Saturday, August 12, 2017

Midwest Catholic Family Conference

We saw some really great speakers last weekend at the Catholic Family Conference. I couple quotes that stood out in my mind...

  Scott Hahn presented a stat from a Baptist research church poll, I am sorry I can't recall the name of it, I wished I would have written it down. 93% of kids who have a father who isn't attending church and isn't say (and I am adlibbing here... ) "in love with their faith and not a practicing Christian sort of like being recatachized again", 93% of those kids no matter how devout the mom is, fall away from their faith and stop practicing- that was across the board in Christian homes- including Catholics.  YEA....so my heart sunk.. pray for my husband's conversion please, I was bummed out the rest of the conference. I already see the challenges with my 5 year old. There was a stat about the oldest child and retaining their faith, that was interesting as well, but I can't remember it now.






  Also "Hate is a burden I no longer want to bear." came from PJ Anderson. We have been talking about that one around here.


Met Raymond Arroyo, and bought my kids the Will Wilder books- autographed of course. He loves homeschoolers ;) He had a great talk about reading fiction.


x

We also hear Fr. McManus speak....on exorcism...WHOA!  He doesn't allow his talks to be recorded or published..but put down Harry Potter and pay attention folks to what the culture is doing to our kids. And I didn't know ghosts existed.. I am thrilled- at finding out they do, we need to pray for the dead! They need us! I can now safely (someday)  teach my kids what a real ghost is and why we need to be concerned for them. This puts Halloween into a greater perspective. Also lays to rest the whole idea of being scared by them, we shouldn't be at all. They come to us for prayers and help and to have masses offered for them. You of course don't have to believe me ;) Sort of like believing in Fatima I suppose.

And of course the babies, holding babies.


And the First Communicant's in the procession.


Then over the week, I pressed my phone up against a slide and cracked the glass, catching a kid...go figure. And found out my new phone the Samsung S8 plus has this cool photo feature, we are having a blast with it..these are my kids selfies...lol



He disappeared with my camera for awhile. Can you blame him? It's hilarious!










Brenden the fish eater!




She doesn't take a bad photo.



awww....so cute! bahaha!


He'll be mortified some day right? 

Monday, August 7, 2017

Schultutes only two weeks late into the school year.

Yes, go ahead an laugh! I did wait to give them their schultute's because we started school before the Midwest Catholic Family Conference this year- two weeks earlier! I always buy them stuff from the conference for their schultutes. The conference t-shirts were so cute this year and perfect for a year of Fatima! 


I even found Tiny Saints on clearance for $2!!



even little Zoe Zoe got one ;)



We swim all year round indoors, so she got a new swim suit for the winter.




We'll get our school pictures taken soon...lol they'll be late as well! Hey at least things are moving around here!

more 4H pics and classroom animals projects


He won many Grand and Reserve Grand Champion in Poultry!


Geology


Purples!



Entomology





St. Clare did well!


lounging in the poultry barn




chasing kitties




these cats are waay tooooo laid back...


Polyphemus moth female. We got her to lay eggs....soooo


My classroom has a tank of moth eggs which we don't know if they are fertile or not. And about 20 chickens and turkeys.


Yea, we like the science don't we?


one of our Royal Palm Turkey babies


Out of town every weekend

After our vacation, we arrived home, had our rocketry launch the same weekend, AND then only to leave again and stayed out of town every weekend for 4-H geology field trips. The kids had so many road trips this summer. My van really racked up some miles. We saw some places we had visited before and some new territory up near Nebraska.  Then Knox went on to Boy Scout Camp at Camp Brown. He came back so tired but there was this smile on his face that just wouldn't come off. He was soo happy! He and Brad had a great time! I am so grateful he had the time alone with his dad! 







kitten heaven





Landscaping project



Two formations







Kansas prairie in the spring.




1
4-h sewing....purple ribbon


we do a lot with the bees






4-h electricity








I think it's Blue Rapids, KS? Somewhere NE!




Searching for garnets from the dirt we brought back from the Stockdale plug.



 4-h chicken testing









I always have helpers that want to sample honey.



Hotter than HE double hockey sticks...but only for one day. Then they had decent weather.










Feast of the Sacred Heart.


Berries are ripe!


My mom has chickens now. She has had to much fun feeding ours, and she decided she needed her own. She would show up over here randomly and just feed the birds and talk to them. We wouldn't even know she was here! lol We'd see her van out front and no one would be in it.







Muddy Puddles- thank you Peppa Pig!


So I made a bee vaccuum....


This was a job that was way over our heads- the amount/volume of bees was insane. We filled four 5 gal. buckets, and still didn't get them all. We had a tree trimmer find my number on CL. He had cut into a hive and needed it removed. My dad thought it was doable...but then...we realized there were more than we could take home. So they called out a second keeper.


Here's my dad trying the bee vac! It worked awesome!