Confession - Yesterday was Abigail's First Reconciliation. Claire and I both went with her for moral support and to receive the sacrament as well. For the first time in years, a majority of our family can now go to this sacrament. There was a brief liturgy beforehand with prayer, a gospel reading, a brief homily, and then the children (and anyone else who wanted to) could go to see one of five available priests.
Despite the large number of priests you could choose from, it took us over an hour to get to see one. I think the season of Advent inspired quite a few adults to take advantage of the opportunity. It certainly seemed like more of a wait than when Claire had her first confession years ago. When we finished we rushed out to head over to gymnastics lessons and got there just in a nick of time.
Movies - We watched two movies yesterday. One was March of the Penguins. I had tried to take Claire and her friend Madison to see it when it showed at Wilton Town Hall theater last summer, but that particular viewing was one-time preempted by a showing of something by a NH local artist. While not exactly an action packed DVD, the girls liked it. I also watched Star Wars: Episode III. I think we're probably the last people in America to see it. It was far darker than previous films. Nevertheless I let some of the kids watch portions of it with me. Somehow the violence seems a little less intense on the "small screen". I'm sure the visuals must have been impressive at a theater with a large screen.
Mass - This morning we took the kids to 7am Mass. Timothy got pulled out on the early side to stay with me in the foyer, but the twins weren't on their best behavior either. As a punishment they got to see the rest of us eat donuts when we got home. The twins also had a brief timeout on the "naughty chair". Hopefully next week will go better. We won't let this one discourage us. They've been pretty good in previous weeks.
Card - This morning I worked on the picture that will go in our Christmas card. As anyone who has every tried to take pictures of children will attest, the more children involved, the more difficult it is to get them all coordinated. Take this picture or this one as an example. So instead we opted to build one from individual pictures. Here is a sneak peek at what will go out in the cards. It was a fun one to build.
Piano - Claire's piano teacher gave her a break from her regular practice book and gave her three Christmas songs to practice. If I get time later today, I'll program them into the piano and put them online.
Evening Update - I only got to work on one of Claire's new Christmas songs: Santa Claus is Coming to Town. We had a few of Claire and Abby's friends over this afternoon so I didn't spend much time at the piano. As soon as I finished recording this one, Mighty Timbo wanted to join me and do a little more piano jamming. As long as he stays away from the control buttons, I want to encourage him to play around.
Games - One of the new Gamecube titles that I was looking forward to this season was Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. When I saw the announcement I put it on my Amazon wishlist thinking that perhaps I'd pick it up later for the kids for Christmas. Tonight as I was trying to do more shopping for the kids I found out nearly everywhere you look, the game is sold out. The few places that will sell it are charging about 3x for a copy. Ah well, I guess we'll wait a couple months. It's too bad. I was thinking it would be a good way for the kids to get a little exercise amidst the cabin fever of New England winter. Who knows? Maybe by January it'll be priced sanely...
Nice card-we mailed ours yesterday, but we still don't have our tree up.
Our family got to light the advent candles this morning- so we were all at church 10 minutes early and we were supposed to sit in the first row for Mass. It went better than I expected- Kyle lasted in front until Communion, so that was good.
Have a great day!
Hi Lyss,
I bet the little ones thought it neat to be up front and doing something for the Mass. Mighty Timbo and I were in the foyer before Gospel reading. Usually we can make it to about consecration, so this week was definitely a slide backwards in behavior.
Michelle didn't think I should have put the picture up online. "It should be a surprise!" Of the 60-70 people who will get the card, I think only about 5 would see it online first.
I forgot to mention that we have fresh snow today. It's pretty in that it's less than an inch -- a bit of the grass still shows through. It brought back that Christmas-y atmosphere we had around Thanksgiving.
Best wishes for a nice weekend.
Posted by: Scott at December 4, 2005 02:30 PMI'm glad that the snow didn't bother you. I nearly spun out several times on my way home this morning from Nashua - there was some slick ice under some of that snow between 08 and 09 today!
I just love it when they open up the reconciliation to the parents!
Later tonight, John and I will be doing our usual bi-weekly catechetical stuff - assisting in Confirmation preparation. It is really a spiritual workout, you know?
Hi Alicia,
It was a little scary driving but I was taking quiet backroads to church so I could take it slow.
I would imagine trying to teach 13 and 14 year olds in preparation for Confirmation would be a challenge! The sad part is how many people stop their religious development once they are confirmed. It's as if they 'graduated' and no longer need to learn more. In retrospect, I'm amazed at how *little* I knew by Confirmation -- even after 8 years of private Catholic grade school.
Hi Lyss,
I just sent in that Christmas picture for reprints. In checking my records, it turns out that Dec 6th (ie. tomorrow) was when I had my Christmas card picture sent in *last* year. I'm nothing if not consistently a procrastinator...
Hi, Scott.
I like the Christmas card. I was just thinking today that I need to get our picture taken for our Christmas cards. It will much easier for me this year as I now have a digital. In years past I would take about a half roll of film, hoping that at least one picture would turn out nice enough to use.
One of my girls is getting the Dance Dance Revolution Extreme for Christmas from her grandparents. I didn't even know the Mario version existed. It looks like fun.
Posted by: Lisa at December 9, 2005 01:56 PMHi Lisa,
Yep, I printed a draft of our mailing list Wednesday night, but since there were several errors, I did a flurry of emails asking for corrections. Tonight I'll actually print them up on labels and we can mail them tomorrow.
While I've not been a big fan of Sony's Playstation, I have to admit that the whole Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series would be the biggest pull in their favor for me. Alas, being a family with lots of small kids and other young kids who come over to play, GameCube is our console of choice.
There is an Open Source DDR series but I don't think it'd be much fun dancing in front of a computer screen. Now in theory I can hook up my laptops to a modern television via composite, component, or S-Video (I'm not sure which...). But still, I think my kids would have the most fun keeping up with Mario, Luigi, Princess Peace, Daisy, DonkeyKong, etc...
Posted by: Scott at December 9, 2005 04:37 PM