Oob's turn to grab some random fun: Shrinky Dinks!
This is a sheet of plastic that you can draw or trace things on that shrinks when exposed to heat.
They got really into it, first drawing things like tanks and sphinxes (as Choclo said, it's a Shrinky Sphinx!), then tracing favorite pictures from books.
Then it was Leena's turn to pick: Acrylic Painting! Does acrylic count as plastic?
This is the only kind of painting I've had training in (unless you count house painting).
I took some classes with my mom when I was a teen, but I'd never tried to teach anyone before.
This is the Bob Ross style of wet on wet painting (which "real" artists tend to scoff at).
The thing is, with a little training, you can actually produce something you would want on your wall!
These took the kids about an hour, and I think they came out amazingly well, especially for a first try at "real" painting!
1. I hate it when Valentine's Day falls during Lent: hearts, romance, love, and...self sacrifice?
How's that supposed to work?
Never mind.
Anyway, I'm actually excited about it this year, partly because it falls on a Sunday (guilt free chocolate!), and partly because the juxtaposition was a whack on the head.
I've had a very odd few weeks, and it's only just now come into focus: this Lent is God's valentine to me. All the fasting, praying, and giving is a way to make space to receive all the Love He wants to pour into me. That may take me more than 40 days to unpack!
2. This has been my favorite Lent video for three years running, and I'm guessing this is not a coincidence:
3. Kid Lent is going well. I blogged about it here, but here's the free printable in case you missed it.
You can use it as a template, or just print and color it yourself!
The idea is to color in a footprint each day, starting at the lower left cross.
Some years we also drew flowers around the footprints to represent the acts of love we had done that day.
Please note, the cross itself is the symbol for Ash Wednesday (the first
footprint is Thursday), and each Sunday is a picture relating to that
Gospel (no footprints on Sundays).
4. Lent +Year of Mercy=Lent of Mercy! This video nudged me to pick up the Divine Comedy again.
5. Speaking of great Lenten stuff from Fr. Bishop Barron, did you know he is doing daily Lenten meditations? He is! And they're free! Sign up here.
I've given up playing games on my phone for Lent, and I've been filling time with snippets of spiritual reading,so this is quite helpful. Dominicana, has also been a great source. I can't just give something up, I need to fill it with something positive.
6. This chart, nabbed from Catholic Memes, cracked me up!
I have been slowly realizing that part of my issues with Lent has been due to an unconscious presumption that my Lenten practices were something that I took on and succeeded (or failed!) at based on how mightily I grit my teeth.
Ah yes, my spiritual growth, depends on my sheer force of will power!
I need a GIF of my guardian angel facepalming, "You know that's a heresy, right?"
7. Also, shamelessly cribbed from Catholic Memes, but thought of frequently while buying chocolate for Valentines Day on a Lenten Friday:
We had been working on the virtues, so we made matching posters for the works of Mercy.
As with the virtues, the Works of Mercy are drawn in pencil and are colored in when we discuss (and hopefully practice) them.
Extra bonus: we are talking about which virtues help us with which acts!
Choclo and Oob helped create a little altar in a corner of the dining room.
We have a cross, a candle, the sacrifice bean jar (you put in a bean each time you do something special for God), and a fountain (Jesus is the Living Water).
We also have a basket of stones with different titles of Jesus carved on them, and we are planning on switching the one on top of the fountain every so often. The one there now says, "The Good Shepherd."
Also on the altar (but not in the picture!) is a Bible and a bowl of paper grapes and leaves for our "Vine and Branches."
Also not in this picture, each branch has a name on it, and the vine is labelled Jesus.
Unlike the sacrifice beans, the point here is to watch for others bearing fruit during this season. When you see someone doing something kind, for example, you tape a cluster of grapes or a leaf to their branch.
And many thanks to Zorg and Leena for this years vine and branches!
In case you are interested in "Walking With Jesus" with us, here is the printable version I gave my Religious Ed kids to color.
You can use it as a template, or just print and color it yourself!
The idea is to color in a footprint each day, starting at the lower left cross.
Some years we also drew flowers around the footprints to represent the acts of love we had done that day.
Please note, the cross itself is the symbol for Ash Wednesday (the first footprint is Thursday), and each Sunday is a picture relating to that Gospel (no footprints on Sundays).
Lastly, because it is now a Tradition in my house:
We started making King Cake for him, but I had never tasted one before. I followed internet recipes carefully, but it always seemed like just a lightly sweet bread (with frosting and sprinkles).
