Wordless Wednesday: Early Spring at the Arboretum

Awesome American History: 1925-1927

Awesome History is back with semester three out of three for American History!  This week we did the Iditerod, the Scopes Trial, and Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight: pages 235-245 in The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong.


We had a great active activity planned: we were going to do a dog sled activity using Shelli's very large, very affable dog and a wagon.  Unfortunately, it rained! 

The art activity, although more time intensive than we had planned, was a huge hit!

They made husky faces from a template and a mosaic of torn paper.  This was one of those projects that hits the sweet spot of things kids like to do that look fabulous, even with little kids.

 I don't think I've mentioned it it, but quite often, when we have an intensive project like this, we do half the kids at a time.  Most often, the boys have run off to talk Legos and Nerf weapons, and we start with the girls.  Then the girls go play while the boys work on it.



Leena decided to cut out her template in fine detail, and then spray painted it in layers.

The result was very cool, and the process was mesmerizing to the younger girls.

 Everything worked out perfectly:  the art project was long enough that no one really missed having an active activity.

The snack was hot pretzel "doggie bones."

I think if I do it again, and don't have a dog available, I would do paper airplanes as the active activity.  But as it happened, it was a great start to the semester!

Gospel Desserts!

 Our Gospel Dessert for the first Sunday of Lent was an angel food cake with clouds of whipped cream and rainbows as a nod to the first and second readings with the covenant of Noah.


The Gospel was Mark's super short description of Jesus in the desert: he went, he was hungry, he was tempted, the angels ministered to him.


 The second Sunday Gospel was the Transfiguration.  This is one that comes up every year, and I've never been completely satisfied with our dessert interpretation.

I think that, deep in my heart, I've always thought the perfect dessert for this would be a croquembouche.  I know this because I saw one 25 years ago, the one time the Emperor and I watched The Martha Stewart Show.

It was the most glorious, difficult, and time consuming dessert I'd ever seen.

Seriously, people, friends don't let friends watch Martha Stewart!

It's a mountain of cream puffs surrounded by a golden glory cloud of caramelized spun sugar.

I've made cream puffs before, but I was a bit intimidated by the spun sugar!  It turned out to be so fun that we all were spinning it, and we didn't want to stop...

Kinda made a horrible mess of rock hard yet sticky bits of sugar over much of the kitchen, but that's not the point!!

So we ended up with an enormous "glory cloud."

Also, my mountain isn't as tall as is traditional, because I decided not to glue it together with more caramel.  Maybe after another 25 years.

Still, I do feel like we did THE definitive Transfiguration dessert.  This is a transformation of sugar, flour, eggs, butter, cream, and water (with a bit of cocoa in the cream puff filling).


It wasn't as funny (to me) as the definitive Temptation in the Desert dessert, but it was a lot of fun to make!

Poem of the Week: To Keep a True Lent

To Keep a True Lent

 

 ROBERT HERRICK

Is this a Fast, to keep

The Larder lean?

And clean

From fat of veals and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish

Of flesh,

1

yet still to fill

The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,

Or ragg’d go,

Or show

A downcast look and sour?

No: ’tis a Fast to dole

Thy sheaf of wheat

And meat

Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife

And old debate,

And hate;

To circumcise thy life.

2

To show a heart grief-rent;

To starve thy sin,

Not bin;

3

And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Seven Quick Takes: The Week it All Began

 1. I know Lent started last week, but this week felt like Lent was really underway.  I am loving the conjunction of Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day!  For me, this Lent is all about seeing how God loves me, and how I can better love Him.  That started on Ash Wednesday when he sent me these beautiful little crocuses, springing up all over my yard!

 2. We had our first Gospel Dessert on the first Sunday of Lent.  The Gospel was Mark's super short description of Jesus in the desert: he went, he was hungry, he was tempted, the angels ministered to him.

Alrighty then!  We did an angel food cake with clouds of whipped cream and rainbows as a nod to the first and second readings with the covenant of Noah.

The Zoomlians were remarkably enthusiastic since they hadn't had dessert in... 4 or 5 days.

3. My younger kids' science class, Kids' Astronomy started!

This isn't exactly a picture of that, this is a picture of the same class I did 4 years ago when I still remembered to get pictures. 

The kids just drew dots on an empty balloon and then inflated it to simulate the expansion of the universe (everything is moving away from everything else in at least three dimensions).

And then used their balloons to make funny noises because, why not?

4.  We went straight from snow and ice on Sunday to 80 degrees and wading on Wednesday.  Fortunately, the class was on Tuesday when it was a delightful 75 degrees and breezy.

This was super nice since this is the one class (besides the rocket launch) that must be done outside.  We do a scale model of the solar system where the Earth is a grape and the sun is my son (Zorg, about 6 feet tall) and a tenth of a mile away.

