1. We spent Halloween gorging on candy, drinking cider and watching movies. We watched Wallace and Grommit A Matter of Loaf and Death (which was great!) and the old, black and white, Godzilla. This week, the children were discussing what color Godzilla was. The boys settled on green or almost black green. Amira piped up to say that they didn't know that. "The movie was grey!"

2. On All Saints, we carved our pumpkins. Rich and I never got to ours, but I'm sure they would have been wonderful. I was torn between the Sacred Heart, an Alpha and Omega or the Blessed Virgin.

The children's, though, were great. Elijah wanted a happy Jack o' Lantern, so we did that for him. Dominic went for his namesake. We thought Jerome would, or a lion as his symbol, especially since he wanted a lion on a leash or to ride when he dressed up as Saint Jerome, but he decided on St. Nicholas. Amira chose a simple cross, making her dad's night after the complicated few he did. Alexander carved his own, choosing on his own the four symbols of the four evangelists. For Yasmina, Rich scaled down this design to fit her pumpkin. Here they are:


Yasmina's punky


Saint Nicholas


Amira's cross


Elijah's happy Jack


Saint Dominic. He is the patron of astronomers and astronomy and is often depicted with stars. Rich couldn't get the traditional monastic profile with the lily staff and rosary that Dominic wanted initially. Dominic was satisfied with this.


Alexander carved these primitive images. We are encouraging him to sell his art work, as we've seen many similar paintings and sculptures in art shows selling for a lot of money. College fund anyone?

Other views:



3. Yasmina had a great time marching around the back yard while Rich was gutting the pumpkins trying to find a "punky" (her word) that she could lift.



4. Poor Amira is doing really well with learning to read. Poor Amira? Well, you see, she is learning how to sound out words, and for the most part, this helps her. She came to me this week, though, to tell me she knew how to spell phonics: F-O-N-I-X. We had a discussion about the Greek word phone and how English gets most of her words from Latin and Greek and sometimes sounding things out doesn't work unless you know the sounds from those languages as well.

5. What I Heard, What She Said:

Amira was in the bathroom and called out to me wanting to know why there was a kangaroo on the moose. ???? Turns out she was looking at the mousse bottle which was that Aussie brand, thus the kangaroo.

6. What He Said, What He Meant:

Dominic read our Old Testament readings this week. On All Saints, his was from the book of Wisdom 3:1-9. In it he read that "For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immorality." Immortality. It's amazing what one letter can change.

7. I found this satire hilarious and sad all at the same time.

7b. (Yes, I know this makes eight, but it was in a similar theme) Mark Shea addressed a very common confusion about praying to the saints. The comments are especially good, I think. I was reminded of the story, I think about Mark, when someone insisted that Catholics worshiped statues. He explained the difference, made clear that they didn't, gave biblical examples, the whole deal. The fellow would have none of it. "You don't know that's what you are doing, but you are worshiping statues." Finally realizing that there was no reasoning with this person, he replied "No, since Vatican II, we worship banners." I think I've posted this before, but it bears repeating, if you are going to accuse me of something at least get it right. The comments about bearing false witness in Mark's blog post were sobering, and ought to be.

Labels: All Saints, Church Year, Faith and Morality, Family, Humor, Seven Quick Takes