and back onto the labor ball, I said that I might as well just stay where I was.

In retrospect, I think this was a mistake, as laboring for that last little while on my back on the bed was really, really awful. I think the yoga ball would definitely have been better. The one good thing about being on the bed was that I was able to doze off a bit in between contractions. Since I had been up since about 3am with contractions and nervous anticipation, I was pretty tired. My husband thought it was pretty amusing that I was snoozing between contractions, and I think he was making jokes about this to the nurse. To which I replied, “I can still hear you” quite a few times. It seemed to me in the moment like a little bit of comic relief, though I’m not sure if it was actually funny.

^^ It’s quite possible I was asleep when this photo was taken ^^

Anyway, when I was awake and contracting, I remember praying for St. Rita’s intercession during this last part of the delivery. She’s my Confirmation saint, and I remember thinking that she had children so she would understand what I was going through. And also, I was praying for Mary’s intercession, because she’s Mary.

When I started to really feel like I needed to push, my nurse said I wasn’t quite fully dilated, so I had to wait a bit. My doctor told her to get out a labor ball thing they called “the peanut.” I had to try to roll over on my side, as much as that was possible given my enormity and pain level, and hold this peanut-shaped labor ball between my knees for a while. This was supposed to be some sort of magic trick to move things along the last little bit so I would be ready to deliver.

After doing this for a bit, my doctor came in and said the trick had worked. So, on the next contraction I started to push and then started to scream. I clearly remember having the thought that if I was screaming, I couldn’t be pushing very well. So I clamped my mouth shut and got to work. At least for a few pushes. I still yelled a lot, though, especially right at the end (my husband got a video of the birth and it was, um, intense). I think it was about 4-5 contractions after I started pushing that my little man came into the world, just over five hours after my doctor broke my water. He emerged with his fist up by his face, just like he often was in ultrasound images.

He was absolutely perfect at 9 lbs., 11 oz., and 21 inches.

It’s been over three weeks, and sometimes I can still barely believe he’s here.

Welcome to the world sweet boy.

Our Rainbow Baby

Posted on June 8, 2016June 8, 2016 by Amy

When I became pregnant with our baby boy, I decided that I would not allow myself to be fearful about my pregnancy or the possibility of loss. I told myself that I was going to be joyful and not hold back my excitement out of fear of another miscarriage.

In spite of this, I still had moments of anxiety and many fears crept in.

I first heard the term “Rainbow Baby,” when I joined a Facebook group for Catholic women who are pregnant after experiencing loss. I joined the group thinking it would help me in my efforts to defeat fear. I figured that being part of a group where people were posting about being pregnant after having had miscarriages would be a positive experience.

Instead, this group only sparked and fueled a great deal of anxiety. So much so that I hid the group from my newsfeed and never clicked on the items that frequently popped up in my “Notifications.” There were so many women in the group posting about their own fears and past experiences of losing babies at all different stages of pregnancy, and I just couldn’t hear those things. I felt kind of guilty about it, but I just couldn’t.

Unfortunately, this group and my own experiences with loss had increased my knowledge and awareness of all the potential things that could go wrong during 40 long weeks of pregnancy.

Anxious thoughts came to my mind in spite of my efforts to avoid them.

I was fearful of losing my baby in the first trimester.

I was afraid we would see something terrible during the 20-week ultrasound.

I was worried that any brief period of time during which I didn’t feel him moving meant something had happened to my baby (fortunately this was rare for him).

I was fearful of stillbirth, cord accident, some sort of trauma during delivery, etc., etc.

I repeated to myself over and over and over again my favorite prayer, “Jesus, I trust in you.” Every time an anxious thought would come to mind, I would immediately pray this. And it always helped. Always.

And so did the idea of a “Rainbow Baby.” I just loved thinking of my son this way.

To me, a rainbow is a sign of God’s promise and of His immense, merciful love. It is a reminder to have faith and to know that He is with me in all things.

Almost two years ago, right after leaving the ultrasound appointment in which I had learned of my second miscarriage, a detour forced my route home past a Catholic church. I saw the sign and immediately pulled over to go inside and pray. I made it to a kneeler where I wasn’t able to do much more than look at the tabernacle and sob. I couldn’t get my words to form a coherent prayer, but my heart was reaching out and Jesus heard me in my brokenness and He answered. In that church, before Jesus in the tabernacle, I received an answer to my unformulated prayer. It was, “Don’t give up.” I heard these words spoken to my heart as clear as a bell.

