TODAYS FEAST DAY

We had all intentions of attending A Feast day Mass today, But I have been unwell for a few days, and my desire became just a dream.
So unable to celebrate this feast of The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin with Mass, as I had planned, we stayed put and prayed our Novena and The Rosary, read the Missal and began the journey of our day.


As the morning drew on I got more tired, so Brid joined me in bed to read her Advent readers- including this gem.
We are taking this one slowly, and savouring every story. We get something out of each one. Its broken up into countries.

We have another read aloud I picked up from a christian bookshop called ' One Wintry Night'- it is the story of the Bible and ties the Christmas message and Our Saviours birth within each small chapter. It is truly lovely.

To finish off our day, we wanted to watch 'The Nativity Story'. I enjoyed it, but we needed to
stop it several times for discussion points.
Also Brid was disturbed by several scenes. ie.,the soldiers violent portrayal was enough for her. Elizabeth giving birth was another talking point.
I watched this movie last year with Kristie, but this is the first time we watched it as a family.
I am pleased there were several things we needed to concentrate on, as distractions. In the Advent Lapbook guidelines, it asked for discussion on symbolism at several points of the movie. I love symbolism, so I was in my element with that. I thought it would be a good teaching tool, as we have been discussing symbols in Narnia and other popular books.
(I will post her Lapbook when it is complete.)

All in all, our day was rich in so many ways, the stories in the readers, mirrored the scripture readings, the Gospel reading, mirrored the Annunciation in the movie.

We learn so much by just being faithful to Our Lord and trusting in his desires for us. So today, I had no choice, than just be. Thank you Lord.

ST NICHOLAS

Happy St Nicholas feast day.

Crafty Brid

We have had a lot of well deserved craft fun this week. So again while Christmas carols playing, and Brid encouraging me to harmonise with her we started ...... this.....

Brid has been gathering craft ideas over the last few weeks. With ideas flowing back and forth between us, soooo in between readers, Advent lapbooking, we have been secretly ssshhh! been getting Brids' Christmas presents together.
She is painting plywood discs to put pictures on for each family member, wrapping them and putting them away in a secret hiding place.

The SEWING BUG-
I like 'doing' sewing from my head, let me rephrase, I rarely use patterns, which gets me into trouble when I am teaching an eager beaver, like Brid to sew. Yesterday, she made an apron, and we made it up as we went along. But it looks wonderful, and guess what Brid did 90% by herself, just me sitting next to her explaining how to move her fingers with the sewing machine.

Christmas Dress:
Brid picked out some material for her Christmas dress, so we will tackle that next week.

Skirt, first of many:-
SO along with my pattern and idea in my head- I made Brid a skirt, UUmm from another skirt, just lengthtened it. altered it along the way, and found a little frill for the hemline. Her Skirt is above- she wore it proudly to Mass today.
So here as you see are the photos as promised.

ADVENT

This is Brids' thing!

She has loved 'setting up' the Nativity Scene since she was a small toddler.

Today I woke to the sound of her 'rearranging' it again.

And it won't be the last time.

Today she made a hill, out of tinsel for the shepherd to 'watch there sheep'.

Christmas Carols are now on the CD player, and will stay until after Christmas now.

Now its Advent, Brid can now play all her new and old Christmas carols on the Piano.

times tables

It has been rather a busy time for me this last two weeks.
My darling man has been at home for two weeks now.
Even though he has been limited in movement, his time has not been wasted.
He has been helping with schooling.
I needed to put him to work as I was rather behind with all others household matters, especially that I needed to take his tasks over.
Sooo........Times tables is something that has definitely been an issue for Brid. She has gone from working them out to knowing them in two weeks.
I have put Dermot in charge of this area. He has accepted willingly. Yeah!
She will be scoring for Dermot on the dart board soon. He will love that.

It has left me a little time to prepare the resources we will use for Advent.

FRIDAY

On Fridays, we have always finished our school week with Mass. In the last few months we have discovered Latin Mass. I find it very peaceful and moving. When I first heard about it, my internal barriers came up. You see, I am charasmatic my nature. I enjoy singing and clapping and praising God in a very open way. I love praise music like Planetshakers, Third Day, Rebecca St James. etc...
I belief that God has been bringing me on a journey with him over the last few years. I began discovering Our Lord again some 12 years ago and since then he has led me on an amazing journey with him. Part of this is that its OK to just 'Be still' and adore him internally in the Mass- This is best achieved in a Latin Mass.
I then started thinking, how does this all fit together. Easy, just "Let me(Jesus) lead you". I suppose it is all about Trust. Trusting God has my journey mapped out, which I know in my head, but in reflection I can now see it. So on Fridays we go to either a Latin or an 'English' mass- a Brid calls it, depending on whether we go to Sydney, with friends or stay here in 'Our Town'. Either way its OK because each has its own individual beauty.
The days we stay in 'Our Town', we go and do something special together, and the days we go to Sydney we enjoy lots of other homeschoolers company.

Rememberance Day

Today we as a nation celebrate 90 years since the end of WWI. While we didn't brave the services at the memorial locations in our city, we did mark this day with reading about our great War Veterans, and there slogs. We did several activities and made poppies. We stood still for 2 minutes at 11am and discussed the role these men and women played in shaping our world.

My 2 great Uncles and 1 Aunt served in WWII. One in Japan, One in New Guinea, and one Darwin Base awaiting the troops. It is glorified by family, but there is nothing glorious about War. Just Remembering. Lest we Forget.

I remember how moving the ceremonies were at school, and how they touched my heart. I pray they touch each of us, so we can live in peace.

After writing this post, I watched an ABC-1 docum., on WWI and our soldiers involvement. Again I was touched by our troops courage and bravery. The way the diggers got in and got the job done, the way they fought for commemoration statues afterwards. The way they fought to remember there dead diggers. Brilliant show.

We need to keep honouring our war Veterans and show respect for what they did. I couldn't do it, and I'm sure it wasn't easy.