Miriam's ABCs

Miriam is excited to announce that she has learned her ABC's.  Luke likes to dance to her singing.  We hope you'll enjoy her ABC's and sing along :-)

Phil turns 35

On October 19th, Phil celebrated his 35th birthday.  The kids had fun making the day special for him.  

Decorating the cake - it was a chocolate cake with ice cream in the middle

 He had to work all day and we had planned to celebrate on Thursday but we got everything ready on Wednesday.

We decorated with m&m's - Dad's favorite

  



The cards, cake and gifts were ready when he got home Wednesday



The kids got to stay up a bit later to wish him a happy birthday

He got to open his presents too

Then of course we had to try the cake and sing Happy Birthday!

In case you are wondering - it's Michael D. Obrien's latest book - "A Father's Tale"

We got to celebrate on Thursday, too:-) 

A "Typical" Day at Sancta Familia Academy

As any homeschooling family will quickly point out - no two days are the same.  Yet there is a rhythm to our days so I'll just give you a quick summary of what we do each day using future posts to flesh out the details.

To Organize our day, I use my version of "Workboxes" the rainbow boxes you see above.  I haven't read Sue Patrick's book yet but read what other homeschoolers were doing and adapted the system to meet our needs.  I printed some nifty tags here which I laminated and at the beginning of the day the tags start on the Workboxes and at the end of the day they end up on our "look what we did" schedule (we use sticky tack or Velcro to make them stick). 

I love that I always know what we've done and what we have to do to finish our school day in case I'm interrupted while teaching a lesson.

Since Miriam and William are too young to work independently for a long period of time - we do the lessons together and I use learning videos and books on tape for the times I'm attending to Luke. 

Or they have play time which is an important part of learning :-) 

Generally each day we

"Get ready for school"

and either go to Mass (Tuesdays and Thursday when it works out) or begin with a Prayer

Next we have "Calendar Time"

sing "Your A Grand Old Flag" and say the Pledge of Allegiance

Circle Time and Religion - Saint of the Day, Religion Lesson, Bible Story

Phonics and Writing

Math

The stressful part of the day ;-)

Music/Art/Language (Sign language, Latin and Spanish Vocabulary words)

Science

Physical Education

Reading Story Time

Clean-up

We also go for a walk/bike ride or play outside,

have a snack, eat lunch and have nap time to break up the day as needed.

On Wednesday we like to go to our Library for Story Hour

We can finish the planned learning in about 2 hours or so each day.   Most subjects last about 15 minutes but can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on the attention span of the children and what I have planned.  That's our "typical day" and the kids love it so far. 

A Princess' Tale

Last night instead of watching a movie we made our own!  We hope you enjoy this Epic tale. 

September in Review

We had a busy September here.  We began homeschooling, Phil entered formation for becoming a deacon with the Diocese of La Crosse and we took a family trip to San Diego for my brother's wedding (which entailed my flying alone with the three kids).  All three were major (and some even life changing) events for our family and required a lot of preparation and time.  Of course every day with three little ones goes by quickly;  I feel like I blinked and September was gone!  Before any more time gets away from me - here's an update from our family:

Major Event #1: We officially began our homeschooling!

Getting ready to go to Mass on our First day of school

William and Miriam began kindergarten and preschool respectively at Sancta Familia Academy (our homeschool) on September 6th.  We began our day with Mass at St. James Catholic Church which is the closest church to our house. I feel like I've been preparing for this day since before William was born so it was so exciting to actually officially begin formal homeschooling though of course the learning never ends.

Miriam in front of the work boxes that help organize our school day.

Look for a post soon that describes a "typical" home school day for us.

Major Event #2: Phil begins formation for the Diaconate for the Diocese of La Crosse

Car packed and ready to go

This one is going to require a separate blog post to explain the discernment journey up to this point but in the mean time you can go here for more details. Technically, Phil began his formation as a deacon aspirant in August.  However, in September we packed the whole family up, including the dog, and went on an overnight trip to La Crosse to participate in a retreat at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe for men in formation to become a deacon and their wives.  It was an exhausting but grace-filled trip for our family and God took care of all the details for us, including helping us find someone to house all of us including the dog and a babysitter to care for the children for part of the retreat.  If God is truly calling Phil to the diaconate now at this stage in our lives-and it sure does seem that way- this is definitely a life changing journey and we are learning to surrender to God's plan for our lives as we walk this path.  

Major Event #3: A Family Trip to San Diego for Uncle Steve's Marriage to Aunt Rosie

Luke traveling in style through the airport

This is Phil's busiest time of the year at work but since my brother was getting married it was time to head to San Diego.  Since I wanted to spend at least a week with my family - who knows when we'll be back again - it meant traveling alone on an airplane with three little kids (ages, 5, 3 and 1).

