Sicut Cervus Desiderat

Celebrating LIFE

2012-01-22T21:47:00.000-06:00

“Children truly are the family's greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion. In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself. Politicians and legislators, therefore, as servants of the common good, are duty bound to defend the fundamental right to life, the fruit of God’s love.”

Pope Benedict XVI, Address at a Meeting on Family and Life Issues in Latin America, December 3, 2005

Today, Sunday January 22nd is an important anniversary. Thirty-nine years ago abortion was legalized in the United States and every mother was given the "choice" to embrace their unborn children or kill them in their early stages of development. Thirty-five years ago my parents were married on this day and chose life. I could very well have been one of the victims of choice, but instead my parents embraced marriage at the tender ages of 18 and 20 on this very anniversary that has brought so much death and pain and suffering to families. In fact my mother embraced the 10 children who were given her and mourned the 1 who was miscarried before he or she could enter into our family. I am so grateful to my parents for their commitment to life despite the many sacrifices it meant and for the gift of my life and the life of each of my siblings!

Their grandchildren and son and daughters-in law are grateful for their dedication as well!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-27T21:12:00.001-06:00

On this third day of the Christmas Octave, we wish you the great joy, peace and hope that only our Savior's coming can bring! Merry Christmas!

We are grateful for our many blessings!

Special Days in December

2011-12-19T14:40:00.001-06:00

December is a month that is packed with great Saints' feast days! We've taken a break from our regular school day schedule to prepare for Christmas and celebrating some of these great feast days has helped us prepare our home and hearts for Christ's coming.

December 2nd was the First Friday of December, and we gathered with the other homeschoolers in our Holy Family Catholic Homeschool Association for Mass, Breakfast, a holy half-hour, some fun projects and practice for our Christmas pageant.

Miriam tries on her cow costume for the Christmas Pageant

On September 3rd, St. Francis Xavier's feast day, we were able to attend a parade and children's concert in Iola. We also hung our stockings to get ready for St. Nicholas day on December 6th.

St. Nicholas left some beautiful coins in our stockings and each of the children received a puppet. Our fun project that day was to make out small puppet theater so we could put on a puppet show.

St. Ambrose's feast is on December 7th and we were able to go to Mass on his feast day and pray for the intentions of our Homeschool group.
December 8th is the feast of Mary's Immaculate Conception and in honor of this great feast we journeyed to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Hope. Here in Wisconsin we are blessed to have in our back yard a place where Mary appeared to Adele Brise in 1859, asked her to go out to the farming community and teach the children their faith and performed a miracle during the great Peshtigo fire. December 8th is also the one year anniversary of when the Shrine was approved by Green Bay's Bishop's and declared a Marian apparition site.
"This is the first and only Marian shrine in the United States that is on the site of an approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The Shrine and apparition site in the basement

The Church at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Hope

On December 9th it is St. Juan Diego's feast day and we listened to his story on the Glory Stories CD from Holy Heroes.

December 12th is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This beautiful image of our Lady, a true gift from Heaven, is only more amazing the more one learns about it!

December 13th is the feast of St. Lucy and I look forward to celebrating this feast with Miriam next year, she was a bit young this year.

December 15th is the feast of St. John of the Cross and on his feast day we actually sponsored a special day for the Seniors of our Parish. The seniors gathered for Mass, a special breakfast, bingo our Christmas Pageant and some Christmas music. It was a great day!

May our dear Lord bless your preparations for the celebration of His Incarnation!

Our Family Christmas Letter

2011-12-15T23:29:00.000-06:00

2011 Christmas Letter

Advent

2011-11-28T00:15:00.000-06:00

Happy Liturgical New Year! We are excited to be entering the season of Advent and beginning to prepare our hearts and home for Jesus's coming at Christmas. Here are a few things we are doing in our home to get ready for Our Lord's coming:

We are practicing the New Mass responses and learning about the Mass using Magnifikids great resource for Sunday Liturgy.

We have our Advent Wreath hung and ready to be lit with our family meal each night. We say a special prayer and sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel as we light the Candle.

We have our Jesse Tree up and ready and each day we read from the Bible and learn about the history of God's people waiting for their Savior to come. Then we hang a simple ornament with a symbol to help us remember a main point from the Bible story.

I have wrapped enough Christmas books (in the Christmas Tree bag) for each day of Advent and so we will unwrap and read a book each day.

