"I want go see Duh Bruders"

That's what my 2 year old tells me, "I want go see Duh Bruders."

Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy..."IIIIIIII'm a Fransican Brothers Groupie. I fo-llow them where'ere they go."

Father David Mary Engo

changed the Mass schedule of the Brothers, so daily Mass is at 7:45am, and Thursdays it's still at 8:30am. That's TOTALLY do-able for us to get to Mass and get home to do school without taking up our whole day. I'm so excited. I told the kids that as part of our fasting and sacrifice for the 40 Days for Life, we'd try to make it to daily Mass. We've NEVER been able to accomplish that before (we've always been in the position with lots of little kids/babies). When Dave heard me telling the kids...he said he'd try to make it WITH US!! (I'm soooo excited!) 2 Days accomplished...38 to go.

My youngest is soooo bad (loud) in Mass! Those poor Brothers who just want to pray are sooooo sweet to my wiggly-rotten-typical-2 year old.

My bigger boys (8 & 10) just started server practice. Boys 3rd grade and up are welcome to be taught by Brother Lawrence (up in the tree) and Brother Leo. By the time they're done teaching my boys reverence for the Mass...I'm sure they'll have developed the patience of a saint!

Living a homeschool lifestyle

I mean besides the laundry unfolded in baskets...

I'd been feeling like the boys haven't gotten the fun out school that I was able to invest in the girls. This year another family hopped in with our lesson plans for Religion, History, Science & Literature on almost every grade level. We're meeting once a week to do group activities. It was really important that the kids not just have fun, but are genuinely progressing in their studies on that day. I have been sooo pleased with how well it's going. Between us we have 1 toddler (who really gets in the way, but enjoys the variety), 3 elementary boys, 2 jr. highers, and 2 high school (for Lit & Sci.)

We're using RC History's lessons combined with SOTW for history and Great Adventure for Religion. My friend is in charge of science using RS4K Biology for 1 semester and various human body books for 2nd semester. She's also doing Bible while I do Ancient Literature with the big girls and history for the rest of the kids.

The history lessons rival the Prairie Parties we had monthly for the girls when they were young while we read the Little House on the Prairie series throughout the year. Those were fun! (Weren't they, Jennie?)

I have to say...these are even better. It's somewhere between goup lessons and parties each week (for the kids, not necessarily the moms.)
Week 1 we discussed Creation. Week 2 we were sick and didn't meet for history, but the girls Skyped for literature. Week 3 we covered the agricultural revolution, moving away from a nomadic culture and it's implications and Hammurabi's laws. Week 4 - Whoa : I did a lesson about the plagues of Egypt and how they each cooresponded to an Eyptian god. Then, we made oragami frogs. Then, after they understood all the concepts we threw tiny ripped pieces of black paper at each other for flies, hopped origami frogs everywhere, threw rice at teach other for lice, red silly string for hail & fire...they seemed to enjoy their Bible/History lesson.




How am I going to match the fun of silly string for Week 5?????