A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Friday, February 24, 2023

February Happenings

The days are getting away from me again.  It feels like not much is happening, but I do have a bunch of photos to share.  


One of the pastors sent me this picture of Jack, lounging in the library during youth.  I love that he's snuggling a Bible.  (The fact that his shoes are on the ottoman cover I made, not so much.)  


The quest to find a good book to read for St. Patrick's Day has been frustrating.  I'm half tempted to write my own and call it St. Patrick Without All The Blarney.  I've found a "close enough" book, though.  


Oh Grumman.  A cat rescue I follow recently posted, "Describe your cat in one word."  I replied, "Entitled."  He's such a character.


As is little Fiona, of course.  


I pulled out my leftover ducks from last school year, and my 6th graders are tripping over themselves to do book talks to earn ducks.  


Bri sent the girls t-shirts.  (Hannah's other shirt has a red panda enjoying boba.)


Katie's other shirt has a dragon.


She's a little harder to photograph.


Barely controlled chaos abounds.


Parents of adult children:  If you send your child a package via Amazon, you can get a picture of their far away doorstep.  :sigh:  I've done this a few times now, and it's a small comfort to me to get a glimpse of where they live.  


Purple makes me happy, so I bought some purple carnations at the grocery store.  Only Grumman went nuts over the greenery packed with them, so I had to keep them where he couldn't get to them.  Which ended up being in my shower.  :sigh:  


More books


A couple of valentines from my kindergarteners.


Josiah had a birthday.  


There's a saying among Air Force mamas:  Find a dime, your airman's fine.  Silly, but some consolation when they're so far away.  I changed from my "day after Thanksgiving to day after Valentine's" purse to my purple "rest of the year" purse, and I found a dime.  


We recently read the Aboriginal myth, Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail so I had a little Australia display set up.  I also changed out the biographies on display for Black History Month.  


Speaking of displays, I love the $5 stuffed animal book characters at Kohl's.  They make the picture book section more inviting, I think.  


Last time I shared the "in progress" picture.  This is the completed February bulletin board.  The 3rd graders made the koalas.  Kindergarten did my December gingerbread men, 1st-2nd did my January snowmen, 3rd did the koalas, I'm thinking maybe 4th-5th can do butterflies for my spring bulletin board next time.  


The girls were off for President's Day and I took them with me to Target.  Katie:  "I feel so weird, touching a mannikin!"  


"You are so weird, touching a mannikin."  


Hannah's a little on the odd side, too, as she discovered that the sign swung back & forth, and couldn't leave it alone long enough to check sizes with me.  


We stopped at a garden store to check for snapdragons, and I think I must have been getting hungry, because I felt a kinship with this $200 purple dragon.  Maybe I'm a little strange, myself.  


Josiah hard boiled some eggs recently.


And Hannah made a very tasty tortilla soup.


My bunting is a bit wonky, but I wanted to throw up some FACTS about St. Patrick to counteract the leprechaun/pot o'gold fluff around the holiday.  (Did you know he was never formally canonized by the Catholic church?)


One of the teachers asked for photos of students with pets for the yearbook, so Hannah nabbed Grumman for a picture.  


We had a tiny bit of SNOW one day.  It doesn't snow here.  I totally would have missed it if I hadn't been at school pickup.  


One of my friends from homeschool co op days long ago bought this book for our library.  Great book!  I'm excited to share it with my students.  

5 comments:

  1. Grumman is HUGE! I knew he was a big cat, but seeing him in Hannah's arms really confirmed his huge size! Our 2 kittens seem big until I see them next to actually grown up Pippin (He's Rose Red's black cat). Then I realize they are still just teenage scrawny cats who still have growing to do. They were so tiny just a few months ago!

    That has to be the cutest boiled egg I've ever seen.

    No I didn't know St. Patrick was never formally canonized. And yes, write that book!

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    1. Yeah, the Grum is a big fluffers. <3

      I kind of put my thoughts on St. Patrick down, but without an illustrator, it's pretty dry. I found a city library book I can use for my older students.

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  2. Hi! Long-time lurker but first time commenter here. Just wanted to clarify that, while it's true St. Patrick was never formally canonized, that doesn't mean the Catholic church doesn't recognize him as a Saint. The Catholic church didn't fully establish the official canonization process until the 1200s, so all saints that were already venerated before then (including St. Paul, St. John and other apostles, the early martyrs, and even Mary the mother of Jesus) were never formally canonized. Instead, tradition and practice secured their places in the canon of saints.

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    1. Hello! Amelia is a family name for us. I always kind of hoped to use it as a baby name, but I guess we're past that now.

      Thank you for clarifying Patrick's sainthood. My fascination with the history of the British monarchy and the Tudor era has me interested in Catholicism in a "this is where we came from" sort of way. Plus, seeing the amazing old churches in Europe had me in awe. I'm hoping we can visit a couple more of the California Missions on this year's summer road trip.

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    2. Amelia has become such a popular name recently - it's been in the top 10 for baby girls the past few years! Such a change, I'm a millennial and I almost never met another Amelia growing up. I saw your posts about the California Missions, what a cool piece of history to be able to visit!

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