Here's a peek inside - I used newspaper since it's easier, more economical and the kids are just happy to open the books:-)

I also wrapped the figures to the Nativity set we own and each day we'll add a figure to our Nativity scene for the children to play with and get ready for Jesus's arrival. The children will be able to add straw (we're going to shred the yellow construction paper) to Jesus's cradle for each act of kindness towards others - so they can prepare a bed for baby Jesus.

There are so many great ways to celebrate Advent! I love reading blogs (check out my side bar for some great ones) and checking out ideas on pinterest for inspiration. How does your family celebrate Advent?

Snow!

2011-11-10T20:11:00.001-06:00

When Phil said snow was in the forcast, I pictured a typical "first snow" where it snows a bit, doesn't stick but melts as it touched the ground. Instead we got this:

LOTS of snow!

Enough to go for a sled ride.

Enough to build a snow-leaf man

And plenty of fun for everyone. Also, the craziest driving conditions I have ever driven in! Thankfully the snow should all melt away next week - it's too early to have so much snow!

Prayer, Pledge and CalendarTime

2011-11-10T18:39:00.001-06:00

Here is a more detailed description of our "typical" homeschool day. Look for more posts soon!

Our Homeschooling day begins with a prayer. Right now we say a prayer, the Consecration to Our Blessed Mother, that the children would say at the Dominican Sister's of Mary's Spiritus Sanctus Academies each day - where I worked while in Ann Arbor, MI. I love this prayer because who better for little ones to entrust themselves to each day than their heavenly Mother who will bring them closer to Jesus and because its short, beautiful and has clear imagery for the children to understand. As the children memorize prayers we'll add or alternate prayers so they can memorize new ones.

When I was in kindergarten, my favorite"job" was to hold the flag for the pledge of allegiance and I loved to sing "You're a Grand Ol' Flag." So each morning we sing and march to "You're a Grand Ol' Flag." followed by saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag held by one of the kids. All three children love this part of the day.

One of my favorite parts of the kindergarten day while I was teaching at St. Joseph's Academy was "Calendar Time" and it's a useful time to teach certain skills that need to be practiced daily in a fun way. Each day we sing (in English and Spanish) the "Months of the Year Song" while pointing to the names of the months and when we get to this month, they jump up and down or put their arms in the air.

Then we add the day's date to our calendar and a Popsicle stick to our "place value" envelopes. Though I haven't explained "ones" and "tens" formally yet, when we do learn about them they'll have had experience through Calendar time. ( I may make envelope's to help count out days of school as well to help with numbers above 31 but I haven't yet.) After counting to today's date, we sing the days of the week song (in English & Spanish) and finally we construct our sentence for today's date and read it together:

We also check out the weather outside and record it on a graph and count to 20 by ones, 100 by 10's and mark how many days of school with a star using our number chart.

And so begins our day - this little routine takes about 10 minutes or so and it's fun for everyone.

Happy Birthday Grandma from William, Miriam & Luke

2011-11-08T15:17:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday Grandma (Lawson) !

May you be blessed with many more birthdays! We hope to see you soon!

Fall Fun

2011-11-08T14:59:00.004-06:00

Phil informs me that the forecast has snow for tomorrow so as the beautiful fall weather fades away, I just wanted to share some of our family's fall fun:

Fun in a leaf pile!

William and Miriam made a scarecrow

The scarecrow greets anyone who comes to our door.

We made a trip to our pumpkin patch:-)

Enjoyed "Tractor Rides" with friends

Here's the harvest from our Pumpkin patch

Miriam's Rosary - we prayed a decade of the Rosary each week for the month of the Rosary and added a bead for each prayer to make a "crown for Mary" Here's a link to the book I copied the Rosary page from; it is a great coloring book on the Rosary and has a coloring page for each mystery that we'll be using when we learn about the mysteries of the Rosary in the religion text we are using.


William's Rosary William was St. Michael the Archangel at our All Saints Party Miriam was Saint Jeanne de Valois for All Saint's Day William wanted to carve a blue Dinosaur Pumpkin for the All Saint's Day Pumpkin contest - he won 1st place!


Trick-or-Treating with the Hagen Family

Miriam's ABCs

2011-10-29T23:31:00.000-05:00

Miriam is excited to announce that she has learned her ABC's. Luke likes to dance to her singing. We hope you'll enjoy her ABC's and sing along :-)

Phil turns 35

2011-10-25T23:52:00.000-05:00

On October 19th, Phil celebrated his 35th birthday. The kids had fun making the day special for him.