That was in July of 2014, and I have never forgotten that moment. I reflected back on it during many of my fearful times during my pregnancy. It seemed to me like something of a promise.

I remembered this promise on the day I went for my second OB appointment. In spite of having seen the baby on ultrasound at my first appointment, those fears had crept in, and I was very nervous that something might have happened and there would be no heartbeat when I went to my second appointment (the month between appointments in the early weeks of pregnancy always seems so long!).

When I arrived at my appointment on that day, anxious and eager to hear my baby’s heartbeat again, I pulled into the parking lot at the hospital, and I saw this:

I instantly felt less afraid. I knew it was a reminder for me to have faith. I went into my appointment, and rather than just hearing his heartbeat, I got to see my little guy again on the hand-held ultrasound. Such relief.

Last Wednesday, our Rainbow Baby arrived, happy, healthy, and perfect.

The day after we brought him home from the hospital, this picture was taken from behind our house:

When she saw it, my five-year-old said, “Mom, that’s just like the rainbow God showed Noah!”

God’s promise.

Our little Rainbow Baby is here. He is a miracle. A precious gift from God.

I literally sit and stare at him for long stretches of time and marvel at his very existence. I realize that, on that day almost two years ago, when I was experiencing such deep grief and despair, God knew that this little boy was to be our baby that we would get to hold on earth. I didn’t know it, but He did.

Our son is a reminder for me that God can do anything. That His plan is always for good.

That fear is no match for faith.

Preparing

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Amy

Baby Boy is due to arrive in seven days. If he doesn’t, he is due to be evicted in eight days.

That means I have no more than eight days left to be pregnant.

Since I feel like I’m ninety months pregnant, rather than nine, and I’m so eager to meet my little boy, I’m naturally very excited to know that he will be born soon. But, I’m also feeling a little bit like I want to freeze time (only a little bit!!), because I know this is very likely the last time I will ever get to experience pregnancy.

At this point, I’m enormous, and my back hurts, and I can’t get more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep because hip pain wakes me, and going up the stairs feels like climbing Mt. Everest, and my feet and ankles and legs are ridiculously swollen.

But I’m still trying to savor these last days, and I’m trying hard to smile and laugh about these things instead of being grumpy about them or bursting into tears (because yeah, I’m that tired and emotional and pregnant!!). I mean, check out that picture of my feet! I do look kind of funny:

And on a more serious note, I remember very vividly the many months that I prayed for this very cross, this beautiful cross that I’m currently so blessed to carry. So every time I’m tempted to be upset about these discomforts, I try to think about those months and those prayers and realize what a true and amazing blessing these small aches and pains are. That’s not to say I don’t have moments of self-pity or complaining. I do! But I try (really hard) to remember to offer them up for my friends who are suffering the pain of miscarriage and/or infertility, or those who are struggling with even more difficult pregnancy symptoms and sickness. They are never far from my mind.

In these last few days I’m trying to prepare for labor too.

My bag is packed and double checked. I got a pedicure. I have written out babysitter instructions and done tons of crazy grocery shopping for all the things we might need while I’m at the hospital for a few days. I’m reviewing and revising my old labor playlist. My Kindle is charged.

And I’m also preparing for an experience that is different in many ways than my other labors, because this time I recognize the hand of God in the creation of this little life and the beautiful process that is labor and delivery. I’m creating a list of prayer intentions and thinking a lot about redemptive suffering.

Before my conversion, I never thought of suffering as anything but suffering. I always just thought it pretty much sucked, period. Though of course I’ve always recognized that the suffering that happens during the labor and delivery of a baby is different from other situations, in that you know the whole time that it is for an awesome purpose. But still, always before it was just something to get through to get to the real prize.

Now I understand that the suffering in itself can be beautiful and purposeful. Both in that it leads to the obvious and most amazing outcome of holding a sweet little miracle at the end, but also that the suffering itself can be a way of growing closer to Jesus, if I look at it that way and offer it to Him. I love knowing now that I can embrace and offer this suffering, uniting it with the Passion of Christ, for the good of others.

This is both still a little bit confusing and something that makes perfect sense to me.

So, as I’m trying to prepare for labor and meeting my son, I’m praying a lot (this often just takes the form of a frequently repeated “Jesus, I trust in you”), and I’m trying to picture what it will be like this time. I honestly don’t know. I suspect there will be plenty of prayer, and also that it will be much less elegant than what I have in my mind now. I imagine there will be plenty of cursing and yelling just like before, even if I like to think I’ll be peacefully thanking God for each contraction (insert laughter here). I don’t really know.

