Seven kids

Number Five has been having fun with the newest collage feature in Picasa...

Coloring!

The print was a very special gift...

Clockwise, from top right: Number Six', Number Five's, Number Seven's and mine.

The last rehearsal

We perform it tomorrow! Pray that all goes well. 

COUNTING MIRACLES
A One-Act Play

Written by Ana Braga-Henebry, M. A. (C) 2009

Based on a true story as recounted in The Wonders Of Lourdes, 150 Miraculous Stories Of The Power Of Prayer To Celebrate The 150th Year Anniversary Of Our Lady's Apparitions, published by Magnificat in February 2008 and translated from the original French by Dr. John Pepino.

Winter Sunrise

...by Husband.

Picture book of the week

What's the Deal? Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase, 1999 National Geographic, 144 pages.
National Geographic published some longer, generously illustrated non-fiction picture books, and this is one of them. A great aid to any homeschool's History curriculum. We have picked up several different titles from the library like this one. I, for one, learned a lot! From their site:

This entertaining saga brings a legendary land deal to life. Over 60 reproductions of art from the period, a cast of characters, maps, a timeline, endnotes, a bibliography, and index give young readers all the resources they need to understand the period in which the Purchase took place.

Kitten Collage by Number Five

Thank you!

Number Four enjoyed the birthday gift from neighbor Mike this afternoon--who assured us it proved to be beyond a bit of beginner's luck. The ten bigger shots were his--only one outside of the bulls' eye area.

Facebook Scrabble

... is a ton of fun!

An animal-loving Family Movie

My girls love animal movies and I bumped into this at the library quite accidentally. We watched it last night and I later found out it was done by the same animal-loving couple of "Born Free", which I must have watched some 30 years ago. This was a good family movie--enjoy!

Editorial Reviews
Coincidence throws Mij the otter and Graham Merrill (Bill Travers) the computer worker together on a busy London street. What transpires from this chance meeting is an epiphany that leads to the complete upheaval of Graham's life. Evicted from his city flat thanks to the antics of his newly acquired, mischievous otter, Graham embarks on a train journey to the Scottish Highlands. Suffice it to say that trying to smuggle Mij onboard as a "diving terrier" is not successful. When the pair finally arrives in Scotland, they fall in love with the countryside and a dilapidated cottage by the sea. Fate introduces Graham to the town's animal-loving doctor (Virginia McKenna), and an enduring friendship and romance are forged. The photography of both the Scottish Highlands and the antics of Mij the otter in this 1969 movie are truly wonderful--it might just make you reconsider your current digs and friendships. The story (based on Gavin Maxwell's book of the same name) is somewhat formulaic and dated by its romanticism, but enjoyable nonetheless. Slip into an ideal world of simple happiness and celebrate the cyclical nature of life, if only for 106 minutes. (Ages 5 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

Product Description
Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, the husband-and-wife team who starred alongside Elsa the Lion inBorn Free, now share the screen with Mij, a delightfully mischievous otter who'll enchant viewers of all ages in this bright, wholesome (Cue), captivating and endearing (Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever) film! Middle-aged bachelor Graham Merrill (Travers) has a nice, quiet life in London, but his fun-loving new roommate Mij is about to change everything! Curious and playful, this otter has better things to do than sit around a stuffy apartment, so Graham decides tomove to the coast of Scotland where Mij can frolic to his heart's content. Once there, they meet Mary (McKenna), and the unlikely trio begins an incredible journey of friendship and discovery that will transform each of their lives forever!

An art and science day

We enjoyed a free orchestra rehearsal, the music of Rachmaninoff, and some fun hands-on science as well!

Number Five's Study on Michelangelo

I know... she's good.

Snow play

New species of catfish?

Pretty interesting stuff! 

Picture books of the week: two sequels!

Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!, by Lynne Truss, 2008 Putnam's Sons, 32 pages.

Lynne Truss does it again, this time stressing the correct use of the hyphen, parenthesis, question and exclamation marks and also more comma use. I feel that my younger kids will have a wonderful and visual grasp of punctuation as they grow up exposed to Truss' humour and fresh approach to grammar! If you haven't enjoyed her first punctuation picture books, don't miss them: Eats, Shoots and leaves and The Girl's like Spaghetti! 