Decorating the cake - it was a chocolate cake with ice cream in the middle

He had to work all day and we had planned to celebrate on Thursday but we got everything ready on Wednesday.

We decorated with m&m's - Dad's favorite

The cards, cake and gifts were ready when he got home Wednesday

The kids got to stay up a bit later to wish him a happy birthday

He got to open his presents too

Then of course we had to try the cake and sing Happy Birthday!

In case you are wondering - it's Michael D. Obrien's latest book - "A Father's Tale"

We got to celebrate on Thursday, too:-)

A "Typical" Day at Sancta Familia Academy

2011-10-23T21:00:00.001-05:00

As any homeschooling family will quickly point out - no two days are the same. Yet there is a rhythm to our days so I'll just give you a quick summary of what we do each day using future posts to flesh out the details.

To Organize our day, I use my version of "Workboxes" the rainbow boxes you see above. I haven't read Sue Patrick's book yet but read what other homeschoolers were doing and adapted the system to meet our needs. I printed some nifty tags here which I laminated and at the beginning of the day the tags start on the Workboxes and at the end of the day they end up on our "look what we did" schedule (we use sticky tack or Velcro to make them stick).

I love that I always know what we've done and what we have to do to finish our school day in case I'm interrupted while teaching a lesson.

Since Miriam and William are too young to work independently for a long period of time - we do the lessons together and I use learning videos and books on tape for the times I'm attending to Luke.

Or they have play time which is an important part of learning :-)

Generally each day we

"Get ready for school"

and either go to Mass (Tuesdays and Thursday when it works out) or begin with a Prayer

Next we have "Calendar Time"

sing "Your A Grand Old Flag" and say the Pledge of Allegiance

Circle Time and Religion - Saint of the Day, Religion Lesson, Bible Story

Phonics and Writing

Math

The stressful part of the day ;-)

Music/Art/Language (Sign language, Latin and Spanish Vocabulary words)

Science

Physical Education

Reading Story Time

Clean-up

We also go for a walk/bike ride or play outside,

have a snack, eat lunch and have nap time to break up the day as needed.

On Wednesday we like to go to our Library for Story Hour

We can finish the planned learning in about 2 hours or so each day. Most subjects last about 15 minutes but can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on the attention span of the children and what I have planned. That's our "typical day" and the kids love it so far.

A Princess' Tale

2011-10-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

Last night instead of watching a movie we made our own! We hope you enjoy this Epic tale.

September in Review

2011-10-16T23:26:00.000-05:00

We had a busy September here. We began homeschooling, Phil entered formation for becoming a deacon with the Diocese of La Crosse and we took a family trip to San Diego for my brother's wedding (which entailed my flying alone with the three kids). All three were major (and some even life changing) events for our family and required a lot of preparation and time. Of course every day with three little ones goes by quickly; I feel like I blinked and September was gone! Before any more time gets away from me - here's an update from our family:

Major Event #1: We officially began our homeschooling!

Getting ready to go to Mass on our First day of school

William and Miriam began kindergarten and preschool respectively at Sancta Familia Academy (our homeschool) on September 6th. We began our day with Mass at St. James Catholic Church which is the closest church to our house. I feel like I've been preparing for this day since before William was born so it was so exciting to actually officially begin formal homeschooling though of course the learning never ends.

Miriam in front of the work boxes that help organize our school day.

Look for a post soon that describes a "typical" home school day for us.

Major Event #2: Phil begins formation for the Diaconate for the Diocese of La Crosse

Car packed and ready to go

This one is going to require a separate blog post to explain the discernment journey up to this point but in the mean time you can go here for more details. Technically, Phil began his formation as a deacon aspirant in August. However, in September we packed the whole family up, including the dog, and went on an overnight trip to La Crosse to participate in a retreat at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe for men in formation to become a deacon and their wives. It was an exhausting but grace-filled trip for our family and God took care of all the details for us, including helping us find someone to house all of us including the dog and a babysitter to care for the children for part of the retreat. If God is truly calling Phil to the diaconate now at this stage in our lives-and it sure does seem that way- this is definitely a life changing journey and we are learning to surrender to God's plan for our lives as we walk this path.

