50% OFF all Little Flowers Books, and More!
Ecce Homo Press is having a sale to celebrate the beatification of Pope John Paul II!! ALL the books on can be purchased at 50% OFF!!!
All you have to do is enter the coupon code: JP2WELUVU
(expires at midnight eastern May 1, 2011)
I used this opportunity to order some more Little Flowers Girls Club Materials for my girls club (including the Art & Activity books that come with copyright permission and CD’s!!!), Blue Knights Materials for my boys, the Little Woman Hospitality Program (which sounds wonderful), as well as a few Saint Books including The Iron Spy and The Search for the Madonna (at only $3.97 each, how could I pass them up?!?). Anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know, in case you aren’t on their mailing list.
Thank you, Joan, for offering this amazing sale!!
P.S. While I am at it, Adoremus Books is also offering 20% off EVERYTHING on their site until May 2nd, using coupon code EASTER11. My husband better hide my credit cards! 😉
A Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea
This morning, inspired by a friend – who I have yet to meet, even though she met two more of my sisters today! – I turned on the rebroadcast of the Royal Wedding, and started preparing an “afternoon tea” of Crown
A Cross Stitch Easter Egg
When I was a child, one of my favorite things to do (besides read) was cross stitch. My Grandmother (my mom’s mom, who passed away last August) had given me all of her old floss and helped me set up a craft box to store it in (pictured above). She would also give me advice and tips as I was learning.
At the beginning of April I decided to pull out all of my old supplies and try and teach my oldest daughter. It was so much fun! With Easter coming up, I decided to show her how to make a cross stitch Easter Egg, like the ones I would make years ago. In fact, when I was in 4-H I actually gave a demonstration on making these little eggs!
First we decided to use a simple pattern from about.com, and then she choose the various colors of floss that she wanted to use… She did such a great job coordinating them, and then picked right up on the actual cross stitching.
First she started with yellow, for the borders.
Then, after adding some pink beads, she cross stitched a brown cross and gray tomb. Chiquita loved watching and wanted to know when it would be her turn to learn!
Next she added a bit of green…
… finishing it up with the words “He is Risen” in gold.
As soon as she was finished, her and I made a special trip to the store to pick out some coordinating fabric, ribbon, and lace to finish up the Easter Egg!
We already had the styrofoam egg and straight pins.
To assemble the egg, first you pin the completed cross-stitch onto the front half of the stryofoam egg, trimming off any excess fabric.
Repeat with a coordinating fabric for the back of the egg.
I helped her with the final step of wrapping the sides (to cover the pins) with lace and ribbon, adding a bow and a little rose to the top.
Didn’t she do such a great job?!?
On Easter Morning she decided to display her egg at the base of our Easter Lily and helped decorate a cake to match!
Teatime
Celebrating Candlemas (2011)
A Lenten Tea on Good Friday (2010)
A Lenten Tea on Good Friday (2009)
A Joyous Easter Tea (2009)
The Good Shepherd’s Garden Parties can be found here.
A Jesse Tea for Advent (2009)
{pretty, happy, funny, real}
Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.
{pretty}
Our Paschal Candle placed inside our former Crown of Thorns.
Thank you Charlotte, for the suggestion of picking up the tiny flowers from the wedding section at Michaels! They worked perfectly and looked so pretty!!
{happy}
It has been over 7 years since all 12 of us have been together at the same time, but I was happy to spend Easter with six of my siblings, including these three brothers – David, Paul, and Scott!
{funny}
Hearing Chiquita’s reaction while making cookies on Holy Saturday:
“Aw, man! There is candy on my finger and I can’t even lick it because it is STILL LENT!!”
{real}
“Oh no… There is more on my dinner plate than just a plain white dinner roll…”
Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment!
Hunting for Eggs!
The Easter Story with Playmobil ~ 2011 Edition!
In addition to our family traditions, my older boys started a tradition of their own a couple years ago! The first year it started with them reenacting The Way of the Cross with their Playmobil Toys. Last year I was delighted to find their toys set up for Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday! This year I found their toys set up on Palm Sunday (don’t you just love all the little palms they cut out of paper!), Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. It looks like they used their Nativity Set
~ Palm Sunday ~
The Entry into Jerusalem
~ Holy Thursday ~
The Agony in the Garden
~ Good Friday ~
The Way of the Cross
~ Easter Sunday ~
He is Risen!! Alleluia!
It’s Back in Stock!!
I just wanted to let you all know that Amazon currently has several of Tomie dePaola’s The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter
Also, you can still enter my drawing for a free copy until tomorrow evening.
