At the beach

When we visited the Rosamonds in Connecticut last week, we got to visit the beach one morning. This was my kids' first trip to the beach, except for Maria who went when she was 2 years old, but she doesn't remember that, of course.

Chiara was not impressed with the crab that Luke found :)

That's Maria wading out on the left side of the picture.

They really enjoyed it!

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 :)