Visiting the Airport
The first stop was a visit to one of the helicopter hangers. The pilots told the children all about helicopters, answered questions, and were even kind enough to let the children climb inside!
Next we visited another hanger, where a kind older gentleman showed the children some planes he has built, or is in the process of building, as well as the tools he uses, among other things. He too answered lots of questions and let the children hop into the pilot seat of one of his neat little airplanes. (I can’t remember the name of it, and the boys are sleeping!)
My boys were in heaven!
Nevertheless, it was an awesome field trip and everyone had a great time!
Our Little Flowers Girls’ Club
As many of you know, I’ve really been enjoying leading a “Little Flowers” group for my daughters and a number of other girls. I opened my group to girls ages 5-8, though I do have a couple girls that are 9, and a couple that are almost 4 (that way I could include my youngest daughter).
Over the past few months I have been receiving quite a few emails asking for more information (how I lead my group of girls, the notebook pages we are making at our meetings, and tips on which supplies to order, etc…). I thought I would try to answer the questions in one post, as well as link our past meetings for reference, and then add it to the new tab list at the top of my blog. I will continue to update the links as I add new posts after our upcoming meetings.
I just want to remind you all that I am a brand new Little Flowers leader myself, and by NO MEANS an expert on how to lead a group. ☺ What you will find here is my imperfect attempt to make the group a fun filled learning experience for my own girls, in which, by the grace of God, they can learn more about our faith and grow in virtue. That said, I am more than happy to share our meetings with you all, after they take place, and when time permits. ☺
Resources I Use:
- Behold Publications, LLC
- The Little Flowers Girls’ Club Blog
- Charlotte’s Coloring Pages
- Fenestrae Fidei: A Coloring Companion for Catholic Mosaic
- Catholic Cuisine (occasional snack ideas)
- Chat With God’s Little Ones
(I’ve found this book very helpful in planning lessons for the younger girls.)
- Glory Stories – CD’s
Our Group’s Supplies:
To keep the costs to a minimum, I purchased all of our supplies from Sacred Heart Books and Gifts (update: retired). Not only do they offer a wonderful discount, they offer free shipping on orders of $25.00. For myself I ordered the Craft Companion (which I have used minimally), the Wreath One Leader’s Guide, and the Tea and Luncheon Guide. I also ordered the Memory Cards and the Little Flowers Virtues CD as well, both of which I highly recommend each mother to purchase for her girls too! They are great!
In addition to our annual dues, which coverer the group/leader supplies and all the craft materials for the year, each girl was required to purchase a Member’s Guide, a Sash, and a Wreath 1 Badge. Next year I am planning on having the girls also purchase the Art and Activity Book for Wreath’s 1 and 2. I am sure this would vary greatly for each group depending on the number of girls that you have participating and the types of craft projects you decide to make.
Finding a Location:
Though my home would be convenient for me (when it is clean!), it is not for most of the other families, due to distance. Ideally I would love to hold our meetings in my local parish hall, but I wasn’t able to get approval from the pastor. (We will be getting a new pastor in the summer, so maybe that will change for next year!) In the meantime, the owner of the local Catholic Bookstore agreed to let us use her backroom, which has been working out wonderfully. I also looked into using a meeting room at the Library, which could have worked out as well. Our group only meets once per month, but next year I would like to change it to twice per month: one meeting for the lesson and notebook page; another for a review, craft, and playtime.
Update: Our monthly meetings are now held at my home, which has been working out wonderfully!
Snacks and Assignments:
For our group, I have assigned each family a month in which they are to provide the snacks and the drinks. (The extra month was divided up between the moms that have more than one daughter attending.) I’ve asked each mother to try and follow the theme for the month, if possible. So far they have all been more than willing to cooperate, and the snacks have been so much fun!
Update: For Wreaths III & IV I have provided the snacks (cupcakes and drinks) for each meeting, adding the supply cost to our yearly dues.
I decided to have my group create Notebook Pages at each meeting based on the Saint, Virtue, and Memory Verse. If you would like to do the same, the documents I created can be downloaded here, or directly from any of the posts below. (NOTE: These can be downloaded for your personal/group use, but please do not repost these pages, or any of the pictures from this blog. Thank you!)
