This and that

We've had a busy week as usual.  The little boys' zoo science classes started this week.  Charlie learned about living and nonliving things and Tucker learned about conservation, and I can tell he's going to force us all to recycle more.  :)

Today Marc had planned to take Tucker to his class and I was going to pick him up.  At the last minute it didn't work out so I was going to have to be up at the zoo for 2 hours unexpectedly.  No worries- I just grabbed our science and history books and hit the road.  We sat out in the gorgeous weather and learned while Charlie explored the playground and just generally toddled around.

First some science-

Then a quick visit to the petting zoo-

And then onto "grandma's porch" for history-

Then we picked up Tucker, ate lunch and had a train ride before heading home.

When we got home Marc and Julia both did math, grammar and writing and Charlie and Tucker had reading and religion  And we were still done by 2:30 and out on the trampoline.  :)

Marc had a football game last night- they won and kept their undefeated status!  Charlie insisted on bringing his binoculars.  He said, "Marwk, I am bwinging dees binocuwars so I can find you!"  And he did!  He kept saying "There he is- 55!!!!"  :)

BB with our big boy!

I left the obstacle course materials in the side yard ever since Little Flowers, and the little boys have had the best time!  They keep rearranging and making new challenges for each other, and it gives them something to do while I'm working with the older ones.

Tucker's little brain is always on fast forward.  He can't just sit and relax.  The other day he made himself a homemade map of the continents that he could shuffle around.

That same day after we'd done our religion, grammar and reading and I was working with Julia he just sat beside me drawing all the states from memory and labeled them with their postal codes (our grammar work had mentioned postal codes).  :)

I find these cartoon stories of the planets EVERYWHERE- in this one Saturn was playing baseball, and Pluto wanted to play croquet-

I was reading a Bible story and he jumped up grabbed his wiki sticks and wrote "Joseph" on the kitchen doorway.  He cannot sit still!

Julia has horseback riding twice a week now so we are always running up to the barn.  We are blessed that it is only about two miles from our house!

And last but not least- we read The Princess and the Goblin this past week.  Oh my goodness!  It is my favorite read aloud we've ever done.  As I researched it after that fact to see if others thought it as great as I did I saw this on Wikipedia:   G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence".  I certainly loved and it and will read it again one day.  

Sunday pictures and Little Flowers

A few Sunday pictures (before I got my new mums potted- yes it's blazing hot, but I'm pushing on with fall anyway).  :)
 

 

Today we hosted Little Flowers at our home.  It's broken up into two groups: a K-2 group and a grade 3 and up group.  I taught the older group and we learned about St. Catherine of Siena and the virtue of Faith.  I read St. Catherine's biography from Loyola Book of Saints and then we discussed her very interesting life.

We then talked about what Faith is.  I had each girl read a verse from the Bible and we discussed what it meant.

We focused on walking by faith and not by sight and how God's word is a lamp to our feet.  Then we recited the Act of Faith.  After that we went outside and did relay races where one girl was blindfolded and another girl had to tell her how to step- thus she got through by trusting her friend, not by sight.  :)  Then we prayed and had snack and played.  Such a sweet day with the sweetest girls. 

Tonight after supper we watched The Pistol- The Birth of a Legend, which is about famous basketball player Pete Maravich.  I had watched it several times in my high school Bible class and remembered liking it a lot and thought Marky would too.  I will say it's just okay- not as great as I remembered.  Anyway, in it Pete stands up in class and reads a paper called "my dreams", where he describes how he wants to be the best basketball player in the world (and his class laughs at him).

Tucker immediately jumped up and ran and got paper and wrote his own "My dream" paper at once:

I love you sweet Tucker and all your sweet dreams.  :)

Troops, Trade Days and Greek Food Festival

This morning Marc took Marc Jr. and Tucker to the convent with the Troops of St. George to do yard work for the precious Sisters.  They had the best time and pulled weeds and trimmed bushes all morning.

I love this picture of Tucker working and talking to a Sister and a Friar.  :)

After they worked Father P. read the daily readings, which just happened to be about the Sower and the Seed!  :)   A perfect lesson for this day of service!

After lunch we tried to decide what to do today.  I said we could either go to Trade Days at Tannehill or the Greek Food Festival.  We decided to do both!

First, we went out to Tannehill for Trade Days, which is basically a giant flea market.  It's just fun to walk up and down the aisles and find treasures.  Today we found a booth where a school teacher was selling all her old story books for 50 cents each.  You know I grabbed some!  :)  Marky also got some camping gear from the army surplus tent, and the littles got marionette stuffed animals.

Snow cone break to beat the heat!

We stopped by the Tannehill Smithy on the way to the car- they still train blacksmiths here.

After leaving Tannehill we headed over to the local Melkite Church for the Greek Food Festival.  We had a great time- there was live music and dancing.

The night ended with us running into friends, and Tucker and Charlie playing on the dance floor.   What a wonderful day.