Oz and Oktoberfest

On Thursday this week I took the three older children to see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at at the children's theater.  It was really well done with perfectly cast actors, and we were on the third row.  They all loved it, although they have been reading the book at night and were able to spot the differences.  :)

Friday after ballroom dance we went to our favorite bookstore- 2nd and Charles and had great success!

That evening Marky had football practice and the littles had fun on the playground-

Friday night we had our traditional movie night- Voyage of the Dawn Treader this time, but Charlie usually goes to bed beforehand.  He loves his bedtime stories.  :)

This morning we headed over to a local church for their annual Oktoberfest.  We had a great time!

Tucker wore this punching balloon as a hat.  "It reminds me of my favorite lighting hat," he says.  :)

  

It was a wonderful day! 

Fishing, St. Jerome and St. Francis

This past week Poppy decided he wanted to expand his pier and add two benches.  We don't know how he knows how to build everything, but he apparently can build anything (and without help at that!).  He's built sheds, barns, fences, and piers by himself with not one person to help.  We love our new pier- thank you Poppy! 

Look at those fancy posts-

Friday I had a routine doctor's appointment and the children stayed at the farm for the morning.  They loved fishing!

Saturday Marky had two flag football games in a row.  His fan section hung in there.  

Last week we had so many saints to learn about- including St. Jerome  (who translated the Hebrew/Greek Bible into Latin) on September 30th and St. Francis of Assisi on October 3rd.

  

We read several books with stories of St. Francis- blurry pics- sorry!

And we made these little "wolf paw cookies" to remember the story about St. Francis taming the wolf that was terrorizing the town of Gubbio

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Charlie's big boy room

It doesn't seem that long ago when we moved to this house and the nursery was Tucker's room.  I don't think I have any pictures from that.  I do remember getting it ready for Charlie's nursery.  (It's funny reading that old post- Tucker was 2 1/2 and finally getting some hair and we were wondering if it "might be curly?"  :)

Anyway, we finally decided that with Charlie potty trained it made no sense for him to still be sleeping in a crib.  So we got the beds out of the attic, picked up a dresser from Big Lots of all places, and then shopped around the house to put it all together.  Charlie loves it and just woke up from a three hour nap in there.  :)

From the hall-

Other corner- 

Prints over the beds are "Our Lady Undoer of Knots" and "Prayer of St. Francis".  The cross on the wall was from Aunt Amber- it was blessed while laid on the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. 

Need to polish those silver cups!

FYI- Bedding, rug and curtains from Pottery Barn.  

Books fall open, you fall in.....

Every single afternoon we sit on our porch and read.  I love it so much and you couldn't pay me to give up this time of wonder.   Usually Charlie is asleep while Tucker is playing, climbing and jumping off the porch rails,  and Marc and Julia are glued to the book.

Yesterday I was dictating a sentence from Beatrix Potter for Marc to write from his writing program.  Julia overheard and ran to grab her sweet little basket of Beatrix Potter books from her room and figured out which book the sentence came from.  Then she began to read aloud to Tucker.  After reading a while she got down and organized her books by characters.

Then this morning I found her writing out the story on paper- for fun.  We've already had to talk about what "soporific" means and how semicolons work.

I can't get over how learning and wonder come naturally to children.  She totally decided to copy the whole book on her own.  Marc is currently learning the Apostles Creed in Latin because (as his tutor told me)- "he's ambitous and wants to try something harder."  I know if he was still in school and I had said, "we have to learn the Creed in Latin" it would have been sighs and complaints.  I think it was because they were so tired- going, going, going and coming home to hours of homework.  A little leisure goes a long way to restoring some wonder and desire in children it seems.   

And we don't turn on any television or electronics before late afternoon.  I think that definitely helps keep a calm, reading-focused tone in the home.  Just thinking outloud over here...

Updated in the afternoon-

Julia had her biology class at the zoo today.  When I told her it was time to get in the class she said, "can you find me a clipboard?  I really want to finish writing out this book."  She wrote the whole ride over.  At one point she said, "When I grow up I want to be an author."  Tucker (Mr. Vocab) said, "Do you mean an author and illustrator?"  And Charlie said, "Do you  mean King Arfur?"  :)

While Sissy had fun in class the three boys and I enjoyed the zoo.  It was almost empty and the weather was perfect.  The boys have such a fun time together.  Marky loves them and I don't think they'd be nearly as close if he was gone all day and busy all night- (this is not staged- this is how they walk sometimes)-