What I am sure of is that I will feel God’s presence as I bring His newest little miracle into the world.

It won’t be long now!

Thoughts on Mother’s Day

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Amy

On Mother’s Day…

I’m thinking of my Mom. A woman who sacrificed so much for me, and worked so hard to raise me well. I often made it very (very, very) difficult for her, and yet she loved me fiercely no matter what (even though I know I sometimes wasn’t very likable). She taught me so much of what I now know myself about being a mother. It’s true what they say about not really understanding your own mother in many ways until you have children of your own. I understand so much more (and man, I feel bad about being such a jerk in my adolescence and early adulthood!!). She is far away from me today and I miss her terribly, though I always keep her close in my heart.

I’m thinking of myself as a mother. About how much I have changed over the past almost eight years, since learning that I was pregnant with Miss. About how motherhood has caused me to grow and stretch (in more ways than one). How this has sometimes been painful but has always been beautiful. I love so much more now. So much better, though far from perfectly. I know what it feels like to watch your own heart outside your body and to feel intense terror and pure joy about it at the same time. I’m learning every day from these sweet little ones about joy, and sacrifice, and trying so, so hard to be better. And failing. And trying again.

I’m thinking about all the amazing women who have taught me so much about how to be a good mom. Some of them have mothered me. Some of them have walked beside me through this journey. Some of them I know mostly from reading their words and interacting with them on this good old world wide web. They are members of my family, both near and far, friends, also near and far, kind women I’ve met at church, ladies who write great blogs, and others. We really aren’t meant to mother alone, and these women help me to feel lifted up in myriad ways.

I’m also thinking about the women who struggle on Mother’s Day. Those who have lost children. Those who have lost babies before ever having a chance to see them or hold them. I think about those who are longing to have babies of their own but have been unable to conceive or have miscarried or are still waiting for the right person to come along to have babies with. I think of how painful it was to wait for this pregnancy and lose two babies over the past few years, and it breaks my heart to think of those who are still waiting, many of whom don’t have other children to hold while they wait. I always keep a special place in my prayers for these mamas, but especially today.

*********

To me, Mother’s Day really isn’t about cards and flowers. Heartfelt words of appreciation and love from my husband today nearly brought me to tears in a way Hallmark could never do. For me this is a day to reflect on this beautiful vocation, in my own life and in the amazing women I see all around me. It is a day to be so grateful for these women and for my precious children and for the blessing of this life.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Twin Cities Adventure – 7QT

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Amy

Last week we went to Minneapolis/St. Paul. It was such a fun time. I wanted to get in one more road trip/field trip before the baby arrives, and this was a great low stress trip to take. Here’s a quick recap:

One

We stayed in a really good hotel, the Homewood Suites by the Mall of America. When I travel with the girls, I like to get a suite that has a separate bedroom for them, so I can stay up a little while after putting them to bed and not have to hide under covers with my Kindle or something. Super Friend recommended our hotel to me, and it was perfect for our purposes. It had a little kitchen area, a separate bedroom for the girls, free breakfast, free dinner, and a pool. It also had the most uncomfortable sofa bed ever. No hyperbole here. I literally felt every spring under my body as I slept. The second night we were there, I contemplated scootching one of the girls over and sharing a regular bed with one of them, but the beds were only full size, and well, I’m kind of full size at this point too. When you add in my pregnancy body pillow, there was no way I was going to fit into one of those beds with one of my kids. However, even with the horrid bed, the hotel was excellent, which makes a solo road trip with kids so much easier!

Two

I got to see Nell!! We went to Nell’s beautiful old house and had a wonderful time with her and her sweet kids, and we got to learn her big news when one of her littles spilled the beans for her. So much happy! She is seriously the best hostess. Some people just have a gift for making others feel special and welcome. Nell has that gift. And it is always a treat to spend time with another mom who gets me. Big highlight of the trip for me.

Three

We visited the Minnesota Science Museum in the afternoon. They have a fantastic Mummies exhibit there right now, and my girls are very into ancient Egypt and mummies. It was a huge bonus that we got to learn about how they practiced mummification for thousands of years in Peru too (I had no idea it was a thing there). The Peruvian mummies were very different from the Egyptian ones, and it was an awesome history lesson. The girls all said that one of the highlights of their day was making Peruvian dolls.

Four

They also really loved the dinosaur exhibit.

