Simple Catholic

Last year was my first year to attend an Immaculate Heart of Mary Homeschool and Parent Conference, it was AWESOME! Lovely folks hosting, fantastic speakers and some great vendors made for really nice experience for this first time homeschool conference attendee.

I just received an email that they will host another New England conference this year. Did I mention the conferences are free?! Yup, free!

So here are the details from their website:

UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center

50 Warren St.
Lowell, MA 01852

FREE ADMISSION!

Friday August 8th, 2014 @ 2:00pm to 8:00pm
Saturday August 9th, 2014 @ 9:30am to 3:30pm

SAVE THE DATES!

This conference is for everyone, not just homeschooling families. All religious are especially welcome.

This will be IHM’s second year in New England! Our first year was such a success that we decided this conference deserved to be a 2-day event, so we are adding a Saturday to the conference and bringing in an extra speaker or two.

There is free parking provided you follow these instructions (otherwise you may be charged): There is a parking garage next the the UMass Lowell Inn and CC, but you have to enter this garage through the UMass Lowell Inn driveway and park on the 1st or 2nd levels (if you enter from the main street, there will be a charge even though it is the same garage).

Happy 2014!

Yesterday we had all sorts of great plans. We got up early so I could make breakfast and then we could attend Mass. About 3 minutes after we awoke, Monkey got sick and changed our plans for the day. Instead, we spent almost the entire day hanging out in the living room tending a sick little boy.

Monkey has gotten 4 of these nasty stomach bugs in his four years and each one he’s managed to beat in about 12 hours. He’s sick as anything for most of the day, then he falls asleep late in the evening for about two hours and awakens chipper and ready to go. He did the same thing yesterday. And today he’s eating normally.

God Bless!

St. Anne’s Academy is finally in session, for real. We were doing some schooling stuff during September, but we are now into the real stuff!

We decided to go with Catholic Heritage Curricula’s preschool package. The daily lesson plans are for preschool and kindergarten. Getting two years in one package is a nice bonus and will help keep costs down next year. The “reading” component is “I Can Find Letter Sounds“. The math component is “I Can Find Numbers and Shapes“, both by Nancy Nicholson. The religion component is from the Image of God Series. “Who am I?” is the name of the Preschool workbook.

Very soon we’ll also purchase Making Music Praying Twice for a music education component, but I needed to start small and add elements slowly.

My next step is to figure out our schedule, especially in regard to when Monkey learns best. I have learned the hard way that if he has any video game time prior to school time his attitude to horribly negative. So I have to schedule those activities for later.

The first real school year of the St. Anne’s Academy at Balsam Woods Farm is going to be starting in the next few weeks. We are really looking forward to teaching our little Monkey pre-kindergarten.

I have been working on our curriculum order list and a new calendar for the school year. When we are ready to get going, I’ll be back with pictures of my calendar and our curriculum plans for the year. For now, we are enjoying these last few weeks of summer and making huge plans for a very special birthday later this month.

May God Bless You!

This morning my husband and I had our first appointment with a fertility specialist about having another baby. We were blessed 3 1/2 years ago with our son, naturally, but also a month after we saw another fertility specialist.

This morning’s appointment didn’t result in great news. The doctor feels we have a stacked deck against us having any additional children. That’s not the end of the story though and he’s willing to help, but he was cautious.

I’m 40 and my husband is 44. Apparently, getting pregnant after 40 has a 10% success rate and by 41 it falls to 5% chance. I don’t know if that is a “per cycle” percentage or not, but those percentages don’t look very good.

When the doctor was telling us everything we’ve got against us, I wanted to cry. Then later I started beating myself up for anything I could for making getting pregnant difficult. But my lovely husband sent me an email that perked me up and reminded me that this is in God’s hand. And then I remembered all those women of the Bible that had babies in their older years. There is always hope!!!

May God bless us with the additional children we so strongly desire. May we bring them up with praise for you, Lord, wisdom and strength. Amen.