We are such a homeschooling family. I have to laugh at us. We knew that we needed to change the pictures on the blog this week. It just wasn't OK to start Lent with Advent shots up. We took a round of great pictures on Tuesday. My very creative and thoughtful son, Bear then decided that it would be best to use Ash Wednesday pictures. I agreed. The first thing we did when we got home from Mass that morning was to grab the camera and try to get some shots. The kiddos realized that they had rubbed most of the evidence off on the way home from the church. What should any respectable homeschooling Catholic family do? Well this family should run around and gather up all the blessed palms that were hanging out around the house from last year and burn them. That is how the church does it, right?
It might have taken time away from our official school day studies but we did learn a few things. Those palms are not easy to burn. They smell nasty as they burn, so go outside. You can hide them from the wind putting them into the BBQ pit and closing the lid. The big surprise to us what that you really need a lot of palms to get a substantial amount of ashes. That being said some of our Ash Wednesday shots to the right are a tab staged (SSShhhhh!). One of them was even added today when we realized that none of the shots of one child turned out from yesterday. The artistic angle of having those pictures with ashes is cool and we did learn quite a bit. 
One important questions that Pickle had after dressing like a priest from our junior Mass kit was one that we hope our friend Fr. Tom Keller can answer. How does the priest keep their clothes (the vestments) so white when they do this? Ours didn't do to well!
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