Five

After we had a free spaghetti dinner at our hotel, I took the girls swimming in the hotel pool. None of my girls is a super strong swimmer yet, and the water in the pool, even at it shallowest point, was too deep for any of them to touch bottom easily. Combine that with the fact that I am pretty slow-moving these days (no speedy water rescues for me right now!), and it was a no brainer that all my kids would need to wear their floaties the whole time. They didn’t seem to care one bit though.

Six

The aquarium at the Mall of America was amazing for such a small place. The girls were able to touch and feed stingrays, and also watch them chasing each other because they’re mating right now.

It was definitely one of the favorites from the trip.

Seven

I don’t really have a seven. That was it for the trip. We got lunch in the mall after the aquarium and then drove home. It was the easiest drive of any of our trips so far. Chicago is closer, but has so much traffic, seemingly at all times of the day. This drive was smooth sailing and not too long.

I love these trips with my girls. Next time we take one I’ll be pushing a stroller again. It might be a while before I’m brave enough to do another trip with a little baby, and I’m not sure where we’d go next. A friend recommended going somewhere on an Amtrak train, which is definitely worth looking into. Someday. . .

For more Quick Takes posts, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum.

A Little Update – 7QT

Posted on April 17, 2016April 17, 2016 by Amy

Goodness, it’s been so long. My blogging has really lacked in the past several months. Sorry about that. It’s not that I don’t want to blog. It’s that I also want/need to do so much other stuff! And then when I do sit down to write, the words don’t seem to come out the way I want them to these days. So anyway, blah blah… Here’s a little post about what we’ve been up to, with lots of photos, in Seven Quick Takes form.

ONE

Easter was wonderful. We were able to take the girls to Mass on Holy Thursday, evening service on Good Friday, and Mass on Easter Sunday (after an Easter egg hunt and resurrection rolls for breakfast). My husband and I sponsored RCIA candidates again this year, so we went to the Easter Vigil but didn’t take the girls to that one. I just love Holy Week. Love. It. I was so exhausted after all the late evening services and staying up until almost 1am after the Vigil to hide Easter eggs and baskets and run yarn from girls’ bedroom doors to their Easter baskets (I hide each girl’s basket and eggs in a different room so they aren’t fighting each other over the eggs, and the yarn on their door handle leads them to their baskets) that I didn’t blog it, in spite of wanting to, but here are a few photos:

^Family foot washing after the Holy Thursday Mass^

^Holy Saturday egg dyeing^

TWO

I also lost my bid for Mother of the Year by neglecting to blog my youngest’s fourth birthday. It was the day after Easter, so I’m going to stick with the “man-I-was-exhausted-after-all-that” excuse. It was really fun though. We had a few friends over and it was laid back and easy and she had a great time. She wanted a Star Wars-themed party, so I bought a few decorations at Party City, used up some leftover plates from Miss’s Star Wars birthday party, found some fun light up foam “light sabers” on Amazon, and it was good.

^She got all goofy when we sang “Happy Birthday” to her^

THREE

School has been going well. We’ve almost completely ditched the boxed curriculum that we purchased for the year (I’ll write a post soon about what we’re going to switch to for next year), but we seem to have found a good groove and we’re working it.

FOUR

We recently spent a week visiting my parents in Kentucky. The weather was kind of chilly there, but it was fabulous compared with the way-too-cold-for-April temps that were happening up here, along with snow. So we took advantage and had a great visit, complete with lots of antiquing and girls’ lunching.

^At the Jefferson Davis Monument^

FIVE

Baby Boy seems to be gestating quite well. He is measuring on the big side, and I seem to be on the large side too. The drop-jawed stares I get when I tell people I still have six weeks until my due date are kind of comical. This has been occurring for many weeks already, and I really don’t take offense. I know I look like I’m about to go into labor any minute. People don’t mean anything by it. Even my dear, wonderful husband lovingly informs me that I’m “freakishly big” on occasion.

^At 30 weeks^

I have been gradually getting things ready in the baby’s room. Since all my girls were born after their due dates, I think I’ve been mentally disregarding the possibility that this baby will be here before May 31st, but in the last few weeks I’ve started feeling like I really need to get going to finish the last few things that need to be done before he arrives. I have my fabric, washed and ready to make crib sheets with, and I’ve been getting his clothes washed and diapers ready to go. I’m almost there. I even started packing my hospital bag the other day. It’s a little surreal to think that we’ll have a newborn again in a few weeks!

