OK, I admit I love to take pictures.  When I am taking them I feel as if the very act of pressing the button will somehow preserve that moment in time forever.  Here are a few moments in time I wanted to keep forever

This first one shows how helpful the dad’s are during bath time :-)  The next ones show Papa in his favorite position, holding a new grandchild, in this case Margaret Mary.

These next two again show Papa in his favorite position, but instead of being at my house on the couch, now we find him at San Juan at the pot luck following Mass and Margaret’s baptism.  The next picture is Joshua on the trampoline ride at the Blueberry Festival in…. hmm, I don’t remember.  It was somewhere between Lake City and Live Oak.

These two pictures feature Buddy.  Buddy is Libby’s horse (our neighbor) and Ladybug’s pasture companion.  After a few days of getting to know each other, aka Buddy learning what a nip on the rear end feels like if he gets in Ladybug’s space, they now spend most of their time in close proximity.  The first shot is of Libby and her mom.  The second shot is the most beautiful Lady of the Horses, Aubrey.

These last two are just too fun not to share.  The first picture is of me leaning over the top of Buddy.  Compare that with the second picture of me leaning um, stretching to reach the top of Ladybug.  She may be HUGE, but she is truly a gentle giant.

I love my family!!!  Sometimes, when the years seem to melt away into a dream, I can remember being a girl Aubrey’s age as if it were moments ago.  As a young girl, I would dream of my prince; he would swoop me off my feet and take me to his castle.  We would have horses and wide open spaces.  There would be a creek and God’s magnificent wild creatures.    We would have wonderful children running around the castle property, laughing and playing carefree.    Soon I am brought back to the present and I think of my family — my real family– Patrick (he is even more handsome than Prince Philip from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty,  my real prince being more wonderful than any fairytale),  Aubrey (my most often dreamt dream come to life),  Joshua (the little boy I always hoped for, that would love to catch critters and dream of adventures with me),  Max (he is fearless, confident, passionate, driven, and with a great sense of humor; all the qualities I have tried to foster in myself, which he has naturally) and our 5 sweet little souls who went before us to be with the Lord -Nicholas, Elizabeth, John, Mary and Joseph (although I had imagined holding all my children, singing to them and breathing in their sweet scent, I am so grateful the Lord chose me to be the mother to these most precious souls, created by God to Glorify Him forever).  I am in awe at the wonderful gift of my life.  The Lord has blessed me so abundantly with more than I had even dared to dream of as a child.  Even my smaller dreams–  the romantic castle built in 1930, beautiful land, fun pool, wildlife (check out the deer in this picture), a cat, dogs, misc. indoor tank critters, and even the goats and horse.  We even have great neighbors…fences might make good neighbors but bridges make them even better…   The only possible wish I can even think of is that we could become independently wealthy enough (we are not extravigant types) so Pat can also be home with me full time to enjoy our incredible life together. 

 As I prepare to go to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Homeschool and Parent Conference, I am keenly aware of my responsibility to treasure and care for my family.  I pray that the Lord will bless me with the wisdom to teach my children in a way that is pleasing to Him, useful to their souls, and a value to them as they discern and carry out their vocations from God.  I ask for the Grace to be the wife my husband deserves, the wife I am called to be.  I also pray to be a good steward of the treasure entrusted to me and open to learning the things that will best help me to accomplish the tasks set before me by the Lord.