Happy Easter!
On Easter Morning
Don’t you just love Easter morning? Despite forcing myself to go to bed at midnight (leaving a number of things unfinished) and setting my oven timer for six hours, so I would be forced to get up in the morning to defrost the dinner rolls and start the ham for our Easter Dinner before getting ready to attend the 9AM Easter Sunday Mass, everything came together beautifully!
Filled Easter Baskets and our completed Last Supper Puzzle
. The children loved all the treats and goodies that they found in their baskets, as well as the Easter Symbol Candies!
. The children loved all the treats and goodies that they found in their baskets, as well as the Easter Symbol Candies! 
I also ended up finding a darling Spring/Lamb Themed Fabric Book to add to Rose’s basket called Sunny Day Come and Play
!
!
We had such a hard time getting Rose to smile, I think it was still too early for our little night owl, and she kept making the funniest little faces!
The toy that we ended up choosing for Snuggles was Bullseye
. We had been promising him one for once he was completely potty-trained day and night, and then we couldn’t find one locally when I took him shopping a couple weeks ago. He was so excited! (And I am excited to only have one in diapers at the moment!)
. We had been promising him one for once he was completely potty-trained day and night, and then we couldn’t find one locally when I took him shopping a couple weeks ago. He was so excited! (And I am excited to only have one in diapers at the moment!)
There wasn’t anything Catholic or Symbolic about the ring pops and new sunglasses either, but they definitely were a fun addition to the girls baskets! They also loved their new watercolors – I found these great Schylling Watercolor sets
for the girls and Melissa and Doug Take-along Watercolor Sets for the boys!
for the girls and Melissa and Doug Take-along Watercolor Sets for the boys!
The boys loved everything in their baskets too. Captain’s favorite item was the stick of beef jerky and he wondered why it would have been placed hiding in the back! As for a toy, I ended up just picking out a couple small Lego sets and two grab bag minifigures, which both ended up being Samurais – perfect for my new little fencers!
We were also all surprised with lovely gifts from Catholic Embroidery including embroidered bookmarks, handkerchiefs, and even a beautiful AMDG Key Fob for me! Thank you Mary!!
The past couple years, in addition to our children’s Easter Baskets, there was a basket for the whole family! Last year that basket included items for the Garden Parties that we were planning on having, and this year (though unplanned) it ended up focusing on the various Easter Symbols!
Since we have been enjoying puzzles so much this past year, I had ordered a Good Shepherd Puzzle
for the Easter Season! I also included a Ukrainian Egg Decorating Kit
, Egg Shaped Flower Truffles, Lindt Chocolate Lambs
, an adorable Peacock
(sent from a dear friend), a Butterfly clip, a beautiful small statue of the Good Shepherd and a Good Shepherd Holy Card (both from our local Catholic Book Store) – placing the basket next to this year’s Easter Lilies! (I had ordered a couple
other things months ago, including a beautiful cross, from House of Fontanini, but they have yet to arrive. . .)
for the Easter Season! I also included a Ukrainian Egg Decorating Kit, Egg Shaped Flower Truffles, Lindt Chocolate Lambs, an adorable Peacock (sent from a dear friend), a Butterfly clip, a beautiful small statue of the Good Shepherd and a Good Shepherd Holy Card (both from our local Catholic Book Store) – placing the basket next to this year’s Easter Lilies! (I had ordered a couple other things months ago, including a beautiful cross, from House of Fontanini, but they have yet to arrive. . .) I was also so excited about the great little Easter Symbols Booklet that Charlotte made to go with the Easter Symbol Chocolates. I originally thought I would put one booklet in each of the children’s baskets, but I ended up running out of time to stitch them all together, so I just made one. I think I will save the other 9 copies I printed out for next year! 😉
Happy Easter!
Making Chocolate Nests for Easter
On Holy Saturday the girls really enjoyed making Chocolate Nests, like they had done last year.
Easter was SO close, and the excitement was building quickly!
Uh oh! “Don’t touch!! It’s not Easter yet!”
Oooh! Snuggles snuck a stray Chow Mein noodle. . .
… and was a little too happy to “Hold the Spoon” for a minute!
Just look at him licking his little lips, while looking at that spoon covered in chocolate! Way too tempting… The torture!
The girls had so much fun working in the kitchen…
… and they didn’t mind having a “helper!”
After we finished making the Chocolate Nests, we went on to make a new variation of Bird’s Nest Cookies. I posted the recipe, and even more pictures, over at Catholic Cuisine!
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