William puts car stickers on his tray race track

 Thanks to many people's prayers and a little bit of preparation the traveling went very well.  The only major mishap was I lost my drivers license on one of the flights.  We had an amazing time in San Diego.

The kids enjoying Uncle Steve's Pool

  The wedding was beautiful,

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Gomez

and we have some amazing memories from our time with my family.

A huge blessing was spending time with my 101 year old grandfather.

I am so grateful that my children could get to know all their family in San Diego and I hope we'll be able to go back again soon. We miss everyone already!

All the Grand-kids together

An Ode to our Library and a trip to the Circus

Penguins from Antartica that our Librarian made for story time

We LOVE our Library.  We are there at least once a week and we know all of our librarians by their first names.  It's a smaller library but is part of a larger system with a very easy and efficient book request system.  Another reason we love the library is because of the excellent story time and summer reading programs they have for the children.  Miss Lisa, the librarian who plans story time, has great ideas and really fun books, crafts and activities for the kids.  Miriam and William love Miss Lisa and run to give her a hug or say hello every time we visit the library which is pretty close to once a week or at least every other week - sometimes more often. 

A music program at the Library that featured instruments from around the World

Our summer adventure this week was made possible thanks to the summer reading program.  We went to the Baraboo Circus Museum and had a great time!

Here is Miriam looking at a scale model of the Circus in all its glory

 The Museum was really neat to lok through - they had some great displays, and it was very kid friendly, featuring a dress-up area, coloring table, circus train table and much more...

Lions and tigers, Miriams, Lukes & Phils Oh My!

 Twice a day they offer a children's interactive circus where the kids dress up as the performers and put on a show.  Miriam got to be a tiger,  She did a great job!

 They also have several shows throughout the day and we were amazed at what the performers and animals were able to accomplish.  It was great fun to watch though the kids' favorite part was the clowns. 

Luke enjoyed checking out this unicycle

The highlight for us though was an elephant ride.  Our guide on the ride had been in the circus all his life (he is from Holland originally) and he has seven children (who are homeschooled) four of them performed in the circus show ages 5 to 14.  We enjoyed talking to him as he guided us around the ring and he even gave us a bonus lap. 

It was a great day and definately worth the trip.  We will probably visit again as the kids get older. 

A Trip to the EAA Venture Museum

At the beginning of the Summer we took advantage of our local Groupon to purchase tickets to the EAA Venture Museum in Osh Kosh, WI.  It was a great trip and since their flight simulator was out of order we got free tickets to go back again sometime. 

William loved the hands on exhibits in the children's section. 


Luke loved this exhibit that held a ball up in a stream of air that you could move.


The have flight simulators and exhibits that teach pretty much everything about the history of flight and the science behind flying. 

The have a great space section and this is a meteroite that is part of a hands on exhibit.  They also have several exhibits that allow you to see what an astronaut would experience in space.

Outside kids age 8-12 can have a free plane ride.  Our children were too young to take advantage of this but they enjoyed the pedal airplanes.



The kids had a great time and it was a quiet ride home to Amherst Junction.



Where July went

It's August!  I just wanted to post some pictures to show where our July went.  Time sure does fly by during the summer.  June ended with a harvest of strawberries..(well there were only a few but next year there should be many more!)

 William and Miriam each caught a fish...

 We enjoyed a puppet show at the library...

 went to the water park with friends...

 And Welcomed Sister Rose Anthony to Amherst Junction for a week!  We hosted an open house for her with a treasure hunt.  It was so much fun!

 While she was here we went to Chicago to visit Uncle Chris, Aunt Mimi, and cousins Emma and Catherine who happened to be in Illinois for a few days.  The cousins had so much fun together, we can't wait to see them again at Uncle Steve's wedding in September.

Luke discovered the Sword and learned how to use one.

 Sr. Rose Anthony made matching aprons for Miriam and William.  We were so sorry to see her go and can't wait for her next visit..though it will be a couple years.  The kids loved having her - it was such a belssing and we look forward to visiting the convent again in Michigan next year.

After Sister left, we had a week to finish preparation for the parish Vacation Bible School: There's No Place Like Rome  that I got to design:-)  It was a fun but exhausting week - well worth the months of preparation.  Our friend Johnny came to visit and spend that Thursday night with us.  Miriam is wearing the lion mask she made for Vacation Bible school.

We finished off the month with a Celebration of Life for our friends the Parkers who were getting ready to welcome their little girl Kateri Rose (born August 3rd) into the world. 

 and I made strawberry freezer jam for the first time and I'm hooked - it's so easy and SO delicious.

Every summer day is filled with fun, especially when you mix in a little imagination!  I love the train the kids made.  We hope your summer is going well!