Pondered In My Heart

Wordless Wednesday: Flutterbyes

 

Writing the ABCs on Little Hearts 5

 

At long last we have here the remaining alphabet coloring pages for the Writing the ABCs on Little Hearts series. This is a collection of pictures drawn by Lydia to teach an alphabet's worth of virtues to little ones. If you are not familiar with these, you can see all the other letters and download the pages in these old posts:

Alphabet Coloring Pages. 

 She also did a drawing that can be used as a cover page if you like. You can slip it into the clear front pocket of a binder and keep all of the coloring pages inside, or you can fasten your pages into a book with staples or comb binding or the like. If you use a binder perhaps you might even include little narrations done by the children as you discuss the virtue learned, or concerning the stories or picture books you use to reinforce each virtue.
 

U is for Understanding, and we see a group of girls playing paper dolls at the table. They Understand that their friend has some physical challenges and uses a wheelchair, but that doesn't stop them from having a jolly time together and enjoying each other's friendship.

V is for Valiant, and we see a big brother being Very Valiant and bravely whisking his frightened little sister away from a big snake that has crept too near to their picnic. Understanding courage in such a concrete depiction paves the way for applying the concept in more abstract applications as the child matures.

W is for Wait, and we all know that patience is a very important virtue in life. Here we see a girl watering some seedlings, and the children will practice patience as they wait for the wonder of new plant life to grow, eventually yielding lovely flowers or perhaps something good to eat.

X is for eXcellence, and we want our children to do all things with eXcellence. We see a boy at table working on his printing skills. Whether it is school work or chores or sports or play, we want our children to always do their best and strive for personal eXcellence.

Y is for Yes, Ma'am and Yes, Sir. We a girl using her best manners when speaking with the librarian, and that lady seems quite pleased to encounter such a courteous little girl.

Z is for Zeal! Just look at the enthusiasm in these cheery children clearing the table all together. Perhaps they are even singing a jolly song as they work. We want to encourage our children to do their tasks with energy and zeal and without complaining.

Download Alphabet Coloring Pages Cover

Download Alphabet Coloring Pages U-Z

Thank You once again to Lydia for drawing all of these and sharing her talents! And can you spot all of the birds she snuck in to the series? This set even has a whooping crane, one of her current favorites. :-)

Do you play with your (really big) kids?

When they're little we sit on the floor and vroom matchbox cars and pour tea for teddy bears out of elegant plastic teapots. As the kids get older (and older and older) it's just as important and far more entertaining to take the time to stop and sit down together and relax and laugh and make memories and play.

 

The other night we sat down to play some Bananagrams, a perennial favorite.

Side note: While on Amazon I noted that a few people gave Bananagrams only one or two stars, and I curiously read their reviews to see why. They claimed the game is boring as you don't interact while playing, and it's anti-social. Well, sure it'd be boring if you just sat there spelling words in silence, but we always have lots of playful banter as we race to make words. Is coz a word? Sure, like, 'I pray thee Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.' If Shakespeare uses it, it's a word. Look I've got beer and tavern. I've got beer and gin. Don't mix them together! Look, I've used all four of my eee's. I'm stuck with j and c and x. I've got another zit. Is joules a word? No- it's a proper noun. But it's a unit. But it's his name. I don't care, I'm using it. If you win, you could have rotten bananas...

Boring and anti-social, I think not.

As we debated what to play next, some folks wanted to play 'The Game' as we call it, that we learned from Leila (she calls it telephone pictionary), while others wanted to write limericks. (I've noted before how much we like to write Limericks by Committee with family and friends.)

Then someone suggested we write 'mock heroic couplets' instead of limericks, as we could make the poems longer.

Thus began the hilarity.

Basically, you write a line of iambic tetrameter and then pass it to the person sitting next to you. Everyone playing gets their own sheet of paper, and everyone starts a poem at the same time. 

When you get passed a poem, you add the next line, keeping to the form of rhyming couplets of iambic tetrameter. 

And then you keep passing the poems around until they seem like they should end, or everyone gets too tired.

So we had seven poems going at once. And things got rather jolly.

It's especially funny to get back the poem you started as it comes around and to see where the other poets went with it, and where you are going to take it next. We laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Of course everything is funnier the later it gets, and it got quite late as we furiously scribbled our lines.

 

Then at the end we read all the poems aloud, at least twice, pausing to savor the especially clever lines and the literary references and whence they came, and also noting who wrote each line.

  

But we had quite a jolly, jolly time playing with our kids.

Give it a try next time you need a new game to play. You could end up with something as epic as this:

There was a jolly sailorman

He washed his toes in a fryin' pan

And when he went upon the sea

He ne'er drank aught but cold hard tea

The fishes gave him sober looks

The parson, some religious books

But what wanted he with such stuff?

He hankered after Rappee snuff

He sailed away to India

A jolly time, he grinned he-ha!

When he obtained the baccy goods

He chuckled from beneath his hood

But we may see that in the end

His vulgar wants were seen to mend

When one fine day the parson said,

"Clean your nose and go to bed!"

And so he cleaned his hands and face

Of baccy juice, left ne'er a trace

The parson served him proper tea

And thus converted Sean McFee.

(notes - the toe washing is a nod to Old Dan Tucker, the 'hard' tea is naturally alcoholic, Michael says he-ha, and nothing else, rhymes with India, and I had to ask my kids where they had heard of Rappee snuff - from a book of course. Jonathan posted a few more on his blog.)

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Coming down off of Cloud 9 here, or should I say Cloud 25, to post {p,h,f,r}. Thank you again for all of the lovely comments and anniversary well wishes. Do go visit Leila and wish her a Happy 32nd Anniversary, and check out that beautiful picture of her with her Chief!

pretty:

 

 

Pretty, pretty Eliza in her Sunday best.

funny

 

The boys do share nice. There were actually playing a song together like this.

Bonus funny- Eliza saw a pesky kitchen fly land on a knife and she told it, 'Get off that knife, fly! You're going to cut yourself!'

happy:

This is the makings of what I've been calling "Happy Meals" several times a week for lunch. Red pepper, some of the inevitable zucchini or summer squash, and lots and lots of cherry tomatoes cooked up quickly in a bit of olive oil. The little colorful tomatoes are so, so sweet.

Served up with just a bit of parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil - very happy meal!

real:

 

I'm the type of gardener that lets sunflowers grow wherever they will, and thus we enjoyed having a few right outside our front door. The goldfinches are so charming the way they match their lunch.

This one in particular was fond of hanging upside down to collect a few seeds and then coming back up top to eat them right side up, proper like.

Until the groundhog put an end to all that.

 

 The girls call him Wilbur, and he's usually referred to as a groundpig.

Don't forget to visit Leila for more posts, and enjoy your day filled with all things pretty, happy, funny and real.

 

 

Celebrating 25 - Deo Gratias!

Yesterday was our special day!

We began the day before dawn with a drive up to the beautiful, peaceful grounds of the Carmelite monastery. We watched the sun rise as we drove along through the foggy morning mist. The early seven o'clock Mass was most beautiful, as it always is. It seems like a little taste of heaven to hear the sweet voices of the unseen sisters singing morning prayers.

After Mass, we renewed our vows and received a special blessing. As the priest knelt before us and prayed the Te Deum, truly the thanksgiving in our hearts was overflowing.

 

My husband is naturally very wise after twenty-five years of marriage. Knowing that breakfast at a restaurant is not really my cup of tea, he managed to locate a bona fide bakery out in the middle of nowhere as it were, and we gleefully stuffed ourselves (and the bride and groom each other) with cinnabuns and 'bear paws'. It was so delightful to have found this little family-run shop with fabulous home-made baked goods, and to top it off there was a prominent cross on the wall and brochures for a local CPC. Don't you just love it when you find such a right place at the right time!

 

When we got home Josiah gave us our present: an oil painting he did of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I love how he captured such a feeling of tenderness with the Infant's hand resting on His Mother's shoulder.

Isn't she lovely!

 
By the afternoon we were in much need of a nap, during which the children made us dinner and started on our cake. After supper we went out for a lovely long walk in the dark through the neighborhood while the party fairies worked their magic. They weren't quite ready for us when we got home, so we were sent upstairs for a few minutes, which worked out fine and gave me time to change. When they finally called us down it was my turn to surprise them...

 

Ladies, I freely admit this was a bit tough. In fact, after twenty-five years and carrying eight little ones it looked quite doubtful for a while - you know, like the Grinch, I got stuck only once for a minute or two with that pesky zipper... But then I did it! Ta da!

The kids did a fabulous and thoughtful job with their decorating, and we came downstairs to this-
 

and this-

and you can probably tell it was Josiah who took all the silver in the house and arranged this-

Here they are looking at our wedding album-
 
 
And here is the happy couple- (You just have to imagine Kateri with eyes as big as saucers taking in all that bling on my dress...)
 

Jonathan toasted us and directed his siblings to "stand around the table like olive plants". :-)  That's our original cake topper, serving knife, and the same bride and groom glasses we toasted out of twenty-five years ago.

It seemed just perfect to celebrate our anniversary with a party fashioned entirely by our children.

When we started out in our vocation of marriage twenty-five years ago we really had no idea of where this path would take us. We had no concept of the heights of joy or the depths of sorrow that we would encounter together. We were young and naive and frankly quite clueless about what a life of sacrifice and giving and forgiving that married love entails.

But we did know one thing. We knew we wanted to do life together, wherever it would lead us. We knew we wanted to love each other and be together every day of our lives, whatever those days would bring. In sickness and in health, in joy and sorrow, in good times and in bad, for better and for worse. We knew we wanted to love each other forever and we knew we never wanted to be apart.
 

And after twenty-five years, we still do.