^Fabric for crib sheets^

SIX

We have been embracing our sudden and glorious spring for the past few days. Our new backyard has so much to do and explore. My husband has been cutting tons of wood, but I think we have convinced him to leave a few of these huge rounds from the tree he cut down for playing. I may have coached the girls on telling their daddy that they really like to play on them, and could he please not cut them up? This ain’t my first rodeo.

SEVEN

There have been some great field trips lately in our little school. Most recently we went to a local art museum where the Godmother works. She is The One Who Knows All Things Art, and even though she wasn’t working on Friday when I planned to take the girls to see a watercolor exhibit, she came and met us there and it was so fantastic! I think the exhibit would have been great either way, but it was infinitely better with her there to tell us all her cool tidbits about the watercolor artist, the paintings, and the rest of the art throughout the historic museum. The girls were begging to do some watercolor painting, so I threw in a watercolor lesson yesterday morning.

And coming very soon is the last of our girls’ road trip field trips for a while. We have been to Chicago and Louisville so far, and this week we’re going to Minneapolis. I’m so, so, so excited because we will be getting together with dear Nell and her littles, as well as going to the aquarium at the Mall of America, the science center, and possibly even making my very first ever trip to IKEA. Hopefully I’ll get in a quick post about it, but if not, I’m sure I’ll share at least a few pics on Instagram.

So, there you go. Seven Quick Takes, better late than never! Check out the rest over at Kelly’s.

The Fruits of Lent

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Amy

I love Lent. I do. I am quite a novice Lenter, as this is only my third year observing the season, but I love how, so far, the 40 day period always seems to bear much, and different, fruit each year.

The first year I observed Lent was when I was going through RCIA and looking forward to receiving the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Communion at the Easter Vigil. That year I was pretty overwhelmed. There was just so much to know and learn. So much to try to teach to my kids. I was reading like crazy and soaking up so much. It was a very emotional time for me, and I cried at the drop of a hat (during Mass, when a certain song would come on in my car, as I pulled up to the church on Holy Saturday morning for my RCIA retreat, etc.). I felt like I was on fire with my faith, and it seemed every bit of me was growing and expanding. It was a whirlwind, interspersed with moments of amazing grace and peace like nothing I had every experienced before. I decided Lent was awesome.

Last year was different. I felt less on fire and less emotional. But I was still learning and growing in my faith. I gave up a lot of things – spending money (other than on food and gas), Facebook, reading books that are not spiritually focused, ice cream… I started to have a little bit of an understanding of fasting and self-deprivation. I increased my prayer time and made a point to spend time in adoration. I tried to help my kids understand the importance of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. I struggled along with my kids as they had a hard time with the things they gave up for Lent (Miss in particular had a very hard time with giving up coloring). I decided to journal through Lent, and realized that keeping a daily journal is really not my thing (but I did it for the whole Lenten season anyway!).

My growth felt less intense, but perhaps more focused. I gained a little bit of a better understanding of the purpose of Lent. I loved seeing my kids’ growing appreciation as well, in their increased understanding of Jesus’s Passion, and the joy of the Resurrection. Last year’s Lent set the stage for some changes that we made as a family and have kept throughout the year, such as more frequent Confession and not eating meat on Fridays all year.

This year feels different still. I decided not to give up so many different things, but to select one main thing to do from each of the three areas of focus for Lent, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

My fasting has consisted of giving up sweets, which has been even harder than I thought it would be. I mean, I like sweets, so I knew it would be a little hard, but I’m almost embarrassed by how hard it has been at some points. It’s amazing how many little opportunities there are for indulging in a treat, like going to visit family and having tons of homemade goodies on hand, giving up dessert at our parish’s fish fry each week, and even driving home and not stopping at the handy gas station where we often grab ice cream along the way. Being pregnant has made this even harder, Im sure.

BUT, this little sacrifice has borne great fruit. One thing I have gained this Lent is a greater ability to offer it up each time I resist the temptation to stuff my face with something sugary and delicious. “Offering it up” is a concept that is fairly new to me (as a new Catholic), and I have struggled with implementing it into the small moments of every day life. It just doesn’t usually occur to me. This Lent, I’m finally starting to get the hang of it, though. When I’m at a baby shower and the gorgeous little cupcakes seem to be just calling my name? Offer it up. When I’m walking down the aisle at the grocery store and feel a longing to stop and squirt a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup straight into my mouth from that end-cap display? Offer it up! When I remember that I can’t escape for a moment during our homeschool day to my pantry to shove a handful of chocolate chips in my mouth? Yeah. Offer. It. Up.