If you're curious, Jupiter is a grapefruit half a mile away, and Neptune, the last of the true planets is 3 miles away. But on this scale, the entire solar system, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud and all is 10,000 miles across!  For us that stretches from Hawaii to our west to Italy in the east. Space is big.

5.  I also had my portfolio review last Wednesday, so we officially closed the fall semester.  This was delayed from the usual January because of my TIA.  Unfortunately, the combination of the odd timing and the 80 degree day made it feel like the close of the spring semester, so now I feel like school is over.  It's a problem.



6. Klenda trimmed quite a bit off her hair (don't worry, I didn't leave her half done!), which made it all wavy again. Sort of a fresh start to almost spring. Very pretty!


 7. We also started up Awesome History again!  We are on the third of three for Awesome American History and I just love it!

This is something I've been doing with a couple of very creative and very fun friends (and their kids) on Friday mornings.  We all read a few chapters separately, then we come together to do an art activity, an active activity, and a snack based on what we read. 

This week we read about the Itidarod and made these neat husky faces (among other things).

But it's also become a fun social time for moms as well as kids, and a great way to wrap up a week with a lot of fun, support, and laughter.

Here's hoping you have a great weekend, more fun with Kelly!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Two Days

 From:

 To:

Boys Wading in Paint Branch

Frogs Singing in the Woods

Wordless Tuesday: Museum of the American Indian

The Frozen North

 The weekend before last, Choclo, Oob, and I went up to NJ for Pa's 80th birthday.  I gave him 80 lbs of rock salt.

When we arrived, Mumpy was chipping out a couple of inches of ice on the driveway so we could park.

Choclo told her with awe, "You are so lucky to have all this ice and snow!  We never get this in Maryland!"

I'm not sure she was feeling extremely lucky about it just then, but it was pretty funny!


And the boys found icicles and had a snow ball fight and played on the frozen lake, so they got a healthy dose of the winter we've been missing in Maryland.

But best of all, they got time with the birthday boy!

 And, this past weekend, in Maryland, we had this:

Poem of the Week: Temptations

Temptations

Creature comforts
And why not?
All you have to do is
Give up a few rocks
These sun-baked stones
That burn your hands and cut your feet
Could soon become a desert treat!
Stop being so hard on yourself!

Fame
All yours for the taking
All you have to do is
Leave this lonely wilderness
Head right to the center of the noisy crowd
Drop in your branding clear and loud
Start showing what you've got!

Power
Not as easy, but well within your reach
All you have to do is
Want it more than anything
Make it your top priority
Your one and only deity
Instead of your strange, silly God
Of Suffering
Solitude

By Brother Eckhart (Chip Camden)
HT: Journey With Jesus 
Image HT: Chad Louis 

I think I did this another Lent, but I've been thinking about it a lot this week and wanted to read it again.

Happy Lent!

I am pretty excited that Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine's Day! 

Just in case we didn't get it: LENT!  IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE!!

This is the first time this has happened in my lifetime, although, according to Google, it will happen again in 2024.

I like Lent anyway, mostly because I love (and need) second chances.  I feel like this Lent is a Valentine from God!

I'm looking forward to new ways of seeing how God is loving me, and finding new ways to love God!

Here is this year's Walking With Jesus Poster.  This is essentially a Lenten calendar with a footstep for each day and a picture for each Sunday's Gospel.  I think the foot steps are really hard to see, but they're there!

And we are doing the Vine and Branches again.
Basically it's a 7 foot tall vine cut out of brown paper with branches for each member of the family. We cut out tons of leaves and grapes and put them in a basket. Whenever anyone sees someone doing something good, they put a leaf or fruit on that person's branch.

We'll be filling the cookie jar with pretzels instead of sweets, and we'll be only eating dessert on Sundays: Gospel Desserts!



 We'll be trying for daily Mass on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we'll be collecting money (amongst ourselves) to donate to the poor.


And we'll be doing the Scripture Cross.
This is made of 40 squares of light purple paper. You do a scripture reading, have a kid draw a representation of the reading on a square, and then tape the square to a wall. By Easter you have a large cross representing Salvation History. We've done this several times and the kids loved it. You can find the readings and more info here.




And the Sacrifice Beans. We put in a bean for each act of love or devotion.  On Easter the beans become jelly beans because Jesus makes all our sacrifices sweet!



And we've set up our little Lent Altar in our main room.

This year we have the big wooden cross, a jar of ashes (from burning last year's palms), the squares for the Scripture Cross and the grapes and leaves for the vine, a candle, and a statue of Jesus on the way to the cross.

I think for myself, the focus is going to be on reading more scripture, looking to better understand God's heart.

Happy Lent!