I am looking forward to this convention not only because of all the incredible speakers, and they are incredible, not just because I will be going with Kirsten, but also because I will be officially buying the curriculum for both Aubrey and Joshua.  I have decided that this coming school year will be slightly different from previous years.  In the past, I have relied on myself to organize and arrange my children’s curriculum.  Some years were very good, others were more of a struggle.  This past year was a rather good year, however, I need to unload some of the pressure.  I have over the years become familiar with several “boxed” curriculum.  As I prefer a “Catholic Charlotte Mason” approach to teaching, I was looking for a prepackaged curriculum that would still allow the flexibility my teaching style requires.  I am very excited with my decision to use Catholic Heritage Curriculum aka CHC.  I have used many of their products over the years and have always been moved by their gentle faithful beauty.  As our faith is first on my list of what to look for in any educational curriculum, CHC is a perfect match.  Second, I feel that CHC’s science program best fits my love of the hands on with the organized structure I need help with.  History was the reason I did not start this program sooner.  I am a huge RC History fan.  I love this program; it brings history back to life.  This year I have decided to go ahead and purchase both the CHC program and the next volume of RC History.  Although I will use the CHC book as my primary text for scheduling, we will use RCH as a supplement incorporating it into my lessons for both Aubrey and Joshua.  The only subject I am completely not using from the CHC “box” is math.  We use Math-U-See; I love it and my children are doing very well with it.  I am so excited I can’t wait for our new year to start.

Please pray for me; Kirsten and I are flying and I hate to fly.

I would love to stay up and write about all my thoughts from today.  I would love to go into detail regarding my gratitude to God, my husband and Mr. Cunillio.  But to be honest I am too tired.  Today my husband, with the Grace of God, and the generosity of Mr. Cunillio, fulfilled for me my greatest, most seemingly unattainable childhood dream.  Granted I have had to adjust the dream…. I am much bigger, older, and less agile then I ever was in my dream.  But my dream of having my own horse came true.  So, instead of staying up and typing my thoughts and feeling for today I thought I would use my camera to share some highlights.  Enjoy.

The extra lady in the photos is my friend and neighbor Libby.  And please note the very dirty Marcus.  Augh!  I gave him and Badger a wading pool.  Badger at least stands in it.  Marcus will not go in it at all;  however he loved the big deep puddle we made washing Ladybug.  Dogs?!?!

Joshua has discovered art.   He has made dozens of knights in armor.  Here is one he made on horseback with a removable sword in its sheath.  Click on the picture to make it larger and then you can click on it again to enlarge it even more.  It was his idea to make the sword removable.  He designed it completely on his own.  I did not know his plans until after it was done and he brought it to show me

Max’s favorite book is I Am a Bunny.  In it a bunny explains how he likes to blow the seeds of a dandelion.  Joshua and I thought it would be a great idea to show Max a real dandelion and let him blow the seeds like the bunny in the book.  Here are a couple of pictures of the brothers holding and blowing their dandelions.

How many girls, especially 11 year old girls, dream about horses?  Eating, sleeping, breathing horses?  I know I always did.  I would pretend my blue banana seat bicycle was a horse.  I imagined all the wonderful adventures we would go on together.  Here I am, days away from my 37th birthday still dreaming about “my horse”.  The one thing that has changed is that I no longer carry my dream alone.  Aubrey also has a love for horses.  She also imagines herself galloping off across a wide prairie.  Tomorrow, thanks to our friend Tom Cunilio, our dreams come true.  She is a Percheron named Ladybug.  Aubrey and I had the opportunity to hang out with her earlier this week.  She is an absolute dream.  Her eyes express her gentle heart so clearly.  I felt more comfortable with her than any other horse before.  Here are some pictures of Aubrey and my our horse.

The gentleman in some of the pictures is Mr. Cunilio.  We will be going to pick her up and bring her home tomorrow morning.  Please pray for poor Marcus.  He has never lived with a horse before.  Also, pray for Lilly.  I really hope the two of them hit it off so that they can both not be lonely.

This is what happens when little boys make their own KoolAid.

On Friday we went on a field-trip to Camp Blanding in Starke, Florida.  It was one of the best homeschool field-trips ever.  Not only was the museum filled with wonderful things but the tour guide was interesting to listen to.  He never spoke down to the children and yet kept their attention the entire time.  We also had a huge surprise.  As we rounded a corner Mr. Parsone (I think that was his name) showed us a collection of pictures of a paratrooper and explain the pack on the statue belonged to that same paratrooper and that the gentleman holding up the back of our group is that same paratrooper, Mr. Tritt.  The kids were impressed to meet a real hero and soldier.  Here are a few pictures of our trip including a few of Mr. Tripp during World War II and one from now with my children.