I am so happily surprised with how freeing it is to do this. It’s an immediate smack down on temptation, and it serves the even better purpose of offering my small suffering as a prayer for someone else. Double win. AND, I’m starting to remember to do this more in other situations too. Yay Lent!

That in itself has really improved my praying-throughout-the-day experience this Lent, but I also have added in a commitment to a daily rosary and Examen prayer. For the last six months or so I have done a pretty good job of praying the rosary almost every day anyway, but I often squeeze it it when I’m doing something else, typically driving somewhere. This is fine, but I find it harder to really focus on the meditations of the rosary when I’m driving. So during this Lent, I have made a point to try to set aside quiet time every day to do nothing but pray the rosary. Usually this happens first thing in the morning, and I’ve found it to be a wonderful way to start my day. And a peaceful end my days this Lent has been the Examen, which also helps keep me focused on noticing God throughout my day.

We have also started doing a family rosary during this Lenten season. We haven’t done it every week, but it seems to be shaping up to be a new family tradition on Sundays, and I have been loving it. Last night we prayed a family rosary and then had game night. The perfect way to wrap up a Sunday.

For almsgiving, this year I decided to put less focus on financial giving and donating of “stuff” (like to St. Vincent’s, for example), and more on giving of myself. In particular, I am working on being more giving to my family, my kids especially. I’m trying to be more generous with my time and attention. Saying “yes” more often, making a point to spend more one on one time with them, playing with them more, and so forth. As a homeschooling mom, I spend tons of time with my kids, but I don’t spend it doing things that they want to do nearly as often as I should, so I am really trying to do better about this for these forty days (and hopefully beyond), as well as just being less grouchy and making a point to give them my best in other ways. I’m experiencing so much peace through these efforts. And we’re still taking plenty of stuff to St. Vincent’s, too.

So, again, this year Lent is different, but still wonderfully fruitful. I feel like I’m a little more mindful of my Lenten commitments throughout each day, and being mindful of these helps keep me focused on Jesus more, which of course, is the whole point of all of it. I’m looking forward to Holy Week and the culmination of the season, with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, and of course, Easter!

I hope Lent has been fruitful for you, too.

A Homeschool Day in the Life

Posted on March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 by Amy

A few bloggers I enjoy reading (like Ana and Micaela) have recently participated in the Homeschool Day in the Life link up at Jamie’s Simple Homeschool blog. I love reading these kinds of posts, and they’re kind of fun to write too, so here’s my contribution with how our day ran yesterday, a pretty typical Monday:

6:45 – I wake up and get (decaffeinated) coffee. Proceed to office. Pray the rosary and do my Lenten reading : Rediscover Jesus by Matthew Kelly and the little black book for Lent from our parish (usually I read the Mass readings and daily devotions from Blessed is She, but this morning I got distracted before making it to these).

8:00 – Go upstairs to wake up all three of my kids. Usually at least one of them is up already, but not today (this is why I like springing forward better than falling back).

8:10-ish – Breakfast is on the table.

8:40-ish – The girls have finished eating and they go upstairs to get ready for the day. This consists of getting dressed, making their beds, cleaning their rooms, and brushing their teeth and hair.

8:50 – I have put away the cereal and I go up to hustle the girls into finishing and getting down to the school room. At this point Sis still doesn’t have a shirt on, but the older girls are done with everything except brushing teeth. I grab a shirt for Sis, and put pony tails in hers and Lass’s hair (Miss brushes her own). Lass helps Sis to make her bed, and I think we just might get the day started “on time” as I change my clothes, brush my own hair, and brush my teeth.

9:04 – Everyone is in the school room and ready to go around our old dining room table. We try to start at 9:00 every day, so I’m calling this close enough. We do our morning prayers, say the Pledge of Allegiance, and talk about the date and the weather a bit.

9:10-ish – We start our work together at the table. I don’t really have a name for this part of our day, though the girls usually call it our “reading,” and it might be like what some people call “circle time.” We do all of our read-alouds from our curriculum (Sonlight plus some Catholic add-ons, plus a late addition of Five in a Row). This usually contains some elements of religion, history/social studies, poetry, and science, with our FIAR book and activities added at the end. This week’s new FIAR book is They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson, and I love it!

10:00 – At this point I’d usually send the girls downstairs for some running and “recess,” but we don’t do this on Mondays because we have to be done more quickly to get lunch in before piano lessons. So I go ahead and send the girls to their desks for their independent work.

