Saint Lucia's Day

This sweet little Penelope Lucia was so excited to be the special crown-wearer and cinnamon roll distributor on St. Lucy's feast day last week.

We didn't have a lighted wreath, but her godmama came to the rescue and made sure she'd have one for the occasion. I love that she shares this special name-day with her godmother's birthday <3

They got P's stamp of approval. I can't say that I made them- these "Cinnsations" were made possible by the bakers at Kwik Trip.

We have dubbed this road close to the zoo "Santa Claus Lane" because nearly every house has an inflatable Santa (or Grinch :-P)

Since St. Lucy is the saint of light, we like to drive around and look at Christmas lights on her feast day. In the afternoon, we drove into Madison to meet our friends at the zoo for Zoo Lights.

We got to the zoo at 4:45, 15 minutes before they closed, but it was enough for us to run around and take in some of the amazing light displays. They actually open back up at 5:30, when it costs an arm and a leg to see the lights, but my friend was told in the past by a zoo employee that this was the best time to see them- before they closed their free admission at 5.

It was VERY cold- another reason to RUN!

Our friends had parked at the other entrance, on the opposite side of the zoo, but we met in the middle to snap this quick shot and then ran back our respective ways so as not to be locked out.

Then we drove a few minutes away to see the light display at Olin Park. It seemed a little underwhemling after the Zoo Lights, but the kids enjoyed spotting familiar characters and scenes.

And after seeing the lights, we went back to our friends' house for pizza and play.

St. Lucia, pray for us!

St. Nicholas Day

The kids awoke to candy in their shoes, some books (St. Nick scored almost all at St. Vinny's this year), and some new cozies and/or socks.

And some hot cocoa making and cookie decorating supplies.

All day this one's blood sugars were a challenge to keep down- so much sugar around, and he kept sneaking candy... we need find better lock-down systems! 😬

We usually put together Shoebox Gifts for Kids on St. Nicholas Day, but it seems the organization that heads that up has done something different this year, so we decided to host a family and get some larger gifts for them instead. It was fun to buy presents for a family with kids similar in age and interests to ours, knowing how much it might mean to a family who is not as blessed financially as we are.

The past several years on St. Nicholas Day, we have hosted a party here with some homeschool friends, as I always enjoy having people over on the anniversary of Roma's fatal fall. But this year I just didn't have the energy for it, and we decided to stay home with our immediate family. Sometimes I just miss that boy so much 💙

Saint Nicholas Day

In addition to some Christmas books and chocolate gold coins, Saint Nicholas brought some saint socks for our crew this year, even for Mom and Dad :-)

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas, everyone!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! {COVID-19 Day 6}

Joel decided he was going to be awake for the day at 4:30 am. I kept drifting off between when he'd come into our room, asking for a nose wipe or something or other, and when I'd hear him making noise, getting into who knows what? But I was just too tired to be bothered to check. Finally, at 6:45, when he said he was wet and needed a bath, I roused Mike to deal with him (that man sleeps through everything) and went back to sleep myself for another hour or so. When I came down, he was all smiles and quite pleased with the big mound of play-dough he was building, despite his miserable night of sleep. And Toby was doling out pinches to those who failed to don any green.

Unfortunately, my box of saint books is packed away somewhere in our chapel, but we were able to watch a couple of interesting videos about the patron saint of Ireland online. And we were covered in shamrock gear, gold and green coins, and shortbread cookies for the occasion, thanks to the thoughtful package from our friends! As a part of our usual Morning Time, we played a Jeopardy review game with our memory work (the coins were a perfect score-keeper :)) Found on the deck after lunch... it was warmish and sunny today, and there was a lot of outdoor play <3 Day 2 of the online McHarper Manor art classes: the girls had a great time painting their own peg dolls along with the tutorial video. Yes, I'm an artist, but I don't have the patience or zeal to sit and teach how to do these things. I'm grateful to those who post these videos online- for free! While the big three were occupied with art and schoolwork and Joel was napping, these two and I took a nice walk down the road. Quite a few other people were out and about on this lovely day- we smiled and said hello from at least six feet :-D Soon-to-be-teenagers don't have time for fun. No, seriously, Jack has been enjoying getting on our own online server to play Minecraft with two or three homeschool friends on occasional afternoons. It's nice that they still have that for interaction (they use headsets with microphones and can chat while they build their virtual block villages). Finished peg dolls! When Joel woke up, the kids and I headed to the other house so they could play outside and on our playset (public playgrounds became off limits when we learned that coronavirus can live on surfaces for up to nine days) and feed animals while I finished moving a few things out. She's now all ready for demo, which may happen later this week! We finished the day with this novena we have been saying and a Divine Mercy Chaplet. Have mercy on us and on the whole world... What a crazy time!