Planning Progress

Our plans have come along pretty well since my last post.

Mardi Gras: I'm almost done gathering everything together. Last night while Mr. Sloth was out I finshed the posters I was making with information about the history of Mardi Gras. At least I thought I finished. I forgot about a poster for "King Cake" and I want to laminate the posters to use for next year as well. They were a lot of work I don't want it to go to waste only to do it again next year.

St. Joseph's altar: Instead of scrambling to put together an altar on March 18th I decided to slowly put one together right up to the feast day. So far we have a statue of St. Joseph and yester day Demand and I bought flowers for the altar (yellow, green, and then some white lilies). Today Demand asked if we could make handprint lilies for the altar. How could I say no? Before tonight is over I'd like to print out a short prayer to St. Joseph to hang in my shower. (Yep, I have prayers in my shower.)

St Patrick's Day/Week: I'm having a few homeschooling friends over on the actual day for a mini-party. So far for the menu/events I've planned making mint-ice cream in our ice cream maker and then making Trinity Shamrock crafts that I ordered for from Oriental Trading. I'll plan more after Mardi Gras. I'm thinking of having the kids make sacrifice beads as well or maybe this pipe cleaner rosary.

Lent: While I was making posters for Mardi Gras I worked on posters for Lent. I made three posters "Pray", "Give", and "Fast" and below each will be filled in with activities, etc. I've decided to start 40 bags, 40 days early that I am done by Palm Sunday and can then do spring cleaning (got that idea, yet again, from Shower of Roses) I found another great idea for kids during Lent. Catholic Icing suggest the child pick a toy and put it in a box for Lent. It's a great idea, but I don't want choose too much for Demand this year, plus we're already packing things up for a possible move. Maybe next year.

Packing: The other night I finished boxing up 20 boxes, then loaded them in the van. (and the van was loaded), stopped to get gas. (Thank you 'state' for passing a law that you had to stand next to the pump while filling your gas. FAREEEZING!) Then I took them to Obscure's home where he helped me unload them. I hope to do this all over again later this week. I have mixed feelings about it since it's exhausting work to do after a long day with the kids, but it feels nice to have things out of the house.

School: Demand and I had a great day of home schooling and it was quite unplanned. Quite organic actually. I was planning on napping but when Pax had his own ideas I decided we would get some school work done while he played on the floor. Demand has only four books left before she can buy this book, and only one of the four books is completely new to her. She's working to finish by Friday. After reading I had her practice her oral presentation for later this month while I changed Pax's diaper. She is going to recite the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" prayers. I picked something she already had memorized so she could work more on her posture and volume this time, there's still the nerves issue too. After Pax was back asleep she and I headed downstairs and made hand print lilies for St. Joseph. Next she worked on her letters online for a good hour while I cleaned the kitchen. Well, worked on cleaning the kitchen. Now she is alternating between entertaining Pax and writing her letters. Here's a tip by the way, if you have a chalkboard a great way to entertain your children is to give them water and paintbrushes and let them go to town. Happy and Demand worked on their letters for a good half an hour the other day doing that. Anyway, I didn't plan on doing much homeschooling today but we sure accomplished a lot.

Life: Today with Mr. Sloth having to leave for work "early" I couldn't go to Mass....by myself. Since it was a later Mass and the kids were up and ready I did it, I braved Mass by myself with all the kiddos. I prepared for the absolute worst (which involved me nursing Pax running down the aisle chasing Happy but not quite fast enough too catch him) but things went really well. We started in the Cry room because, who are kidding? Plus it was the all-school Mass and I didn't want us distracting the school kids. It was actually a great way to explain parts of the Mass and really encourage their responses. Happy worked on being quite and Demand worked on paying attention. Pax naturally wanted to nurse just before Communioin which I would have skipped but Happy and Demand know the routine and were already trying to break out of the room, so after a quick snack I braved bringing all three kiddos up to Communion. Happy was such a good boy! He held Demand's hand the entire walk up. It was quite endearing actually. He of course has no concept of waiting in line, but Demand sure does. She kept dragging him back to us. It's a good thing He held Demand's hand because I need both hands for Pax. He's a grabber, I mean a serious grabber. Never seen a kid like him and grabby babies and Communion.....let's not go there.

Alright I have twenty minutes to purge my fridge and gather a 'left overs' dinner or I like to call them "Penitential Meals". Gotta go!