The Beautiful Story of Jesus by Maite Roche

The Beautiful Story of Jesus by Maite Roche, translated by Marianne Lorraine Trouve', 2010 Pauline kids

This is the second book by the French author Maite Roche I review for Love2Learn. Her illustrations are simply wonderful: simple, colorful, kid-friendly, warm, adorable, and yet with plenty of detail! In this volume she is able to retell the life of Our Lord for children and readers will find there most of the important events of His life on this world. From the Annunciation to Pentecost, the text will lead the child to all of the highlights of Jesus' life. The main events of His life are there, and also the Sermon on the Mount, the Multiplication the Bread, and more. This super nice book will make a wonderful gift!

Happy 18th Birthday!!

Happy 18th Birthday to a most wonderful, talented and joyful young man!

Number Five's notecards

I have been writing some note cards which is so rare these days. Some are international, mostly thank yous for special gifts or generous favors--such as the gift of hospitality.

I've written some on notecards Husband brought from the home of Flannery O' Connor in Georgia, and some on cards I brought from Brazil.

The most exclusive one, however--to Number Two's host mom in France, who sent me a beautiful homemade gift--was the last card of a batch Number Five drew to give her co-op teachers a while back. I had to scan and blog it: it is gorgeous!

A garden tour

I finally went out with the camera... Clockwise, spiraling from top left: Rosemary, eggplant, ripening Legend tomatoes, savoy cabbage, the garden plot nearest the house from afar, peppers, green beans, a rasbperry, parsley, a baby apple, strawberries, basil, sour cherries, the winter squash garden, and the lettuce/onion/broccolli beds.

I still need to picture the potatoes, Zucchini and Brussels sprouts, and the sweet potatoes and corn from the back gardens. We have picked and frozen: shelled peas, green beans and blanched broccoli. We have also picked and braided all of the garlic!

Four daughters

With the boys busy elsewhere, girls rule here these days. It just so happens that there are also four new kittens, and they posed for this rather blurry photo, each with their own adorable baby kitten, duly named. Number Two's of course has a French name Olivier, Number Five's is Clementine, Number Six's is Echo and Number Seven's Beans for his dark color. They all have the unusual Henebry acreage cats' blue eyes and have begun to walk!

Photos from Brazil

My oldest brother Pedro, a steel engineer like my father, sent these recently. He was 20 years old when my little sister Marta was born, and he and my oldest sister Catarina de Sena, who birhday was yesterday (bottom picure, with a Franciscan sister) are Marta's godparents. The middle picture shows Pedro with my dad at the local vegetable garden.

Happy Saint Anne's Feast Day!

The tea roses on the kitchen porch bloomed in time to adorn the beloved statue in honor of the great saint, patron saint of mothers--and to me, patron saint also of homeschooling, as she is usually portrayed teaching the Blessed Mother. My dear aunt gave me this unique statue and it sits on the piano in our dining room.

Saint Anne is a most powerful intercessor and here is a simple, beautiful prayer:

Good St. Anne, you were especially favored by God to be the mother of the most holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Savior. By your power with your most pure daughter and with her divine Son, kindly obtain for us the grace and the favor we now seek. Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins, the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties and the help we need to persevere in the love of Jesus and Mary. Amen.

My sister's Birthday!

Marta, or Nina as my children call her, is our baby sister--of ten children. Today it is her birthday and my heart aches because I cannot be with her.

This picture was taken in 2007, she is the middle, and the third sister is Maria Madalena, or Nena', as we have always called her--the fourth of the siblings. The three of us, whenever I am in Brazil, enjoy laughing together more than anything in the world!

Life with Number Two

Time with little sisters, visits to the pool, and the baking of batches of pao-de-queijo, a favorite Brazilian treat: there are so many nice aspects of having our oldest daughter at home!

Number Four goes to a Summer Institute

Husband and I took Number Four to North Dakota at the Eagle Eye High School Summer Institute, run by he Community of St. John. I miss my quiet, sweet and most faithful garden companion and I confess it was hard to leave him. May Our heavenly Father hear my prayers, and keep him totally in His loving care. May the great Angelic Doctor, his great patron saint, pray for him!