Unfortunately, it was after Fr. Mark returned to New Orleans that I tasted my first actual King Cake. I immediately knew what I was doing wrong!
I had been treating it like a bread, but it's really more like a cinnamon roll!
I swapped the bread flour for pastry flour, added filling, more eggs, and kept the dough much wetter.
Bingo!
Tender and delicate like a cross between bread and cake.
Not too sweet, but perfect with the kick of frosting.
Worth making a tradition!
Now we enjoy it every year, never forgetting to raise a slice to Fr. Mark: Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Now Let's look for birds! The tall iron branches in the forest, The dense fertility on the ground. The world is wet. A dewdrop or raindrop shines, a diminutive star among the leaves. The morning time mother earth is cool. The air is like a river which shakes the silence. It smells of rosemary, of space and roots. Overhead, a crazy song. It's a bird. How out of its throat smaller than a finger can there fall the waters of its song? Luminous ease! Invisible power torrent of music in the leaves. Sacred conversations! Clean and fresh washed is this day resounding like a green dulcimer. I bury my shoes in the mud, jump over rivulets. A thorn bites me and a gust of air like a crystal wave splits up inside my chest. Where are the birds? Maybe it was that rustling in the foliage or that fleeting pellet of brown velvet or that displaced perfume? That leaf that let loose cinnamon smell - was that a bird? That dust from an irritated magnolia or that fruit which fell with a thump - was that a flight? Oh, invisible little critters birds of the devil with their ringing with their useless feathers. I only want to caress them, to see them resplendent. I don't want to see under glass the embalmed lightning. I want to see them living. I want to touch their gloves of real hide, which they never forget in the branches and to converse with them sitting on my shoulders although they may leave me like certain statues undeservedly whitewashed. Impossible. You can't touch them. You can hear them like a heavenly rustle or movement. They converse with precision. They repeat their observations. They brag of how much they do. They comment on everything that exists. They learn certain sciences like hydrography. and by a sure science they know where there are harvests of grain
Ode To Bird Watching
by Pablo Neruda
translated by Jodey Bateman
HT: All Poetry
Image: a pair of purple finches, a female cardinal and a house wren at my feeders!
One unanticipated side effect of the oldest two Zoomlians being gone more, is extra time to do special things with the younger Zoomlians!
I made each pair a "Fun Jar" with ideas of special fun things we can do together.
These ideas range from things that most people would recognize as educational to things that some people might not. I came up with the initial 11 ideas, hopefully the kids will add more ideas.
Choclo picked first: "clay sculpting." He and Oob decided the best sculpting experience would be with edible clay, so we made some (cream cheese, powdered sugar, coloring and flavoring).
Oob made this tank and some grapes (left), and Choclo made this caterpillar and shark (right).
Actually, they made lots of things, but they had fun eating and giving away their creations- a consumable project!
Zorg randomly picked "candles or wax dipping." He and Leena decided to dip things in wax.
This was interesting because I hadn't thought of this as being particularly "educational." It just goes to show that things are interesting because you are learning something. I often see the reverse proven: thing sare boring because you aren't learning from them, regardless of how "educational" they supposedly are.
At any rate, they came up with a fascinating assortment of things to dip in wax: leaves, apples, CDs, paper things, and a partially inflated balloon.
The balloon was fascinating! Zorg had intentionally not tied off the balloon so that he could deflate it slowly after the wax froze.
They peeled some off and wanted to look at it under the Cyclops (a microscope that connects to the TV).
Did you say microscope?! Sure!!
The wax was encrusted with tiny bubbles!
Then they dipped their fingers into the partially cooled wax and looked at those impressions and then compared them to the actual skin.
And they spent the rest of the morning looking at skin, hair, scars, and an assortment of fibers.
Amazing! I definitely count the Fun Jars as a win, particularly because each project tended to spill over into fun for all 4!
This is not an actual picture of the soup I made on Groundhog Day, but it's close.
It was supposed to be alphabet soup with chicken... but then I realized I was out of chicken... but then I realized I had an odd number of leftover meatballs (not enough for a meal, too many to toss).
So I dumped the meatballs into the soup and called it a day. But it looked odd.
Then I remembered that particular day was Groundhog Day! It immediately occurred to me to tell the kids the odd meat in their soup was groundhog! I restrained myself.
And then, after they had eaten the soup, it hit me! The meatballs had pork! They really were ground hog!
And now my kids are telling me I ruined their lives.
Oob's turn to grab some random fun: Shrinky Dinks!
This is the only kind of painting I've had training in (unless you count house painting).
The thing is, with a little training, you can actually produce something you would want on your wall!