Greater Estimations by Bruce Goldstone,  2008 Henry Holt, 32 pages.

You may have enjoyed, like we have, Great Estimations in the past. I was happy to find in the library this week a brand new sequel by the same author!

Greater Estimations deals still with estimations, as as the cover says, it deals with greater estimations. Be prepared for some large numbers, and if you read it aloud it may generate some fun discussions! I had lunch today with my friend and neighbor Mary Daly, the author of the well-known homeschool science program entitled The Universe in My Hands, and over some awesome enchiladas after our bishop's pro-life mass we discussed how so few people have a good grasp of how many a million is. Or even one thousand. We went on to estimate the chips in the basket next to the yummy salsa!

International Year of Astronomy

Read about it here!

And learn about how you can sign up to receive a Galileoscope here!

Our Lady of Kibeho

Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa, by Immaculee Ilibagiza
Hay House, Nov 2008. 
ISBN: 140192378X
Price: $12.95

http://www.hayhouse.com/details.php?id=3836

I just now requested this book from my library and posted it on Pope St Nicholas V, after seeing it at a
friend's coffee table--I can't wait to read it! It is about the only Vatican-approved Marian apparitions in Africa, and it was written by the author of the NY Times bestseller Left to Tell.

Husband's trip III

A Positive Life Message for Inauguration Day

"Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." - Schindler's List

The beautiful theme for Mr.Obama's Presidential Inauguration is taken from Abraham Lincoln, "A New Birth of Freedom". Lincoln had some very compelling things to say about Freedom.

"Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

He also said: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

The freedom to live is the most fundamental freedom, without which we could have no other freedoms. And thus a new birth of freedom in our country needs to be broad enough to include and protect the lives of the most vulnerable among us; most notably the disabled, the elderly, and the unborn.

Please join us in celebrating this year's beautiful inaugural theme in this more complete way:
On Inauguration Day, January 20th, please use these images to encourage others to remember the important connections between life and freedom. Images can be used to replace profile pictures [ on Facebook, on Flickr, on Twitter, etc.] or to highlight the theme on your blog via sidebar picture or background image. Please pass it along by linking back to this page.

"Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so that their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them." - Susan B. Anthony 

on Van Loon's The story of Mankind

Uneven, January 19, 2009 By  Ana Braga-Henebry (Rural South Dakota) - See all my reviews     The author is a secular humanist and I find that all religions in the book are ultimately regarded as fanaticism. While he dealt with the ancients we were OK, although some chapters were entirely his opinion with no historical content whatsoever. I could barely accomplish the reading aloud of the Reformation chapter, but the next chapter made me give up this book as a History read aloud for homeschooled children entirely: Saint Ignatius is all wrong! If you are Catholic, or even Protestant--because Van Loon does justice to neither--Chapters 16 and 17 of Light of the Nations (Catholic Textbook Project) will give you a much better idea of the errors of the Church then, and of the Counter-reformation. For an older, wiser History student it would be OK, as Van Loon does have some delightful style bits and innovative History-telling perspectives. The book, is important to note, changes drastically in format midpoint, as if if the author pieced together things he had done in the past. The chapters become much longer and the reading/student level quite older. I would recommend both Gombrich A Little History of the World and Hillyer's A Child's History of the World for children as better choices for a story-like classical History text at this point in the book!

From Catholic Vote

Another high quality production from Catholic Vote.

On facebook? Join this group today!

This is a creative, meanigful  pro-life way to mark tomorrow's date! Join in! 

Husband's Trip to Thailand II

These were taken during the scientists' field trip to look at rural agriculture arranged by the Mekong Institute.

Husband's Trip to Thailand I

He took some very nice photos and I will post a few at a time.

This first series was taken during the Minneapolis-Tokyo flight, as they crossed Northern Canada and Alaska... just spectacular.

Brazilian Banana Cake

I found it in a Brazilian site and modified it:

Layer the ripe bananas (we used 10 of them) in two layers, between 1/3 of the dry mix at a time, then drizzle with a can of sweet condensed milk and bake!

Dry mix: 1 C flour, 1 C sugar, 3/4 stick soft butter, 1 Tsp Baking powder.

Yum!