Currently listening to...

Because I am in a bit of a quirky and slightly wistful mood...I am loving this CD borrowed from Sparsebeard's co-worker and Spanish teacher friend.

The songs range from a lively, Latin flair to mellow and even haunting, with styles from classical to ballad to Latin, in languages from English and Spanish to French and Greek and more.

The group is comprised of a 14-piece group on vocals and instrumentals. I love it's international flair.

The song titles are: Amado Mio, No Hay Problema, Qué Sera Sera, La Soledad, Dónde Estás Yolanda, Andalucia, Song of the Black Lizard, Never on Sunday, Brazil, Lullaby (which I recognize from one of my favorite foreign films, "The Girl From Paris.")

Check out samples of the songs here.

I am absolutely loving it... :-)

Javamom

Fundraiser Music Video

Watch this video put to the song "Freedom Never Cries" from John Ondrasik's Five for Fighting. A dollar goes to Operation Homefront, a charity that assists troops and their families.

niece, cousin, sister and aunt of American troops and veterans,

Javamom

spring project completed!

I love spring projects!

extended spring break!

Our spring break has been spread out over two weeks, b/c our 19 yo surprised us with a visit from Omaha last week. I postponed one class till this week, which really is our official Spring Break from co-op and hubby's break from his school.

We've done some spontaneous things, like meeting friends in the city for ds to reconnect with them. We've invited groups over for lunch, rented Audrey Hepburn movies, and also put in our garden. We began prepping and priming the boys' room for new paint, then got a deluge of rain for about 24 hours, which slowed our progress.

Today, 14.5 yo ds and I are back to the painting, while hubby re-wires our sprinkler/septic system, which burned out under our deluge of rain earlier this week.

So instead of camping, which was our initial plan, we've taken care of some much-needed home maintenance things and spent time with family and friends.

All-in-all, a very productive and successful time so far!

What are you doing for spring break? Have any special Easter plans?

Around the Neighborhood

Resting and Recital

We had our first piano recital today, so Androcles and the lion got a good night's rest!



Today's recital was very sweet indeed. All the kids did such a good job! It gave our son the motivation to invite a friend next time. He really enjoys his piano lessons.


Javamom

Rare March Tx snow - again

You can barely see the boy stooping down to make a snowball.




Our second snow of the week, and a rare one, at that. The last time it snowed in March (besides earlier this week) was when our oldest was ten weeks old! The last time it snowed multiple inches in March was sometime in the early 1920's. We were all giddy about it here, and ended up getting a day off from our co-op the next day, because of icy traffic conditions early the next morning.

I spent a lot of the day in the kitchen, preparing cold-weather dishes like Vegetable Beef Stew and Black beans and rice, plus cornbread. Dd brought home hot, fresh bread from the bakery, after seeing a dollar movie with friends.

It was like playing hookie! I love the break from the regular routine.

Snowy Primary Eve

We experienced a late, winter wonderland last night between nine and midnight. What a treat!

But not to worry on primary day. It's almost all gone in typical Texas fashion. It's already sunny and will be about 58 degrees today.

Natural Learning and the eclipse

I do not have photos (like I did last August) to share from the week's lunar eclipse. It certainly happened at a reasonable hour of the evening so that witnessing it did not require setting an alarm clock. I have a better tripod now, and even a self-timer on my camera.

Instead, my schedule included picking up our daughter from work and then heading over to the church to pick up our sons after youth group. I mentioned how the eclipse had already begun and we could actually see it between the cloud formations passing overhead in the sky. I turned the van toward home and drove for about five minutes when I said aloud, "You know, I bet the sky is clearer east of us. We could just head out of the city limits and get a better view of this thing." Dd loved the idea, so I whipped around, drove back out past our church, then headed east toward the clearer sky! I think our almost 15 yo son just wanted to go home and sleep. He is recovering from a pretty severe ankle sprain that he acquired in football practice last week.

We were gone for almost two hours. We stopped in a few neighborhoods in the next town over, where the neighborhoods are so new there aren't many street lights. Dd tried to take a few photos on her little digital camera, in between the thickening, gathering of clouds that were pouring in overhead. I had not packed mine along, because the weatherman predicted heavy clouds and no good viewing for our part of town. We were actually very blessed to get to see any of it at all. We even got good views of Venus, the star "Regulus" and one other planet or star that were in their clear triangle formation so "close" (from our viewpoint) to the orange moon. It was stunning.

So, it was just us making the memory and chasing after the better view...

While I'm a little sad that I didn't have my wonderful camera and 300 mm lens in the van, I did have some chocolate Hershey's Kisses, and am happy that we celebrated this eclipse this way...together...in our memories forever. I was a lot of fun.

JavaMOM

Midis/Lyrics of Music from Puerto Rico

Check these out! (Mother Auma, you're going to love this)

In an effort to share and celebrate the music that originated with Puerto Ricans, René Ramos has gathered a host of songs from which to choose.

Haz click aquí: for Midi files and music from Puerto Rican composers. You will even find a section in his pages which contain almost fifty sets of lyrics and midis of children's songs. The web design on the individual children's song lyrics are cute; some are fun (like floating oranges around the cursor).

Can you tell that I've got some free time this week? It is our mid-winter break from our homeschool co-op.

Enjoy!

Javamom