Friday, November 27, 2009

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Video clip of Sean practicing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in preparation for playing it at Christmas Eve Mass.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family. Let us remember the founding of this great nation as we pause to give thanks to God for all of our blessings this Thanksgiving Day. Among all of our blessings, I am thankful that our founders had the faith and courage to pledge to one another their lives, fortunes and sacred honor so that we could enjoy the freedom we have today.

http://www.allabouthistory.org/thanksgiving-history.htm


At the link above you can read the text of George Washington’s Oct 3, 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation and then read below it Abraham Lincoln’s Oct 3, 1863 Proclamation establishing the Last Thursday of Nov as “Thanksgiving Day”


For a great history of Thanksgiving Proclamations, see this link— http://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/93/hshb9326.asp

It includes the history behind 5 of the first Thanksgiving Proclamations of our new nation-- the first one issued by Congress in 1777 and several others issued by Congress in the 1780s. Many people credit Lincoln with establishing this day, when, in fact, our founding fathers had been proclaiming days of Thanksgiving from the very beginning. They set aside a day of the year for all Americans to Give thanks to God. Lincoln set the current date… but our founding fathers had already been proclaiming Thanksgiving and establishing National Days of Prayer and Thanksgiving from the very beginnings of our Nation. Enjoy reading a bit of the history about Thanksgiving!

I thought it was really kind of neat that in his 1789 Proclamation George Washington set the day of thanks as Thursday, the 26th of November! Do something different at your Thanksgiving table… for the blessing, read the words of George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation as part (or all of) your blessing … I plan on making reading his proclamation a tradition at our house in some way, shape or form.

Monday, November 23, 2009

November

October flew by and we had a wonderful Halloween party. I never got around to posting pictures here. Those of you on Facebook can see them there. We had a busy time setting up J's muscle biopsy. After we found out he developed swallowing problems, we felt we really should proceed. We are looking at Mitochondrial disorders. Joseph had his muscle biopsy surgery last week along with Met testing and other "stuff". It will take up to 12 weeks to get the results back. You can see pictures in the next post.

We've managed to keep up with school. It is always tricky when trying to balance hospital stays and procedures with school work. Matthew has really been doing well with his first year in High School. We are still using Seton. Sean is in 8th grade and working on Algebra II. Things are moving right along!

Matthew is still doing a great job with the pro-life student group he started. This month, they met at OLOG in Greensboro to listen to a pro-life talk. I was excited to be able to attend, too. The teens are great.

In October, Sean played his piece at the State Superiors Honors Recital. He did well for playing in a recital hall at UNCG filled with people. Video below: