Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today, in the Roman Catholic Church, is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the 1600s, Jesus appeared to a nun named Sr. Margaret Mary. Jesus made twelve promises to her telling her how He would help those who honor His Sacred Heart.

Jesus said to her: "Look at this Heart which has loved people so much, and yet they do not want to love Me in return. Through you My Divine Heart wishes to spread its love everywhere on earth."

St. Margaret Mary died in 1690.

Here are the promises, which are in return for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

12 Promises of the Sacred Heart

I will give them all the graces necessary for their state in life.

I will give peace in their families.

I will comfort them in all their afflictions.

I will be their secure refuge in life and especially at the moment of death.

I will bless all their undertakings.

Sinners shall find in My Heart an Ocean of Mercy.

Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.

Fervent souls shall rise to great perfection.

I will bless the homes in which the image of My Heart is enthroned and honoured.

I will give Priests the gift of touching the hardest hearts.

Persons who spread this devotion shall have their names written ineffaceably on My Heart.

Those who communicate on the First Friday of nine consecutive months shall be granted the grace of final repentance; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving the Last Sacraments; and at that hour, My Heart shall be to them a secure Refuge.

My question is...how can you say NO to this?!

Birding

We have a few bird feeders outside our living room window, as well as a bird bath. Each morning we can see the local birds feeding and it is fun to see what different types of birds will show up. Here are some of the birds that we have recognized. I have posted about this in the past, so if you want to see some other birds that we have seen, just look at my older posts.


Ok, this one wasn't at our feeder, but he was in the top of a tree about 100 yards away from our house. He sat there for a few hours and we all got a good look at him. Bald Eagle







So, we go from the most exciting sighting to probably the most ordinary of birds...European Starling.















California Quail...this wasn't actually at our feeder, but we do have them in our neighborhood.








Red-winged Blackbird. I always liked these birds, and I was surprised to see one at our feeder, as they spend a lot of time in wetlands.
















I had never seen a Rufous-Sided Towhee before, and we only saw one at our feeder. He was actually foraging around in the leaves on the ground. We was surprised at how big he was.

more Spring and the garden is in!

We have been busy working in the yard the past few weeks. It is just such a joy that it is actually spring again. The kids have Nature Journals, in which we try to draw various plants and flowers from around the yard, as well as any insects or other animals we might see. Right now we are just writing the date and drawing, but in the future I would like to be able to add pressed flowers, nature poems, pictures, weather observations, etc, etc. There is no end to the things that the children can do in them. so here is a picture of Paulie sitting quietly and drawing in his journal. Also, one of Anna with her journal under her arm.
We have been busy also putting in our vegetable garden, and the kids have had a good time with that. We had a low point in our yard, which Paul used his trusty pickup to get dirt to fill in. Boy can that truck carry a lot of dirt! So the area was raised up and we planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas, broccoli and sunflowers in the garden. In the pots on the outside we planted lettuce, three types of basil and chamomile. The lettuce is the only thing coming up yet, but we are optimistic. Oh, we also have marigolds and sweet peas in there as well.
Finally, we have been enjoying the blooms around the yard. We have very mature landscaping and we have wysteria that has climbed up a tree, probably 50 feet in the air. It is amazing and the pictures don't do it justice. We also have beautiful dogwoods in the yard, one of which is in my online photo album.
There are a lot more photos there as well.
I hope you are all having a lovely spring!

cute dresses on etsy

Little Pretties, a shop on etsy.com, is having a give away, because it has been a year since she first posted. We have a couple dresses from there, and we love them. They are just so darling and unique.

This is cool to me

OK, I don't care much for cell phones (and mine is NEVER charged), I don't want an iPod, I don't see the point to a Blackberry, but this is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. If they could make more books that I am really interested in available, it would be near perfection. What a great idea!

More pictures of Spring

Just a few more from around the house...I cut lilacs and put as many as I could around the house. I also like to have a few vases outside. I got the idea to hang a small vase by the front door from a blog that I can't remember. I like to see them hanging there as I go in and out of the door.
The kids had a great time blowing bubbles and the baby crawled up and down our wonderful brick front porch, following bubbles or whatever she deemed important.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Sweet Sophia

The grass is so lush right now, I could resist sitting Sophia in the middle of it all and getting a few good shots of her with her face clean and nose not running! I think they turned out great! There are a couple of Anna in there too...she loves doing things with Sophia more and more now, and it really is sweet.

Spring has been on its way...

and it is finally here! Our yard is in full bloom. Today I opened the front door and I could smell the lilacs, even though they are about 50 feet away and around the corner of the house. We have four dogwoods that are absolutely lovely and the wisteria is going to bloom soon too. It is just amazing and it makes us want to spend all day outside. The baby loves it too, and just wants to crawl around in the grass investigating. (By the way, she is laughing in this picture, not crying. Her new thing is to smile with her mouth wide open!) Unfortunately, we have dogs, so we really have to watch where she is going!

We didn't do any formal schooling today. I cleaned a lot of things up, inside and outside the house, and the kids amused themselves with various things. Things homeschoolers like to call 'Nature Study', 'Spacial Reasoning', and of course, the old stand-by, 'Art'. We all learned a lot! More pictures HERE!

Happy May Day!

This year we decided to bring flowers to peoples' doors for May Day. We made cones with ribbons to hang them and the kids decorated them. Then we cut lilacs and roses from the yard, and went to deliver. Joey brought his to his piano teacher, and loved the idea of ringing the doorbell and running away. Paulie and Annas were delivered to two neighbors. Unfortunately, Paulie refused to have his picture taken with the flowers, so we just have Joey, Anna and Sophia. Oh well...next time!

What more could we want?!?!

Days full of food, baths, dress-up, music and lots and lots of fun!

Joey's First Communion and Confirmation

Finally, the big day was here. Joey wasn't really nervous about receiving his First Holy Communion, although he did take it very seriously. As you can see from all the pictures, he didn't smile once! Since he was also being confirmed, the bishop was at Mass as well. Joey had asked my mom to be his sponsor, and I think she was really honored. He was really happy that she had said yes!
After Mass, we came back to our house, where my mother and great-aunt were furiously preparing food according to my lists they made me write out! It all turned out wonderfully and a lot of people came. Altogether I think there were about 20 adults, 20 little kids and 10 or so teenagers. I hadn't planned nearly enough food (and none of it was kid-friendly), and luckily Paul realized this just before everyone showed up and went out and got a bunch of pizza. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and luckily it was a beautiful day so we could all sit outside. Joey was so grown up and we are so proud of him!
Here are more pictures, with captions.

What we've been up to...Mid-April

Here are some pictures of what we were up to in the middle of the month. The kids were having a nice time visiting with my parents. Paul dug up a bunch of bushes in the front of the house, and then we all (my parents and us and the kids) put in a little stone wall and some plants. It looks great and really creates a nice entrance to our house. The kids thought it was a lot of fun...Joey is getting so strong...he really liked carrying the stones and helping out.
Also in this set are some of the kids playing with another one of Sophia's birthday presents. It plays music and blows the balls out the top...they all thought it was the best thing ever! Are my kids too sheltered? haha
Since my parents were here, my great-aunt made a trip up to visit us. She has an amazing amount of energy...more than me I think! We had a nice time seeing her...as you can see, Anna thought she was just wonderful!

Catching up...yet again.

I don't know why, but I really seem to save all these pictures and stories until I can no longer stand it, and then I finally post volumes and volumes that you all have to read and get through, when it would be so much better if I just posted once a week. Well, I guess I am not that kind of a person and I always have been a terrible procrastinator, so here comes my latest editions...

Sophia turned ONE on April 6...almost a month ago! We had a very low-key day. My parents were here and after we got back from church, we had a nice lunch and then let Sophia open her presents. She got a Radio-Flyer push wagon (which is nice to push, but also nicer to be pushed in!), some fairly large alphabet blocks, clothes, a sesame street couch (you can see it in some of these pictures), a little stuffed duck that is really soft, and some new shoes. As you can see, the other kids loved helping Sophia with her presents, although she was getting the hang of it by the end.
Then we had an ice cream cake, which was enjoyed by all. The rest of the day was spent playing and relaxing. You would think the boys had never seen alphabet blocks before, as they were figuring out all sorts of patterns with them.
I posted some pictures here on the blog, but here is a link with more of them, as well as some captions. Isn't our little baby sweet? We sure think so!