Hodie Christus Natus Est

Hodie Christus Natus Est
The little child lays now to rest
On that most holy wonderful night
The stars did not shine too bright
Nor was the angels song too great
To praise the mighty love that laid
God in a cattle manger

His virgin mother held him close
He was the one she loved the most
His human father made a bed
In a manger where cattle fed
Yet that stable cold and bare
Held the thing on earth most fair
God in a cattle manger

His plan of redemption has begun
The world will be saved through God the son
Now in the cradle one day on the cross
His sacrificial life of earthly loss
Would win for us the gates of paradise
But now He sleeps surrounded by snow and ice
God in a cattle manger

Now all is peace and calm
Not possible seems hurt or harm
As He lays so peaceful there
All around Him love and care
Shepherds and Kings came to the stable
They came to kneel before His cradle
God in a cattle manger

And even now we celebrate
Give gifts and parties to commemorate
The birth of a tiny helpless child
We give gifts and act more mild
Now let us bring gifts of love
To Him whose birth it is the day of
God in a cattle manger.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

90 seconds, 5000 years.....

Check this out. It gives you a brief overview of the extent of various empires in the middle east, very interesting.

hat-tip: Lilting House

A Roman Holiday Party

Yesterday we had a Christmas party with the Dead Language Latin Club, a homeschool club for Latin students. It was a costume party and I will call each person by the name of their character. (I by the way was Clio, the muse of History. After all I'm the history girl!) It was such a fun party even surpassing this event."Calliope", "Euterpe" and "Julius Caesar" came early to help finish preperations. We all got dressed in our Roman costumes and Calliope did my hair. Then came the other guests. First came Maximus, Marcus, and Octavious bearing a ham carved as a boar's head. The other guests soon began to stream in, Mecurius and Diana, a Caesar whose name switched several times, Caridoc and Osric (Picts complete with face paint) and Minerva 2 (my mom already bore that name). Then after a prayer, a song and several games of Mancala we began the feast. It looked and tasted amazing. After we were almost done our latecomers arrived, Venus 2 (Terri was also so named) and two ordinary Roman citizens. We took group pictures and had our Costume contest. Osric won the boy's contest, with Mecurius as runner-up. And Diana won the girls contest. Then came the skits, two teams acting out a story each from the Aenead (we do similar contests at all meetings, but not all from the Aenead.) My group had The Journey to the Underworld. Wherein Aeneas (acted by Octavious who conveniently had a sword) asks the cumean sibyl (played by me) how to visit his father, Anchises. She instructs him to take the golden bough (played by Calliope, frequently bowing). They must also bury their dead comrade ( Gus played this, BTW his assumed name for the party was Augustus, a soldier). In the underworld he meets the suicidal queen Dido (excellently portrayed by Diana) covered in orange paper flames, and his father Anchises (Marcus). All this was narrated by Osric who began the skit with the 20th centure fox trumoet call. Terri also appeared as the ship which carried Aeneas and co. to the sibyl, with a carven front of course. The other team had the story of the settling in Italy. But I don't know all the details. Can someone fill me in? After this we did the Pinata, filled with chocolate coins. Then it was four and time for the party to be over. Some had to leave, but a number stayed for a while after and chatted. Then finally everyone was gone and the party was over.... but we still have leftovers... (:

My 100th post!!!!!!

Yep, I've finally reached my 100th post! Now my first two posts, over a year ago, were about the gospel of Luke. So it is quite fitting that my hundreth post should be about the discussion we had the other night on....The Gospel of Luke!
We began with examining the theme often repeats, the theme of Be Not Afraid. We found many passages throughout the evening which followed this thread.
We also explored the greatly empahsized (but definitely not overdone) theme of forgiveness. We compared the two parables, The Prodigal Son and The Rich Man and Lazarus. The main difference between these two were the time of repentance. The prodigal son did sin but he repented before it was to late. He went home, apologized and was forgiven and joyfully received. But the Rich Man did not repent until after death, until it was too late so he was not forgiven.
We also discussed the Road to Emmaus, which has some great similarities in The Two Towers when Gandalf returns to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. We wondered why it was that the two disciples did not recognize him. We decided it was probably because their minds would already set to think that He was dead. So their mind set wouldn't let them see Him as He was.
I cannot remember what it was that we talked about after that but the conversation kept returning to the forgiveness theme, it was very interesting. Anyways we had a great discussion. If anyone who was present remembers more of later content please comment.

Moose Ears

This is Bernie, Gus and I. Terri is behind the camera. Oh and sorry about the inactivity over the past week or so.

Baby Hands

We've been gone for the past five days visiting family, enjoying my uncle's amazing cooking..... and taking pictures. The above is a photo of Frank's hands which I took while he was playing at the sink. I will post another in a different post shortly. I guess you'll be seeing my pictures as much as my artwork, hope you don't mind (:

Thankful Thursdays

1. The Catholic faith.
2. My family and friends, I love chatting with them about, well.... anything and everything!
3. Books, reading time, authors like Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, Austen, Regina Doman, Hilda Van Stockum, Shakespeare etc. etc. etc. (Does that count as one?)
4. Blogger. The blogs have been so much fun, making new friends and keeping in touch with old. And learning things all the time, particularly about Chesterton.
5. Discussions with our homeschool friends.
6. Dr. Thursday's posts, particularly his Thursday posts on ACS.
7. The camera, I'm enjoying it more and more.
8. Being able to listen to stories almost anytime. Thanks to multiple audio players in our house.
9. Shakespeare parties. We get together with a bunch of friends, and read a Shakespeare play together, we have SOOOO much fun.
10. Irish dance class.

Can You Tell I Like Memes????

Here's another book meme that I thought looked interesting. I got it from Studeo, here goes:

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you? I was 4 when I learned to read and my mom taught me.
2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library? My mom and dad got Ten Little Babies Dress for me when I was less then a year old (of course I don't remember it from then, when I was a couple years older).
3. What's your oldest memory of a story? I'm not positive, probably either Good Morning In Maine or Miss Rumphius.
4. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money? Well I remember getting The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was six but that wasn't with my own money, it was a prize for a summer reading program. I loved it, I read it in less then 24 hours!
5. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?
Oh Yeah. I'm not sure exactly but I did reread These Happy Golden Years enough times that my mom had to make me read two books in between each time.
6. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it? Most likely the book which is still my favorite The Lord of The Rings, which I first read when I was nine.
7. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones? Well I'm not an adult and I don't think there really are any, at least none that come to mind.

Anybody want to do it??? Consider yourself tagged, and any ChesterTeens who see this post, you're tagged too!

I Was Just Thinking.....

... How different would the story of The Lord of The Rings be if Faramir went to Rivendell instead of Boromir? I'm guessing this has been pondered before but I never thought of it before. Especially the breaking of the fellowship probably would have been drastically different because of Faramir's greater will power over the ring.

What do you think? Would it have been better or worse if Faramir had persuaded Boromir to stay in Minas Tirith?

I Love the Camera!

I take pictures whenever I can, and I love sunbursts. ( In case you didn't figure that out already:).