Major Event #3: A Family Trip to San Diego for Uncle Steve's Marriage to Aunt Rosie

Luke traveling in style through the airport

This is Phil's busiest time of the year at work but since my brother was getting married it was time to head to San Diego. Since I wanted to spend at least a week with my family - who knows when we'll be back again - it meant traveling alone on an airplane with three little kids (ages, 5, 3 and 1).

William puts car stickers on his tray race track

Thanks to many people's prayers and a little bit of preparation the traveling went very well. The only major mishap was I lost my drivers license on one of the flights. We had an amazing time in San Diego.

The kids enjoying Uncle Steve's Pool

The wedding was beautiful,

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Gomez

and we have some amazing memories from our time with my family.

A huge blessing was spending time with my 101 year old grandfather.

I am so grateful that my children could get to know all their family in San Diego and I hope we'll be able to go back again soon. We miss everyone already!

All the Grand-kids together

An Ode to our Library and a trip to the Circus

2011-08-21T21:32:00.000-05:00

Penguins from Antartica that our Librarian made for story time

We LOVE our Library. We are there at least once a week and we know all of our librarians by their first names. It's a smaller library but is part of a larger system with a very easy and efficient book request system. Another reason we love the library is because of the excellent story time and summer reading programs they have for the children. Miss Lisa, the librarian who plans story time, has great ideas and really fun books, crafts and activities for the kids. Miriam and William love Miss Lisa and run to give her a hug or say hello every time we visit the library which is pretty close to once a week or at least every other week - sometimes more often.

A music program at the Library that featured instruments from around the World

Our summer adventure this week was made possible thanks to the summer reading program. We went to the Baraboo Circus Museum and had a great time!

Here is Miriam looking at a scale model of the Circus in all its glory

The Museum was really neat to lok through - they had some great displays, and it was very kid friendly, featuring a dress-up area, coloring table, circus train table and much more...

Lions and tigers, Miriams, Lukes & Phils Oh My!

Twice a day they offer a children's interactive circus where the kids dress up as the performers and put on a show. Miriam got to be a tiger, She did a great job!

They also have several shows throughout the day and we were amazed at what the performers and animals were able to accomplish. It was great fun to watch though the kids' favorite part was the clowns.

Luke enjoyed checking out this unicycle

The highlight for us though was an elephant ride. Our guide on the ride had been in the circus all his life (he is from Holland originally) and he has seven children (who are homeschooled) four of them performed in the circus show ages 5 to 14. We enjoyed talking to him as he guided us around the ring and he even gave us a bonus lap.

It was a great day and definately worth the trip. We will probably visit again as the kids get older.

A Trip to the EAA Venture Museum

2011-08-14T19:47:00.002-05:00

At the beginning of the Summer we took advantage of our local Groupon to purchase tickets to the EAA Venture Museum in Osh Kosh, WI. It was a great trip and since their flight simulator was out of order we got free tickets to go back again sometime.

William loved the hands on exhibits in the children's section.

Luke loved this exhibit that held a ball up in a stream of air that you could move.

The have flight simulators and exhibits that teach pretty much everything about the history of flight and the science behind flying.

The have a great space section and this is a meteroite that is part of a hands on exhibit. They also have several exhibits that allow you to see what an astronaut would experience in space.

Outside kids age 8-12 can have a free plane ride. Our children were too young to take advantage of this but they enjoyed the pedal airplanes.

The kids had a great time and it was a quiet ride home to Amherst Junction.

Where July went

2011-08-06T23:28:00.001-05:00

It's August! I just wanted to post some pictures to show where our July went. Time sure does fly by during the summer. June ended with a harvest of strawberries..(well there were only a few but next year there should be many more!)

William and Miriam each caught a fish...

We enjoyed a puppet show at the library...

went to the water park with friends...

And Welcomed Sister Rose Anthony to Amherst Junction for a week! We hosted an open house for her with a treasure hunt. It was so much fun!

While she was here we went to Chicago to visit Uncle Chris, Aunt Mimi, and cousins Emma and Catherine who happened to be in Illinois for a few days. The cousins had so much fun together, we can't wait to see them again at Uncle Steve's wedding in September.

Luke discovered the Sword and learned how to use one.

Sr. Rose Anthony made matching aprons for Miriam and William. We were so sorry to see her go and can't wait for her next visit..though it will be a couple years. The kids loved having her - it was such a belssing and we look forward to visiting the convent again in Michigan next year.

