7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

I have a lot less to be anxious about now that Mary's First Holy Communion weekend is concluded. Onward and upward! We're back to the regular and blessedly calm grind around here. I truly feel blessed to be so intimately involved in the children's education and spiritual lives.

2.

I discovered this week that I can give my 9-year-old at least a short grocery list, ask him to place the order while I'm bustling about doing other tasks, and then come back merely to review and confirm the order. This is very exciting for me!

John ordering my groceries

3.

Scenes from school . . . 

Margaret using her new copywork book

More than a year ago, the two drawer pulls on the large drawer full of an extensive collection of puzzles broke off. We recently put on new drawer pulls, thus freeing the puzzles imprisoned so long in the dark. Margaret (5) really doesn't remember our ever owning puzzles, so she is having the most delightful time completing them all. It turns out she is particularly good at doing puzzles! She looks less at color, more at the shape of the pieces.

Sisters making a puzzle

4.

Children's Books of the Week (in progress or completed)*

• Read-alouds
• "Baltimore Catechism No. 2" (originally published 1885)
• "Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints" (Loreto Publications, originally published 1894)
• "The Apple and the Arrow" (1951)
• "Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess" (2003)
• "Chanticleer and the Fox" (1959)
• "Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer retold by Barbara Cohen (1988)
• "Under Angel Wings: The Autobiography of Sr. Maria Antonia" (originally published 1949)
• "Lives of the Saints" (Aquinas Kids, 2012)
• "Dr. Doolittle"
• "The Boxcar Children" (originally published 1924)--reading just to Margaret
• Mama
• "My Life with the Great Pianists" by Franz Mohr with Edith Schaeffer
• "Holiness for Housewives and Other Working Women"
• "Emily of New Moon" by L.M. Montgomery
• "How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare" by Ken Ludwig
• John
• "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (1950)
• "Boy Knight of Reims" (originally published 1927)
• An old-fashioned Boy Scouts' manual
• Mary
• "King of the Golden City"(originally published 1919)
• "Mother Teresa" by Demi

* A feature I would love to make regular here at 7 Quick Takes Friday.

5.

This has been a week of church events!

Last Sunday was Mary's First Holy Communion, then Wednesday was the Mary Crowning.

Thursday brought an exquisite Ascension Mass at night--and Margaret was old enough to join her Daddy and stay awake! The Ascension Mass presented really special music by the Carolina Catholic Chorale and Orchestra singing Antonio Caldara's Mass in A. "This will be a rare treat as Caldara's music is not in print and is the first time it will be sung in centuries--right here at St. Ann's (Thanks Father Reid!). The music was re-created by Carolina Catholic Chorale director Tom Savoy . . ."

Then Friday brings two outings, first for the 7:00 a.m. First Friday Mass and then for the 7:00 p.m. Mass and celebration for the parish altar boys. Whew!

6.

I'm in the midst of reading again "Holiness for Housewives and Other Working Women" by Dom. Hubert van Zeller. It is so good, I can't recommend it highly enough!

I really had time to read all the books I've read on marriage and parenting before my oldest child turned five, so it's been years since I've devoted much time to that kind of reading. Now when I go back, the books have richer meaning for me because I'm actually in the trenches now.

7.

Speaking of being in the trenches, I'm in water up to my neck helping the children in their music education right now. We're T minus six days till the Guild audition. John and Mary will each be playing ten memorized piano pieces with the accompanying scales and cadence chords in the matching key signatures. They still have to memorize the names of the composers and matching key signatures so that they can respond instantly if the judge says, "Play the scale for the Bach piece." (Which is the Bach piece? And what is its key signature?)

Also, they're both getting ready to graduate a level in piano and violin within the next few months, so Music Theory studies will resume in earnest, having been set aside for Technique studies during competition season. I'm busy printing out books of worksheets so we can do daily work in this area, as they need to pass their exams with Superior ratings to graduate upward. All of this practice and study requires a lot of investment of Mama's time.

And then--a big party hosted by their studio!

Meanwhile, they all have a recital Saturday night, John and Mary playing all ten of their Guild pieces, and Margaret (5) playing her first recital ever! She is an absolute ball of nerves, so we'll see if she can pull this thing off.

Mary (7) coaching Margaret (5) for her recital

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