The 2014 Saints Calendar & 16-Month Planner
The new 2014 Saints Calendar & 16-Month Planner begins September 1st of this year, so be sure to pre-order a copy soon!
The ever-popular 2014 Saints Calendar and Daily Planner is a 16 month calendar ready to use in September. Our spiral-bound design allows plenty of space for daily appointments in a lay-flat format.
This Calendar has become a favorite for home or office with professionals, students, and busy homeschool families.
TAN calendars contain special feasts and fascinating Catholic traditions. They are marked with days of Fasting, special Saints Days, and the Sundays of the Liturgical Year for both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Calendar.
You can see sample pages from my 2013 Saints Calendar here.
The beautiful wall calendars published by Tan for 2014 will include: The Life of Our Lord, Mary and the Saints and The Angels.
The planner and calendars are available to pre-order from Amazon or directly from Tan.
Tidepooling
Another Trip to the Ocean
After Mass on Sunday our family went on another road trip to the coast to meet up (once again) with our dear friends who moved to the midwest a couple years ago! It has been a rainy couple weeks, and it was chilly and misty when we arrived at the beach. All the kids were so excited to be back at the ocean and I was very thankful to breathe the salty sea air as I continue to fight this summer cold. 😉
After unpacking the car and saying hello to all our friends, Sean and the boys started a campfire on the beach with some of the wood they had squeezed into the back of our overcrowded minivan. It was raining but we were determined to roast hot dogs and marshmallows!
{pretty, happy, funny, real}
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| Colds & Flu and Overtired & Cranky – I was mixing them all last Saturday night… |
I think I am ready for a break!
If Only
Perhaps I would have lived across
And then perhaps when we had worked
These pictures were taken last Friday afternoon. Our sweet little Bud has been giving Mother Mary kisses and hugs each time he passes her statue next to our front door. ♥ If you could offer a little prayer for Bud it would be greatly appreciated. He keeps falling/hurting himself and ended up needing three stitches last night after splitting his chin. It was definitely a traumatic expierence for my poor baby…
Hi-Yo Silver! A Lone Ranger Birthday Party
Last Friday our little Snuggles turned 6 years old and we celebrated with a Lone Ranger themed birthday party. The birthday boy loved every moment of his special day! (Birthday Picture here.)
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| His answer to “How old are you today?” |
On the counter next to his cake, he also found some Lone Ranger themed accessories when he woke up in the morning! I found the Kids Black Hand Tooled Leather Double Holster, Big Tex Pistol, Black Hero Mask and Solid Red Bandanna online. As for the White Cowboy Hat, I searched everywhere the night before his birthday, while out purchasing a few supplies for the cake, without any luck. In the end I went with a light pink foam hat from Michaels and a can of white spray paint. 😉
I had filled a basket with candy bars that I thought tied in nicely to our theme to use as prizes including Rocky Road, CupoGold, PayDay, 100GRAND, and SKOR bars!
I had also picked up some Hershey’s (Gold) Nuggets to bag up as party favors for each of the children.
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| Playing “Peek-a-Boo” with Daddy while his brother opened gifts |
I just love celebrating our children’s birthdays!
A Lone Ranger Campfire Cake
This year Snuggles (who desperately needs a new blog nickname – perhaps Cowboy or Ranger?) requested a “Lone Ranger” themed birthday party for his 6th Birthday! I had all sorts of plans and had hoped to decorate a two-tiered mountain cake (similar to my Camping Cake) complete with a homemade candy horse for Silver (I even bought the mold)… Then, between camping last week, golf camp this week, and coming down with another bad cold, I had to simplify.
Thursday afternoon I was searching online for ideas and considered trying to make a Gold Mine themed cake (which probably would have been just as difficult as my first idea) and considered just going to the bakery when I ran across lots of variations of Pillsbury’s Campfire Cake and decided it would be perfect! After dinner on Thursday night I ran to town for the supplies and to search for a white cowboy hat… Even though it was definitely one of the easiest birthday cakes I’ve made, I didn’t get started on it until after 11pm. I was roasting scorching marshmallows over my kitchen stove around 2am, and didn’t get to bed until about 3, but it was totally worth it just to see the birthday boy’s smiles in the morning!