After Sister left, we had a week to finish preparation for the parish Vacation Bible School: There's No Place Like Rome that I got to design:-) It was a fun but exhausting week - well worth the months of preparation. Our friend Johnny came to visit and spend that Thursday night with us. Miriam is wearing the lion mask she made for Vacation Bible school.

We finished off the month with a Celebration of Life for our friends the Parkers who were getting ready to welcome their little girl Kateri Rose (born August 3rd) into the world.

and I made strawberry freezer jam for the first time and I'm hooked - it's so easy and SO delicious.

Every summer day is filled with fun, especially when you mix in a little imagination! I love the train the kids made. We hope your summer is going well!

Photography from a child's Perspective

2011-06-21T21:46:00.002-05:00

There is something about camera's that fascinate children. Come to think about it, any electronic or other tool that we use on a regular basis seems to be an instant magnet for my children. Lately I've been allowing William & Miriam to take a picture or two when I have my camera out an the pictures they take are fascinating. Here are a few for your enjoyment:

Picture of Luke taken by Miriam

Close-up by Miriam

The Wood Stove by William

The couch by William

Taken by Miriam

Cars by Miriam

Dinosaur by Miriam

Race Car by Miriam

William's' Care Bear by Miriam

By Miriam

by Miriam

"I cut off your head Mom" by William

Gotta love the kids' view of the world!

Happy Father's Day, Phil!

2011-06-19T21:49:00.001-05:00

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful Father and Husband. I couldn't have asked for a better Father for our children!

Thanks for all the fun days you've planned for us!

Thanks for playing with me Dad!

You light up our lives Dad!

Thanks for helping us build things.

Thanks for helping us grow in faith!

Thanks for letting us help with projects.

Thanks for holding me Dad!

We Love you Dad...HAPPY FATHER'S DAY...Love, William, Miriam & Luke

A New Playhouse

2011-06-19T21:03:00.001-05:00

Phil took a week of his vacation time this year for a stay-cation. The past few months have been so busy! It was a blessing and quite refreshing for our family to be home and not feel the pressure of deadlines or having to be somewhere. It was also nice to have time to work on projects around the house like our new kitchen and bathroom floors. Phil took advanage of this time to build a playhouse for the kids with their help. It was William's idea and request to build a playhouse.

Step 1: Lay the foundation and the posts for the walls.

Step 2: Put up the walls

Step 3: Now for some windows.

Step 4: Add the roof...

Step 5: Painting Fun

A look at the inside

And Ta Da the finished house!

We'll be painting and making it homey over the summer so check back for updates.

Let's go fly a kite!

2011-06-07T15:35:00.001-05:00

On a windy day in May, William asked Dad if he could fly his kite.

And so they attempted to fly it. Miriam decided to make her own pink kite (with Mom's help of course.)

Though neither kite went very high - it sure was fun to try and the kids loved it.

The gardens are planted! Spring has finally sprung, just in time for Summer.

2011-06-04T09:22:00.002-05:00

Our gardens are planted! Come see the Vegetable garden:

We planted zucchini, carrots, potatoes, onions, green beans, sweet peas, and broccoli.

JMJ flower garden:

Strawberry patch:

the strawberries are finally established, we're hoping for a good crop this year!

Here's a worm we found in the strawberry patch-I've never seenone so big!

Pumpkin Patch

and Apple Orchard.

We are so excited that Spring is finally here!

Luke is 1 year old today!

2011-06-02T22:19:00.001-05:00

Hard to believe it's been a year since our Luke was born. It's hard to believe he was so tiny!

Happy 1st Birthday Luke!

Gone Fishing!

2011-05-30T23:27:00.001-05:00

William and Miriam had fun with Dad on...

The first fishing trip of the year! No fish yet but maybe next time. :-)

A Deer InciDent

2011-05-29T16:59:00.001-05:00

I live in deer country and I know to watch for these gentle creatures with a kamikaze tendency. The evening around dusk is when deer are really out and at night one must drive carefully...but who expects these gentle creatures to bound in front of your vehicle at 2:00pm in the afternoon?

We were on our way to the doctor's office for William's 5 year old well child visit and a sick child visit for Luke when this unfortunate collision occured. The Doe did not make it. She exchanged her tail for our headlight, so for a few short hours we had an authentic "red-neck" hood ornament (Phil graciously it removed for me - unfortunately before I got a picture). The phrase a "Deer caught in the headlights" now has new meaning for me.

The damage done-$2400+ is the estimate -thankfully we have full coverage insurance:-).