Egas Moniz, Portuguese hero

My father's name is Claudio Humberto Moniz Braga, and to the utter distress of my baby sister Marta who has unofficially changed her own name to Marta Moniz Braga after she finished her doctoral studies in Navarre, Spain, none of us have the name Moniz in our birth certificates.

The heroic act of Egas Moniz was not one of sword or blood, or even physical ability. He was a nobleman entrusted to tutor the young King Alfonso, the one to become the first King of the unified country of Portugal 500 years or so ago. I had a hard time finding his story in English--I found Googlebook entries which are difficult to copy--so I had the Portuguese Wikipedia page automatically translated here for anyone wanting to read more about it.

The picture is on a church wall in the city of Porto, Portugal (where Port wine comes from) showing the climax of Egas Moniz' heroic and noble act, and act of integrity and honesty that found an emperor disarmed and kept Egas' name as a Portuguese imortal hero. His story is also told in the great epic poem of Portugal, the Lusiads.

Claudio and Maria Teresa, II

I went back and found pictures I took from Mother's photo albums in Brazil in 20o6. The top one is of my grandfather Humberto Moniz Braga, a direct descendant of the great Portuguese hero Egas Moniz, and an officer of the Portuguese navy. He was in the Navy ship that acompanied the first aeroplane crossing of the South Atlantic, whose pilot Gago Coutinho has a major street in Rio named after him.

In Rio he met my grandmother Alcina, they married and he took her to live in Europe. Alas, she was too homesick for her native Brazil, so he left the Navy and they moved to Brazil. My aunt Maria Teresa (we all call her Tia Isca) was born in Portugal, and my father was born in Brazil right after the move.

The picture shows the dear siblings at 11 and 13 yrs old, I believe, on the occasion of their First Holy Communion.

Claudio and Maria Teresa

My good father Claudio had a visit from his only sister Maria Teresa yesterday, and my sister Tereza of Avila who is spending some time there sent me this picture of their afternoon sun talk. Inseparable as children and young adults, they are both now widowed after beautiful, fruitful, lifelong Catholic marriages, and find great solace and joy in each other's company during their regular visits.

My aunt was a wonderful presence to us when we were young, living next door with their many children and organizing classes, plays, recitals and other fun things! I feel that she is my model for a lot I do with homeschool! At 86, she is as fun as lively as ever, and she reminded us of the name of the artist of the painting of Saint Anne I posted yesterday: she was a personal friend of hers and her name was Heloisa Fortes de Oliveira. I did a search and found a book with reproductions of biblical painting of hers in a Brazilian online bookstore.

Novena to Saint Anne

Today it is the second day of the Novena to Saint Anne, as her feast day is coming up on July 26th. Here are daily prayers if anyone wants to pray this novena with me for any of your special intentions.

Australian friend and fellow Catholic blogger Aussie Anne, who posts Tuesdays with St Anne, posted about it on Facebook. She has been posting an interesting reading on the beloved saint, read it in installments on her blog.

My good mother used to give me a little gift every year on Saint Anne's day. She loved the Mother of Our Lady... and then one day she gave me this original painting done by a personal friend. It hangs above my nightstand.

Garlic!

It's all in... drying, or curing, in the Shakespeare... I mean, garlic-drying room! (Aah, the flexibility of our acreage's outbuildings!) Number Four and I finished the job today, which was started by Husband and him on Saturday. A very nice crop, which I am sure we will be using to trade produce with some of our guest gardeners!

Number Two Speaks French

A conversation

...over a milkshake downtown! One of the highlights of the Pepinos' visit from Nebraska.

Our goddaughter M. M. is not only adorable and smart, she is also delightful company! Here she is in a highly intellectual conversation with Number Five.

Number Six chants the Psalm...

...with friends C. and S., during the Chant camp's closing mass, celebrated by the good bishop.