     I had to include this picture because it is a great memory of Max dragging me to see the boat truck.

It was also a great treat to see Daddy at work on a job site.    

It was a great day.  We are all looking forward to going for a visit there again soon.

What a wonderful week we have had.  I will break it down into several posts.  First, I want to tell you about our very wonderful Bishop.  May 20th was St. Madeleine’s Confirmation night.  As a confirmation teacher I was invited to attend dinner with our Bishop Galeone at Fr. Sebastian’s house.  What a wonderful experience it was to sit down at a meal with the Bishop and listen to him tell wonderful stories of his life as a missionary priest in Peru.  What a gift to have an opportunity to get to know our Bishop in a more personal way.  After Dinner we met again at the church for the Confirmation.  His homily was beautiful and very inspirational.  I prayed that the children’s ears would hear his words and that their hearts would be open to the wisdom he was sharing with them.

Here is a picture of Tom and I with the Bishop.  Tom was my co-teacher.   

On our way to Mass the following morning I was rehearsing with the children how to great the Bishop.

Mom:  “You may say good morning Bishop.  Or good morning Bishop Galeone.  Or good morning your Excellency.”

Joshua with nervous laugh:  “Your Excellency? He’s not a prince or a knight”

Mom: “Well, he is almost like one of Jesus princes.’”

Joshua with a DUH tone: “But he doesn’t fight.” aka he doe not have a sword.

I laughed: “Sure honey just like St. Michael the Archangel.  He fights the Devil everyday.”

Joshua: silence

The Bishop celebrated the morning mass.  His homily was one I will never forget.  It was the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.  In his homily he spoke of his love for Jesus.  What a powerful moment listening as this beautiful man expressed his love for Jesus.  “I love you Jesus, I love you.  Wow!  I get goose bumps hearing his voice repeat it in my memory.  Afterwards he lead us over to a ground breaking ceremony for our new building.  Max of course was the ham of the event.         

That evening San Juan, my sister’s parish, had their Confirmation.  Lucas served for the Bishop, so I “had” to go to that as well.  Heeheehee!  I told the Bishop I had become a Bishop Groupie.  :-)  He laughed, probably thinking that I am really a Bishop stalker.

I would like to remind us all to pray for our Bishops.  I would also like to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for our Bishop Galeone here in the Diocese of St. Augustine.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your humble, faithful servant Bishop Victor Galeone.  Please continue to bless him and us through him as he continues to lead your flock.  We ask that you grant him the strength and courage to continue the work you have given him.  For the intentions of our Bishop - Our Father…….  Hail Mary……..  Glory be…….

Cousin Maggie aka Margaret Mary was born May 16th at 7:22pm.  She was 7lbs 10 oz and 20 1/2 inches long.  Her delivery was picture perfect…. not that Jessica allows picture taking in the delivery room :-).  I am sure she will blog about it soon and I will be sure to mention when she does.

Today the big brothers and sisters stayed at my house while Jason went to pick up mom and baby.  Here are a few picks of the proud big cousins.

Margaret Mary is out!!!

We love you baby Maggie!!!

Our May Crowning this year began with a poster I traced using my overhead projector.  The children then colored it in with markers.  It was so cute to watch them all in the school-room working so well together.  Ok,  there was a little trouble over who would color Mary and who would color the baby Jesus; otherwise all went well.  Here is the finished product as it appears in our family-room.    

Last year I blogged about receiving an above ground pool from my friend, Jerra.  We have been waiting rather impatiently for it to warm up enough to again “live” in it.  As May finally arrived so did many very warm days.  Here are a few highlights.

