Belly shot--20 something weeks

The baby is growing in grace and beauty, and my body is growing apace.
Based on where my body is growing, I still think she's a girl.

Tonight's baby food is Cowboy Chili (no beans) and Thomas' homemade cornbread. Anthony, Thomas, and I all had chili as a snack too since we couldn't wait for dinner. It is soooooooo yummy.

Did I mention I love Fall?

THE good thing about Virginia--Fall

And Fall trees and Fall weather. Tonight's menu:

Gypsy Soup and

Mary G.'s Fastest Wheat Bread Ever

(1)Preheat oven to 400F.

(2)Warm 1C milk and 1 C plain yogurt tobody temp.

(3)Proof yeast by putting 1 Tbsp yeast and 1 tsp sugar in 1/2C very warm water for 10 min.

(4)Combine 1 & 2 with 2 C Whole Wheat Flour and 1 Tbsp Honey. Cover and let rise for 15 minutes.

(5)Add 1 Tbsp oil.

(6)Sift together 1tsp baking soda, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder, 4 C all purpose flour. Add to liquid 1 C at a time until firm.

(7)Knead into 2 stumpy ovals. Place on a baking sheet & slash. Let rise 10 min.

(8)Bake @ 400F for 25 min.

If desired, brush with butter when fresh from the oven.

This bread is very forgiving as I have made a bunch of mistakes with it including using vanilla yogurt, forgotten to add 1C of flour and not letting it rise. Every time the result has been delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Thursday morning we celebrated Thanksgiving (and the feast of St. Cecilia) by going to Mass as a family. I especially enjoyed it since last year I snuck off to Mass alone and was late.

Immediately after, we drove to Philly to celebrate and be thankful (and eat and be even more thankful) at Uncle Jesse and Aunt Shirley and "little" Jess' house. With so much family and good food, we were all able to relax and have a great time.

The next morning, we took a quick trip to see the Liberty Bell, and then headed back to Uncle Jesse's to spend a little more time together before we had to head home. Thankfully, James decided to warm up to Mama and let me get this great picture of the two of them together.

Playdough Morning

Ingredients:

1 package cookie dough playdough

Eager little hands (6 sets work well)

Imagination

Saliva

Cook at 350 F for 10-12 minutes







ENJOY!

National Shrine

Today we took a family trip to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. I chose the mosaic art study because since the kids went to the Basilica 2 years ago, they have wanted to go back, and much of the Basilica is covered in amazing mosaics. The delay worked in our favor, though, because last March we studied Vietnam when Bill went on a week-long trip there with his MBA program, and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of La Vang (scroll down for the story of this vision) was recently completed at the Basilica. This chapel is just outside the Crypt Church.

The first picture is taken outside the chapel while Anthony (left) and Thomas pose inside. Maria is inside in front of the altar, and Cecilia wanted to show off the decorative floor. (Charles isn't anywhere near the chapel; insead he wanted his picture near an angel outside the men's room.) The mosaic on the right depicts the Mary comforting the people suffering and hiding in the wild jungle of La Vang. Anthony is praying near the mosaic on the left showing the 118 Vietnamese Martyrs. I'm sorry that you can not see the beautiful bright blue ceiling with lighted stars. The entire chapel is breathtaking.

Science and Art Finale

Wrapped up the formal part of the study today with roast chicken dinner and a cake which the boys made. They used berries as their tessarae make a mosaic American flag for the decoration. We had a quick anatomy lesson before serving the chicken (everyone asked for the feet, of course). After dinner, the boys pulled out our microscope to check out the giblets and the inside of the bones. No one seemed grossed out about eating our study topic which I appreciated because eating chicken in any form makes me quite green.

We still have some smaller activities planned--maybe we'll do some Science Fridays--and 3 mosaic field trips to the Basilica, the Islamic Center, and the Dumbarton Gardens.

Learning Notes--Science and Art Week

Day 3--Lots of mistakes today. I wasn't prepared enough with our human body models. Also, I wanted to do too much, so instead of putting something off until later, I tried to multitask. Stupid stupid stupid to try to read picture books while kids are coloring and cutting.

Then we ran off to the local panadaria y carneceria (Mexican bakery and butcher) to see what they had for Dia de los Muertos. The answer: nothing since it isn't until Nov. 2. Duh. They didn't have chicken feet either, sigh, but fortunately they did have beef tongues (only $11.20 for a tongue I was told after assuring the man we were not interested in buying one but only wanted to look at the taste buds...). Another unexpected benefit was that we had our John Lithgow CD on in the car and have sung Skin multiple times a day since. Forgot to point out the tripe to the kids, and we were doing digestive system. Dang.

Day 4--Much better. First of all we cuddled on the loveseat and read books for 1 1/2 hours. Then we worked on completing the human body models, and since I had done mine last night, it went very smoothly. Maria, after we read St. Valentine, spent the rest of the morning drawing mosaics. Her assessment: it's harder to draw a mosaic than it looks.

Day 5--Started the morning with a cuddle and many fine books again. I had 2 Dia de los Muertos books, plus some new human body books. We touched on the nervous system after reading the book Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie de Paola. The kids loved the reading time and were fully attentive as we glued paper mosaics and made one last human body model to show how muscles work. I like the larger skeleton model best, but the boys thought this was pretty neat too. I'm still hoping for chicken feet at a different butcher today.

More Halloween Pictures

For Halloween Anthony was a black unicorn; Thomas was a Chinese dragon. Here they are on the way out the door. Bill made it home from work in time to take them, and it was his first time going trick-or-treating. Maria was an angel, Cecila a "Pinky", the pink octopus from Finding Nemo, and James', for as long as it took me to take this picture, was St. George.

Thomas and Anthony had a Hallween recital on Tuesday where they played some Christmas carols improved into Halloween carols and other spooky songs, including The Star Spangled Banner. I'm not quite sure how that was chosen as a Halloween piece.... By the way, if you ever need an easy program to compose music in the free download of Finale Notepad was great.