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

Loving Imaginative Play . . .

One of my favorite things about reading history and great world literature with my children is watching how they reinterpret these classic stories into their play. Today was a great example.

All afternoon, my 3yo has been running around the house, charging everything and shouting, "I am Caesar and I'm gonna cross the Rublebon!"

I love how "Rublebon" rolls off his tongue in an attempt to say Rubicon . . .

Metropolitan JONAH's Archpastoral Message on Sanctity of Life Sunday

If you haven't yet read this (or heard it read from the pulpit) make the time to read it. Trust me on this one. It's more than worth your time to read it. It brought tears to almost everyone's eyes this morning after our Sunday service.

Archpastoral Message of Metropolitan JONAH of the Orthodox Church in America on the Occasion of Sanctity of Life Sunday

Nativity Book #34 - Born on Christmas Morn

This is the thirty fourth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. 

Today's book was another of our Arch Books which I've blogged about in the past here. It is Born on Christmas Morn. This is book is fine, but not one of favorites. It kind of gets into why Jesus "had" to die for us at the end and isn't entirely an Orthodox representation of the events of Holy Week. But the Christmas part is fine.

Nativity Book #33 - My Merry Christmas

This is the thirty third of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book was another of our Arch Books which I've 

blogged about in the past here. Actually, for this last week, all of the books will be Arch Books. We're down to those in our collection. We've got a few other new books arriving for Christmas, so I might blog about those later and they will be added to our basket next year (and maybe then I'll remove some of the general Bible story books). Today's book is My Merry Christmas Arch Book. It tells the Nativity story, but I like that in the end it talks about how to remember Christ's birth while decorating the tree, and eating delicious food and getting gifts. It's a nice way to explain how some of our regular traditions can be linked to our faith.

Nativity Book #32 - The Nutcracker

This is the thirty second of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is The Nutcracker with original text by E.T.A Hoffman and great illustrations by Maurice Sendak. This book is such a treasure to have, but honestly, we haven't managed read the whole thing today, because it's so long. At some point, I'd like to have a shorter version of the Nutcracker.

Nativity Book #31 - Tomie's Little Christmas Pageant

This is the thirty first of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Yesterday's book was a little board book called Tomie's Little Christmas Pageant. It tells the story of Christ's Nativity with illustrations by Tomie dePaola which show a children's pageant. It's kind of fun, and my 3yo especially enjoyed it.

Nativity Book #30 - Daniel in the Lion's Den

This is the thirtieth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Sunday was two Sundays before Christmas which means it was the Sunday of the Forefathers. So, our book was about one of the Forefathers - the Prophet Daniel. We read an old classic Little Golden Book, Daniel in the Lion's Den. I think this book is out of print, but there are lots of old copies available in various places online. It's a nice retelling of the story of Daniel spanning reigns of Kings Nebuchanezzar, Balthazzar and Darius. The illustrations are nice and we especially liked seeing the drawing of Nebuchanezzar's Ishtar Gate which we studied in Art History this year.

St. Herman Day - The Day of the Tree!

For several years now it has been our tradition to put up our Christmas tree on the feast of St. Herman of Alaska, December 13. We like to think about him on cold Spruce Island among the spruce trees as we decorate our evergreen tree. This year the feast conveniently fell on a Saturday, so we had a fun night decorating the tree after Great Vespers. Though it makes us all a little sad, we resorted to the artificial tree this year. We all prefer to get a real one, but some years, convenience, allergies, and travel take precedence.

I love the way kids decorate the tree. Here is my 3yo with his low branch - filled with about 15 ornaments in one place by the end of the night. Yes, I'm a perfectionist and I moved them after he went to bed.