Balentime, Be Mine!

We had a great "Balentime's Day" (and week) according to my youngest son. I never cease to marvel at how much the boys delight in choosing those silly little cardstock Valentine's, putting names on them and then giving them out. And even more they delight in receiving tons of those little slips of paper (along with too much candy, of course). It's fun isn't it? And it so often falls just before Lent, making it a fun time to celebrate just as we are thinking about getting in a little feasting before the Fast begins.

We had fun earlier in the week making and decorating boxes for them to receive all their Valentines.

And here is the Valentine that my oldest son made and gave me.

I couldn't get a good picture (starting to have some problems with my trusty old camera), but it says, "Sorry, my love for you is unexplainable." I was a little confused when I read it. He said, "Well, it's just so much love that I can't put it into words." Pretty sweet. During dinner, his dad s decided to introduce him to the word "inexplicable" to help his composition. Gotta love the Orthodox vocabulary!

Of course, Orthodox don't celebrate this St. Valentine on Feb. 14. And, in fact, I don't think we make much of his feast at all. (It's sometime in the summer I think?). However, I wanted to mention that my boys and I have really enjoyed reading the book Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda. It has lovely mosaic illustrations and tells several stories/legends from the life of St. Valentine. We read it as part of our study of the Roman Empire (and the persecution of Christians before Constantine) earlier this year. But I was glad we had it around when Valentine's Day rolled around this year.

From the wisdom of our hierarchy . . .

Click here for some beautiful, encouraging and thought-provoking words about the education of our children from the mouth of our beloved Bishop THOMAS, Antiochian Bishop of Charleston, Oakland and the Mid-Atlantic. I wish that now I had more frequent opportunities to see him in person, as I did back in the days when he was a deacon (and I was a teenager). Thank God for our hierarchs, and for their encouragement for us to run to the womb of the Church for guidance and wisdom.

Thanks to Ashley for pointing me to this piece!

In case you were wondering what it is like to live with my three-year-old son . . .

OK, I know most of you weren't wondering, but since I don't keep a baby book or anything, I thought it was worth sitting down for a minute to document today, a fairly run-of-the-mill Tuesday.

As of 8 PM tonight, he has:

1. Thrown a tantrum about the amount of milk in his cereal.
2. Bashed his head in on the car door while trying to beat his brother out of the car door that his brother was sitting beside when it was opened.
3. Had countless other tantrums about being the first in any door.
4. Colored a beautiful coloring page of a castle (even staying in the lines very nicely). . . and then found some Elmer's glue and glued it to his bedroom door.

5. Decided to serve himself some yogurt from the large yogurt container resulting in this disaster:

6. Gotten so busy playing that he didn't have time to go to the bathroom and then pooped in his pants, while standing beside the potty. (This one happens about once a week.)
7. Been unbearably cute while doing everything!

A little poetry practice

My 7yo asked me to post this on the blog. We've been talking about simile in some of the poems we've been reading so yesterday he did a little practice writing his own similes. I love to see how his brain works and the connections it makes. See his poetry below.

A train is as fast as a rocket, but a plane is as fast as a comet.
The train enters a tunnel as black as a raven.
A yellow school bus looks like a giant banana.
A motorcycle sounds like a motor.
A helicopter looks like a spinning tail.
A helicopter sounds like a motor.
When a helicopter lands, the wind is as crazy as a tornado.
The rusty old car creeps along the road like a spider.

Enthronement of Patriarch Kiril

We've been enjoying looking through photos of the recent enthronement of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Click here for the photo gallery.

Busy Week

The name of this week is Science Fair. My 7yo is busy at work today putting the finishing touches on his display for his fantastic science fair project. He measured the movement of various stars and planets as they move across the sky. He's been printing out text, cutting colored paper for mats and insisting that he doesn't need my help all afternoon. I may post more as the week progresses. Tomorrow night we have to go set up our display at the fairgrounds

Inspiration from Kenya (and New Hampshire and Tennessee)

I'm so behind on things I want to post here, and also low on time to make it happen. In the meantime, enjoy this awesome video about amazing brothers. Great story about encouraging children to learn and then use their knowledge to give back to others.

ABC News: Sons of Kenyan Village Build First Clinic