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| The Lone Ranger (Little Golden Book from 1956) was just re-published last month! |
Supplies:
- 2 – 9″ Round Cakes
- 1 16-oz can Betty Crocker Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Frosting
- 1 bag of Marshmallows (approx. 24 – optional)
- 6-7 Chocolate Fudge Crème Filled Pirouettes, cut in half
- 5 individually wrapped red cinnamon hard candy disks, unwrapped
- 5 individually wrapped yellow butterscotch hard candy disks, unwrapped
- Baking Spray
- Aluminum Foil
Directions:
Prepare and bake cakes according to directions. Cool.
Meanwhile, line 15x10x1 inch baking pan with foil. Spray with non-stick baking spray. Place red and yellow candies in a plastic bag. Finely crush the candies with the flat side of a meat mallet or hammer. Sprinkle the crushed candies onto the sprayed foil-lined pan in a thin layer. Bake at 350˚ for 6 to 8 minutes or until candies are completely melted. Cool the melted candy completely before handling.
Cover a cake platter or large round plate with foil. Place 1 cake layer bottom side up on the platter and spread with 1/2 cup frosting. Top with the second cake layer, bottom side down. Spread a very thin layer of frosting on the top and sides of the cake to seal crumbs. (Opt: place in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes. This make spreading the final coat of frosting so much easier.) Spread remaining frosting evenly over the sides and top of the cake.
Arrange Piroettes in a circle on the top of the cake to resemble campfire logs. Break the cooled sheet of melted red and yellow candies into pointed shards. Insert the candy pieces into the top center of the cake and around the “logs” to resemble flames.
Roast Marshmallows over a flame and arrange around the base of the cake.
Preparation time: Approximately 50 minutes. Ready in 2-3 hours.
Makes 12 Servings.
On the First Day of Summer…
Our little 6 year old was so excited to wake up and discover his cake and other gifts early this morning before leaving for the final day of Golf Camp and their tournament. The older boys had a 7:30 tee time and the other three teed off at 8:30. Now that the Rose and Bud are awake we are going to head to the golf course to watch the last few holes and the award ceremony, before heading back home for a “Lone Ranger” themed party! I hope you all have a lovely first day of summer! St. Aloysius, patron of Catholic youth, pray for us!
{pretty, happy, funny, real}
We actually didn’t plan to go to camp this year… It was a last minute decision after a generous scholarship was offered to our family at the last minute! The kids were all so excited, but it left me scrambling last week, trying to squeeze in the car repairs on top of packing, grocery shopping for camp, rescheduling some prior appointments, and trying to find new shoes for some of the kids. I was in town until about 10:30 on Wednesday night, and then had a conference (Teaching Writing with Structure and Style!) I was scheduled to attend starting at 8am Thursday morning. Camp started Thursday night and I thought I could try and go to at least the first day of the conference. I made it until noon and then headed home to finish packing. (I was definitely sad that I missed the rest of the conference, but I do own it on DVD so hopefully I can finish it this summer.) It was a good thing too, after seeing some of what had been (or had not been!) packed. Since we had to take two cars anyways I decided to stay home with the two little ones and head to camp the next morning. Oh, it was heavenly! Rose and Bud both fell asleep by 7pm and slept until 8:30am!!! They also napped most of the drive to camp! Of course I can’t say the same for that first night camping, but at least I had gotten some sleep the night before! 😉
I do hope to post some of the pictures from camp, and then get back to all the other posts that have been piling up in my draft folder as well as all the emails in my inbox, but we have golf camp every day this week, tomorrow is the kid’s Golf Tournament and Snuggles’ 6th birthday, then we have plans to meet up with friends at the coast this weekend! The two little ones and I both came down with fevers last night, so please say a prayer that whatever this is passes quickly… We don’t have time to be sick at the moment! I really miss visiting with you all and hope to get back to blogging soon.
End-of-School Interviews for 2012-2013
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