Each girl has a desk and a rolling cart with drawers. I think some people call this a “workbox” setup. Each drawer for each girl has an assignment in it that needs to be completed that day. As each element is finished, the girls return their completed work to the drawer it came from and move down to the next.

They have a mixture of things they can do on their own and things they need my help with. I try to stagger the items in their drawers so they don’t all need my help at the same time. This sometimes works, and sometimes fails miserably with me saying repeatedly, “I’ll be with you in a minute,” or “Please be patient,” or “Go on to the next thing in your drawer until I can help you.”

Mondays are a little light, and Miss, in first grade, has science questions, a math workbook, spelling words to copy, a handwriting/copywork exercise, a word list and some stories to do in her reader, a piano theory test, and piano practice in her drawers today (I always include their piano practice in our school day, or it will never get done). Lass in kindergarten has a Star Wars math workbook, handwriting, exercises from Learning Success, some addition and subtraction, some worksheets with word family/spelling practice on them, and piano practice. Lass has her pre reading curriculum, which includes some cutting and pasting, some prewriting tracing, and coloring.

10:05 – Sis gets my attention first with her All About Reading Pre-Reading curriculum work. She is nearly finished with this entire program (only Y and Z in the last section are left). As I’m sitting down with her to do Letter X, Lass starts complaining that she doesn’t know how to do her math workbook. I tell her what to do (counting sets of Star Wars characters from 11-20 and drawing a line from each set to the correct number). She starts wailing that she doesn’t remember those numbers. I tell her that’s why she’s doing the exercise, for practice, and help her demonstrate that she does in fact know these numbers better than she thinks. She wails some more, and then I snap at her to quit complaining and get to work. After a few minutes, she begins complaining loudly again, so I keep my cool a little better this time and send her to sit on the bottom step outside the school room until she can get herself in a better frame of mind and do her work without disrupting everyone. I manage to do this without freaking out, and she complies in kind, which feels like a small victory. I proceed with Sis and Lass sits out for about 2-3 minutes before returning to do her work without further complaint.

10:15 – After I finish with Sis, there is a period where no one needs my help, so I go to our book stack and my curriculum binder and get the books ready that we will need for tomorrow. I give direction as needed for the next 45 minutes or so.

10:30 – In between periods of helping the girls, I go to start lunch. We eat early on Mondays, so I’m getting some crescent-roll-wrapped hot dogs ready to put in the oven.

10:45 – Lunch is in the oven.

10:55 – Sis and Miss are done with their drawers. Lass is complaining that she is the last one done. I remind her that her negative attitude at the beginning of the morning and her messing around with her little sister at other times is the reason that she is not done. I let her know that we will be having lunch when the baking timer goes off and that whatever she hasn’t finished will need to be done when we get home from our afternoon classes.

11:00-ish – The timer goes off. The girls start lunch while I read our book study book to them. This month our homeschool group is doing Redwall.

11:20 – I start telling the girls to hustle up so we can leave for piano. I hate this about Mondays, that I have to rush their lunch a bit.

11:30 – I’m rushing everyone into socks, shoes, and jackets, filling up water bottles, and gathering piano binders so we can go.

11:39 – We’re pulling out of the driveway on our way to piano, with just barely enough time to get there on time.

12:00 – Piano lessons start. Lass goes in with the teacher first, while I let Sis and Miss play on iPads and I read my book The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, by Fr. Michael Gaitley. I also take the time to read my BIS email with the day’s Mass readings and commentary.

12:30-ish – Lass comes out and Miss goes in for her lesson. I get lots of instructions from the piano teacher about Miss’s “audition” this weekend for the Wisconsin Music Teacher’s Association. She’s not actually auditioning for anything, but will be playing some pieces in front of a judge and taking a written music test to accumulate points. Her teacher makes sure I know where to go and what to do because this is Miss’s first time participating.

1:15 – Miss comes out of her lesson and her teacher gives more instructions about what she needs to practice for the week to be ready for her audition. We leave piano and head to the YMCA for the girls’ homeschool gym class.

1:25 – I drop off the two older girls for gym and take Sis to Target for a few things.

2:00 – Still happily wandering around Target.

2:25 – I’m back at the Y to pick up the older girls, and we head home.

2:45 – I set Miss and Sis free to go play, while Lass goes to the school room to finish the work she didn’t complete for the morning. It only takes her a few minutes, and then she’s off to play with her sisters. I avoid doing anything productive, and instead spend about an hour and a half messing around on the computer and starting to type this post.