My sister and I have very cute kids

 As homeschoolers in Florida I have full control over when my year officially begins and ends.  We generally “school” all year round so that we may take off day whenever we want to; for instance Feast-days, birthdays, misc Wednesdays or what ever.  Where am I headed with this?  Well, our new school year begins the day we submit our yearly evaluation to the county.  That day is hopefully this Saturday.  In preparation for our new year I redid the school-room.  It is reorganized and so wonderful.  We have never used it so often and for so many fun things.  Joshua has discovered (now that he has access to paper and pencils and other art supplies) he not only enjoys drawing and coloring but that he is very good at it.  I will post some of his creation soon.  While you wait here are pictures of “MY” school room.

The school room is such a pleasure to be in even I am trying to learn new tricks.  Forinstance I have wanted to become more faithful in my praying of the Rosary and I wanted to improve my drawing.  A few days ago a very close friend of mine asked me to pray for her.  I told her I would offer up the rosary for her.  Now I was comitted.  Not only did I pray the rosary but I also made a tangeble rosary with my special rosary coloring pad.

April was a difficult month for me.  I was feeling too tired and burnt out.  I prayed to a retreat, not a conference but a retreat.  Conferences get me all pumped up to do a million things, I needed a retreat to get me focused on God and the vocation He gave me.  My prayer was answered although not as I expected.

There is a group in Jacksonville, about one hour and 45 minutes away called Home of the Mother.  Although I have always considered kids sleep-away camp as something for “bad” parents that want to get rid of their kids in the summer.  I was recommended this group as a authentically Catholic group with a 6 day sleep-away camp.  The people recommending it are people I trust and admire, so I began to look into it.

After I started to get excited about it I decided to call and talk to the lady in charge of organizing it.  We talked for a long time.  She was very nice and by the end of our conversation I told her I was jealous and when was the mommy camp.  She laughed and told me she was glad I asked that on Saturday there was a family retreat.  A family retreat?!?  The bonus was that it was Mother’s Day weekend so I knew Pat could not turn me down

Off we went.  I milked very early and our neighbor Libby agreed to milk for me in the evening so that we would not have to hurry home.  I had 2 purposes for being so excited.  The first, purely selfishly, I wanted that retreat to regain my Peace in Christ.  To remove myself from the things of the world and focus on God and His vocation for me, my family.  The second was to “know” that allowing Aubrey to go to the camp this summer is the right thing to do.  I prayed that the Lord would send Aubrey a friend at the retreat who would also be going to the camp.  My prayer was answered :-)  I had a wonderful time and Aubrey made a new friend who is homeschooled and going to the camp.  Wooohooo!

After the retreat we went to the beach in St. Augustine.  It was beautiful.  I forgot to bring myself a change of clothes, so I felt a little silly getting wet in jeans, but heeheehee I couldn’t resist.

Believe it or not this is only a small fraction of the pictures I took.  I am under the mistaken belief that if I take enopugh pictures I will some how be able to cheat time and relive the moment.

I actually wrote the following post in April.  Ooooops, I never posted it

A few nights ago, I am watching late night food tv when I hear Joshua crying.  The kind of crying that let me know he is ok but has just had a bad dream or something similar.  I called to him and he came out crying very sad.  As soon as he could talk he told me “my tooth is loose”.  Then he proceeded to cry and cry some more.  I took him into my bed to wake daddy with what I kept saying was good news (Joshua kept correcting me saying  that it is not good news it is very bad news).  Well, so began a very long night for poor Joshua.  Every few minutes he would think of more reasons why this was not good news.  “How will I eat?”, “What if my tooth falls out while I am sleeping?”  “What if I swallow it?  It might scratch my stomach and hurt coming out because teeth are very sharp.”  “What if it gets lost and I don’t get to see it?”, “I don’t want a hole in my mouth.”, “Maybe it is going to hurt.” and he went on and on and on until at some point I finally told him “Honey, I am sorry you are so nervous about your tooth.  I promise it is going to be ok but, I can’t have you waking me up over and over.  You need to get back into your own room.

 Morning found him with all his teeth still in his mouth.  Yesterday morning before the sun was up, he ran into our room “My tooth is out, my tooth is out.”  Here is a pic of the very cute whole in his mouth.