House projects

It is that time of year...to get outside and work on stuff! We had gutters installed this week (didn't ever have them in the old house but boy it is different when the water is falling from 2 stories above!). I finished our final flower bed this week, and Austin got our garden built just in time to plant our potted sprouts!

Here is the before of the house from the last flower bed...


And with the new bed...




And the garden (can't really see the plants well but I promise they are in there! Allia and Mariana actually started the cucumber and tomato plants from seed as part of a science lesson :) )

Big helper!

This boy loves to take the trash out...if he sees me tying up a bag he comes, grabs it, and heads for the door! I videoed him tonight to see how far he could make it carrying the bag. He almost made it all the way!

My turn!

Rope swing

Austin built this swing for the children yesterday. It is a hit!

Activism

Our children love to go grocery shopping at a certain store and strongly dislike another. Why? Well, one offers samples to munch and a game to play after shopping, but the other does nothing of the sort. So Allia decided to take action and write a letter. What a girl! (and yes, we are mailing it to them).

Solemnity of the Annunciation

May we say, like Mary, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

In need

"Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." - Matthew 25:40

This seems to be our theme this last week. The poor can seem so far away sometimes in our culture of abundance. We were just talking with some friends about helping the poor, and then as we went out on errands Saturday were approached by a poor man asking for help. It is sad how tempting it can be to turn away from people like that. "They will just use the money for drugs" or "I have my kids in the car...what if they try to do something to us". Thanks to the Holy Spirit, after seeing him rummaging in the dumpster, we took the opportunity and gave him what little cash we had which brought tears to his eyes. It has bee so beautiful to see the effect of this action on the children. They have been talking about and praying for the poor more than ever this week. Then, our reading lesson today had a story about this exact thing. St. Martin cut his cloak in half for the poor man freezing in his rags, even though he was chided by his friends. Thank you, Lord, for this message to our family!