Chant Camp Finale

The closing mass was celebrated by the Bishop, who referred to the week as a historic moment, and Number Four helped in the Men's Schola. The group picture with Chant Camp teachers Mrs. Knutson and Dr. Donelson came out very well! The kids can't wait for next summer's Chant Camp!

Further thoughts during a break from garden work: Number One always tells me I should write more on my blog. He is right of course. During my garden work this morning I realized how much I didn't say here. How this whole week has been a dream come true for me personally, as I have loved Gregorian Chant all of my life, and many times in such a lonely manner. How both of the teachers expressed such joy in working with the children, and how their talent for this sort of thing was the crowning key to the success of the camp. How my girls loved every minute of it, telling each other all of the music games played in the respective classes, and the newly learned material. I do have a heart so brimming with gratitude!

Number Seven dives!!

She passed her level and got a treat from the swim teacher!

Summer Birds and Seeds of Change

Summer Birds, The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle, pictures by Julie Paschkis, 2010 Henry Holt, NY.

If the cover of this sweet book reminds you of another illustrated picture book featured here, you are correct. The delightful book on the architecture of Gaudi entitled Building on Nature: The Life of Antoni Gaudi was illustrated by the same Julie Paschkis. This book is about a girl whom I had never heard about. Read about her and discover a young, hard working and artistic scientific mind! And a world traveler too, in a time when women barely went beyond the village parish church.

Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson, illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler, 2010 Lee & Low Books, NY.

Another book I'd like to mention today is Seeds of Change, the third picture book I mention hereabout the Nobel Prize winner, Benedictine College graduate, who started a huge tree-planting movement in Kenya, her homeland.

Blog with a Substance Award!

Lisa at Golden Grasses has kindly bestowed me the Blog with a Substance award. Thank you, Lisa, and I am so impressed with your colorful, resource-ful blog!

To follow rules, I have to sum up my blogging philosophy in 5 words. I think these might do: Family, Education, Love, Art and Catholic.

The second rule is to pass this award to five others.

I'd like to send the Blog with a Substance Award to:

1. Artteajannell which celebrates Jannell's incredible love for life, beauty and God

2. Focus on the Little Things with its wonderful photos by young Laura

3. Insult The Shakespeare Way, authored by the delightful future-Literature-Professor Rachel

4. Notice the Universe always offering some fascinating new writings of Mary Daly's

5. and last but not least Warmly Candise, my good friend Candise's blog, and, like her, a beautiful place!

Three 15 year olds...

Number Five has friends E. and C. here from Lincoln for a week, so our house is full of joy!

Sour Cherry Jam

With the help of three beautiful teenage girls, we picked and pitted the sour cherries last night--and this morning I made seven jars of jam! Two gallon containers of cherries to go! Sour Cherry Jam is Husband's favorite!

Shakespeare Camp

The T-shirts arrived on the day of the performance, and we also got a picture in costume. Number Three, as Don Pedro, opened the show with a few announcements.

made

I put together an album with performance pictures here.

Shakespeare Camp

These were taken just before the performance... Director C. K. with J. S. who was a great help, Claudio with Number Seven, Dogberry and Conrad (the girls were fabulous) and Beatrice and Margaret (Number Five) adding finishing touches on their costumes.

Shakespeare Camp week comes to a close

The Performance is tonight... I took some shots of yeaterday's dress rehearsal, a good one of Mrs. Director, and a Birthday girl as well.

Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser

Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser, illustrated by Barry Root, 2010 Candlewick Press

If someone could grab a plastic bag flying in the wind and turn it into a nice picture book, that would be United States Poet Laureate (2004-2006) Ted Kooser. He takes the readers along the plastic bag's many reuses showing some human generosity and creativity in the process. Ted Kooser's poetry has been enjoyed by our family since our Nebraska days and his prose for children is equally charming.

Palindrome Video

My friend Georgeanne sent me this interesting video! The forwarded message said:

This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen....forward and backward.

This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant.

Peas!

Shakespeare Camp or not, they have gotten to be picked and shelled!

Shakespeare Camp Day 2

I work on costumes inside, and watch the scenes developing outside...