A visit from Aunt Pamela

Last week our good friend, affectionately known as Aunt Pamela, visited us from GA. We enjoyed several fun days together!

We took her to St. Vincent College...




Here she is with the kids before Evening Prayer.

Here they are on the afternoon when Elena finally let Pamela hold her :)

Notice Cati's dress - it's her latest handmade dress from Aunt Ginny - another beautiful creation!!

Elena looks a little concerned :) :)

We went to the park one morning...

Thank you for your visit, Aunt Pamela!! We had a lot of fun and we hope to see you again soon!!!

The kids sketch the Everglades

I've been following 2 new blogs, both written by the same woman, a fellow homeschooling mom. The two blogs are Harmony Art Mom and the Handbook of Nature study (see the links on the right side of my blog). On the first blog among other postings, she hosts what she calls "Sketch Tuesday" in which she gives an idea for a sketch project for the week and then you are welcome to send her pictures of your work which she will post on her blog. The kids love drawing, but I'm not so good at remembering to include it in our schedules regularly. Maybe this will help us!

The theme for this week was the Everglades. The kids chose these pictures for the Everglades National Park website to sketch. Unfortunately, I didn't save the picture that Matteo used!!


Cati chose a snake...

I don't know why Matteo's is sideways...it's not saved like this on my computer!! For some reason, blogger is turning it.

Maria chose a bird. She really likes drawing birds, in case you haven't noticed by now :)

Happy Father's Day!!

Dany is happy to be home after a 10 day trip to Salt Lake City for some intensive math research. He is watching Italy play in the World Cup while eating a homemade cinnamon roll. He's having a good morning!!

Cati's Prayer Book Cover - FINISHED!!

Cati received her First Holy Communion on May 2nd, a little more than a month ago. We gave her her own copy of the one-volume Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH), which we pray as a family. I also embroidered a book cover for it.

Unfortunately, this is what it looked like on the day we gave it to her - a sheet of fabric with some embroidery and a good bit of unfilled pencil markings.



I was inspired to do this project for 2 reasons. First, Dany and my copies of the LOTH have a homemade book cover with our initials embroidered on them. They were gifts from the mother of a good friend of ours. We received them in college. Then, when searching for instructions for embroidery - I had never embroidered - I came across a wonderful website, which I reviewed before on my blog, Mary Corbet's Needle n' Thread. The site's author made a beautiful book cover for a FHC gift. Of course, hers is much, much better than mine, but I think it still came out nice.

Here is the project all ready to start on April 3, one month before Cati's FHC.

Here are some pictures on the road to completing the project.

I completed the top half of the cross, but then I had to sew the vine since it would cross over the bottom half of the cross.

You can see the completed cross in the very top picture of the post.

Then I insisted on adding Cati's name. I kind of think I should have left well-enough alone. My lettering definitely leaves much to be desired, but it's not bad for a first attempt.

I made it into a cover for the book - and it actually fit!

Cati was very happy to have her new book cover!

And for once, Chiara couldn't resist having her picture taken, too :)

Matteo, Caterpillars, a Hare and a Tortoise

Matteo's been doing very well with his school work. He's been memorizing the poem, "The Caterpillar" by Christina G. Rossetti.

Here is the drawing he made about the poem.

Here he is reciting the poem.

He also did his first narration recently. I read to him the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. He told it back to me in his own words while I wrote it. Here he is reading what I wrote.

Eat your veggies!

At the end of every Mass, the priest says, "Go in peace (to love and serve the Lord)."

This morning when the priest said this, Chiara (age 3) turned to me and said, "Mommy, he just said, 'Go eat your peas!'"

At least she's (kind of) listening :)

Another gardening attempt

When we moved into this house 4 years ago, there was already a good-sized portion of the yard sectioned off for a garden. We planted all kinds of things that first summer - carrots, peas, green beans, eggplant, corn, and tomatoes. The neighborhood rabbits ate almost everything as it came up :( These are the pitiful carrots we got out of the garden. However, we did learn that tomatoes grow quite well here!

The next summer, we only planted tomatoes. They grew like weeds! We didn't do a thing for them, but they produced so many tomatoes! And, I was making tomato sauce every day.

Last summer, I decided that I wouldn't have time for gardening since we were having a new little one.

This year, I gave in to the kids' gardening wishes that they've had from the beginning - flowers! Maria wanted to plant some flowers that would be good for cutting to put in a vase on our prayer table in our family chapel. We primarily planted perenneals, so that they will come back year after year - hopefully :)

These pictures are in reverse order - sorry!

First of all, here are some roses that I'm trying to root. It's been 3 days now, and I don't think it's going too well :( Any tips?


It's best to just scroll down to the bottom picture at this point and work your way back up.....

Here is another lilly with a bud. It hasn't grown very tall, but it's ready to flower.

Here is one of the lillies that has a bud. You can see some of the peat pots that we planted - without anything green growing out of them :( :(

Here is the same area today. The lilly bulbs have come up and a couple have buds on them! We started some flowers from seed, and while they sprouted and grew, they didn't exactly thrive. We planted them outside this week (you have to wait until the end of May here in PA to plant outside), and I think only 2 or 3 will survive. I've not had much success starting seeds indoors.

We prepared our flower garden at the end of March. We wanted to start with a small area this year. Notice the fencing to keep the rabbits out - they eat everything!! We planted lilly bulbs on this day, too.

Not pictured - all the seeds that we threw in there this week! Yes, "threw" would be the correct word :) I could tell when we planted the peat pots that the chances of them surviving were not good. So, I found all the flower seeds around the house that I could and I let the little ones plant them as they wished! They had fun and hopefully we will end up with some flowers eventually :)

I'll post more pictures later in the summer when (if!) we have any flowers!

Afternoon at the Nature Park

Last Friday, the kids and I went with some other homeschoolers to Keystone State Park. They had a wonderful guide who took us through a hike in the woods to look for signs of the season. They learned a lot about local birds and plants.



There were a couple of stops on the hike to just sit and listen.

We all really enjoyed the afternoon! Well - we all really enjoyed the hike. None of us enjoyed gathering the center beforehand to see the wildlife on display there. The guide showed the kids the snake she recently caught. My kids were the only ones NOT interested in "petting" it :) :) What can I say - these are definite MY kids!

Chiara - What a mess!

Chiara - the girl with THE BEST facial expressions!




I'm not sure when she got so messy this day...

Thankfully, Tide washes out just about anything!!

And, look! On Pentecost Sunday, Chiara decided to fix her own hair :) :)

Thankfully, she did let me help her a bit after I took this picture!

Dinner entertainment

The girls have been learning the first chapter of the Gospel of John in Latin. To help them memorize it, they created a chant/song to go along with it, and they were chanting at the end of supper the other night.