4:30-ish – My husband comes home and goes downstairs to play with the girls. He likes to do more gym class with them in the afternoons before dinner.

5:30 – We sit down to dinner. The girls animatedly tell my husband about the book we’re reading, Redwall.

6:00 – Our babysitter comes so my husband and I can go to our RCIA meeting (we are both sponsors this year).

8:15 – I come home (my husband got called to work). My babysitter tells me that the girls requested early/extra reading time before bed, and they read three more chapters of Redwall. I pay her, clean the kitchen from dinner, and go into the school room to get the girls’ drawers set up for the next day.

9:00 – My husband comes home and we talk and talk about some new things that happened at RCIA.

11:00 – I go to bed.

So there you go. That’s a pretty typical Monday around here. Our other days are pretty similar except we do a little more work. I usually will have All About Reading for the older girls (Miss is in Level 3 and Lass is in Level 2), and they have more recess time to break up the morning. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I sometimes add in an art lesson or a craft. Fridays we usually do less work in the school room and more other stuff, like chores or field trips. That’s it!

Head over to the link up if you want to read others’ “Day in the Life” posts.

My Girls

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Amy

You probably think from the title that this post is going to be about these little cuties:

But not this time.

Today, I want to write about my grown-up peeps. The ladies who have my back, make me laugh, and help me stay sane by just being available, whether in person, via text, phone, or even FB.

I’ve been really blessed lately to have the opportunity to spend some quality time with some of my “girls” recently. Here are some highlights:

In early February, I got to take a trip to Florida with two fabulous friends.

Our equally fabulous husbands watched the kids (all 12 of them!). We got on a plane and flew to Naples for two and a half days (DAYS!) of amazing relaxation, laughter, food, and conversation. For good measure I made sure we started the trip off right with a pregnancy-related trip to the ER. This could be a whole post in and of itself (if I ever get around to writing it), so I won’t go into details here, but:

We managed to have a pretty great time in spite of the awful ER (it was really bad) and the disruption to our plans. That’s Super Friend on the right. And though she and her family have appeared in other posts you haven’t been formally introduced yet to our other dear friend on the left, whom I’ll call “The Extrovert” for blog purposes (I’m the introvert, and Super Friend falls somewhere in between, so we make a great team and have lots of laughs about our personality differences). Yes, she was sitting on a portable hospital toilet. Good sports, these ladies. Look how great they were, after 5+ hours at the first ER, while waiting to get in at our second hospital of the day:

(And BTW, everything is fine with Baby Boy and me).

The hospital trip didn’t stop us from having tons of other fun.

It did however prevent us from going to the beach in the afternoon, so after we had dinner we grabbed coffee and some macaroons (a first for me) and hit the beach at night.

The next day we made up for lost time with a yummy breakfast, a fun meander around downtown Naples, a long walk on the beach, a lovely Mass, and delicious dinner.

There’s just something about time away with great friends that really helps to recharge my soul. These ladies just get me. Even when it’s just for a few hours, it’s so, so important. But for two-and-a-half days!! I talked so much, and laughed so hard, and it. was. awesome.

And as if that wast enough, last weekend, I traveled with my kids to spend some time with some of my family “girls,” my Mom, my Auntie, and my cousin. We were all together for my cousin’s baby shower (some boys were around too, whom I should give some love to as they were wonderful to see as well: my Dad, my Unka, and another cousin).

We stayed up way too late talking. We swapped baby and pregnancy and other stories and “ooh-ed” and “aah-ed” over the cute stuff my cousin received for her baby girl.

^^ My aunt and cousin included my kids in the shower, and they were enthralled ^^

And after my cousin’s shower was over, the other guests were gone, and most everything from the shower was cleaned up, they sat me down and surprised me with tons of gifts of mostly baby boy clothing (which we are sorely lacking). It was my own little surprise mini-shower, and it was so sweet it almost made me cry.

I am humbled by how blessed I am to be surrounded by amazing women. My family, my friends, my tribe. There are more than the ladies mentioned here, some even whom I have never met in person, and I am so grateful for each and every one.

I hope I am modeling to my daughters how to be a part of a community. Our community consists of both wonderful men and women, of course, but there is something special about the bonds between women. Between mothers and sisters. I don’t have biological sisters, but I have my sister-friends, whom I think are just as great (we even share clothes, without the history of fighting over them). I hope that seeing these relationships that I have will help my (little) girls to build their own, and to nurture and cherish them.