Me: Brendan, let's go now. Go get your jammies.
Monday December 29, 2008
I am thankful we got to watch Aidan serve his first mass. It has been a year of preparation. Lots and lots of latin memorization. Lots of reverent watching from the front pew. Lots of anticipation. Grace all over.
The Montessori books are dusted off and new supply lists are in progress. Tess is the Montessori poster child. She and Brendan have been enjoying lots of practical life work this summer. Table setting is a hit and they are carefully transferring glasses and plates and napkins each evening.
Kieran has finished a test run of the first chapter of his new history program. He is accelerated though he has not skipped a subject or grade. I was not certain he was ready for the next level of history. It involves completing outline summaries and mapmaking. The whole finding data from the text thing seemed like it would be over his head. He was so excited though so we had him complete the first chapter as a trial run. He loved every bit of it and had no trouble at all and told his dad all about the people and places he read about at dinner. So much for dead textbooks.
Aidan picked up a Dover coloring book – Rocky Mountain Animals and Plants – at Garden of the Gods last week along with a new box of colored pencils. I wish I could afford some nicer pencils but little people have a tendency to let them drop or to pound on invisible drums with them. For that reason Crayola and I are tight. : ) This is the time of year to stock up on school supplies even if you homeschool. You can't pass up 28cent crayon boxes and stacks of composition books.
I am creating skirts and dresses for daughters. 
The past few weeks have been such a blessing to our family. The day after Allen and the boys returned from camp we drove to Denver to pick up Zach and Anna, whom he had brought home to meet the family. They had a whirlwind week which included a 13 mile hike to the top of Pike's Peak.
Allen and the little boys were blessed to participate in a father/son camp in the mountains with the men of our church and two of our wonderful priests last week. The highlight of their week was a living stations of the cross which culminated at the summit of the mountain where they erected three crosses.
If we have any more fun I may never have time to blog. <g> I will be back to update on all that has happened around the ranch (promises promises) but I wanted to finish up the trip pics at least before it's time to upload the new ones Allen and the boys are taking at church camp!
"As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway...
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me."
Discussing tone of voice strikes a chord, sometimes a painful one, in many women earnestly trying to bless their families. I wanted to add some thoughts to those I posted the other day since so many women seemed saddened. Most of those who are wounded by falling short of their ideal in this area would might wish to consider this passage,
Not rain, nor hail, nor sniffly noses in the dark of night could daunt our (mostly) grown-up weekend away. Ok some of that was just a wee bit daunting but good times prevailed.
"A blow with the tongue is just as wicked and irritating and irrational as a blow with the hand; and yet many people let their tongues run loose in the family and strike fore and aft without restraint, and then wonder why there is no government in their homes."
"Many a man will strike his wife with his tongue, blow after blow, when he would not strike her with his hand. And sometimes wives are tongue-strikers, who do not strike with their hands."
"The poor government of many families is due to the striking freedom given to the tongues."
We often bemoan the behavior of children without acknowledging the source of their disposition. Children learn what they live. A sobering thought is that they are learning to parent while her with us in our homes. A good question to ask ourselves is whether we would be happy to watch our children respond to our grandchildren as we respond to them today.
"Children who hear their parents scold and fret at each other, who hear rebuke and censure, harsh tones and loud faultfindings in them, will not get the obedient spirit, or the harmonious disposition, from the atmosphere of their homes. On the contrary, they will catch the words and tones of harshness and the spirit of disobedience as quickly as they would the measles if exposed to them.
Sour, complaining, quarrelsome dispositions are not made in the home atmosphere which is always musical with gentle voices."
I particularly like this point:
"Our good ideals are often set in sharp contrast with our bad realities. We desire to be so much better than we are that we often blush at our deficiencies."
This is all too true but yet,
"…the words we speak, the tones in which we utter them, the voice-power we give them, are so outward that we can control them with Christ's help. We need not rage in speech. We need not "grate harsh discord" in our tones. We need not thunder in power of voice. We need not stir up anger nor drive the home spirit weeping away by our manner of speech. This is ours to manage–ours to control"
This we must remember. This is ours to manage. We can choose to speak gently or at least recommit to doing so when we find we have strayed from this resolution. We have it within us to ask for forgiveness when hasty words escape us.
".…God does nothing arbitrary. If He takes away your health, for instance, it is because He has a reason for doing so; and this is true of everything you value; and if you have real faith in Him, you will not insist on knowing the reason. If you find, in the course of daily events, that your self-consecration was not perfect – that is, that your will revolts at His will – do not become discouraged, but fly to your Savior and stay in His presence till you obtain the spirit in which He cried at His hour of anguish, "Father if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will but Thine be done."
Starry Sky Journal 