- St. Catherine of Siena ~ Faith ~ Sunflower
- St. Monica ~ Hope ~ Ivy
- St. Agnes ~ Love of God ~ Peony
- St. Jane Frances de Chantal ~ Love of Neighbor ~ Rose
- St. Joan of Arc ~ Obedience ~ Carnation
- St. Cecilia ~ Piety ~ Forget-Me-Not
- St. Catherine Laboure ~ Humility ~ Violet
- St. Francis Xavier Cabrini ~ Industry ~ Daffodil
- St. Bridget of Sweden ~ Truthfulness ~ Narcissus
- The Decorations
- Attendees
- A Game of Croquet
- The Menu
- Games: Setting the Table for Tea; The Tea Tray Memory Game; She Loves It, She Loves It Not
- St. Faustina ~ Mercy ~ Lily
- Blessed Margaret Pole ~ Courage ~ Yucca
- St. Clare of Assisi ~ Joy/Mirthfulness ~ Tulip
- St. Katharine Drexel ~ Generosity ~ Daisy
- St. Angela Merici ~ Prudence ~ African Violet
- St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein) ~ Wisdom ~ Iris
- Bl. Mary of the Incarnation ~ Justice ~ Aster
- St. Lucy ~ Loyalty ~ Poppy
- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton ~ Perseverance ~ Lotus
- Mary & Martha ~ Eutrapelia ~ Dandelion
- Ruth & Naomi ~ Friendliness ~ Morning Glory
- St. Margaret of Scotland ~ Initiative ~ Black Eyed Susan
- St. Zita or Proverbs 31 Woman ~ Orderliness ~ Cranberry
- St. Felicity and Her Seven Sons ~ Self-Control ~ Amaryllis
- St. Anne, Mother of the Blessed Mother ~ Responsibility ~ Mum
- St. Bathildis ~ Patience ~ Lily of the Valley
- Mary Mother of God ~ Cheerfulness ~ Blue Phlox
- St. Julie Billiart ~ Fortitude ~ Hyacinth
- Wreath IV Notebook Pages and Additional Resources
- Little Flowers Girls’ Club Wreath IV Lap Book
- Craft Plans and Ideas for Little Flowers Wreath IV
- Saintly Symbols :: Cupcakes for Wreath IV
- Wisdom ~ St. Teresa of Avila ~ Jasper
- Understanding ~ St. Catherine of Alexandria ~ Emerald
- Knowledge ~ St. Gertrude ~ Topaz
- Counsel ~ St. Catherine of Sienna ~ Aquamarine
- Fortitude ~ St. Joan of Arc ~ Opal
- Piety ~ St. Therese of Lisieux ~ Amethyst
- Fear of the Lord ~ St. Maria Goretti ~ Sapphire
Little Flowers Tea Party 2013:
- Little Flowers Girls’ Club Tea Party Games (round up post from past years)
- Little Flowers “Maypole” Tea Party Favors and Prizes
- Beginning with Bocce Ball {and a few Group Photos!}
- The Game of Graces
- The Maypole and our Beautiful Catholic Faith
- Indoor Tea Party Games
- Our Annual Little Flowers Mother-Daughter Tea Party – 2013
Little Flowers Girls’ and Blue Knights Boys’ Clubs
(Link-Ups for all those participating in our “Online” groups and any other groups that would like to share pictures from their meetings)
- Shower of Roses Online Little Flowers Girls’ Club
- Little Flowers and Blue Knights Registration Forms & Link-up Schedule
*Please do not repost my pictures. You are, of course, welcome to link directly to any of my posts, and print out the images of my notebook pages for reference. Thank you!
My Little Buckaroo…
Little Flowers Girls’ Club ~ The Virtue of Piety
It has been awhile since I’ve posted for Little Flowers… That is because it has been awhile since we’ve been able to have a meeting!! Our February meeting had to be canceled since I was sick, then I had to cancel the meeting that was scheduled for last Thursday since we were heading out of town that day for my Grandpa’s funeral… Finally my schedule is starting to calm down a little bit, and we were able to meet last night!
The themes for this meeting were: St. Cecilia, the virtue of Piety, and the Forget-Me-Not. Here is an overview from our meeting:
As the girls arrived, they colored a beautiful picture of St. Cecilia (pdf) from Catholic Heritage Curricula.
Once all the girls arrived we began our meeting with the prayer to St. Therese and the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love. We then continued with a review of the virtue and saint we learned about at our last meeting. Our bead jar is taking awhile to fill up, since I’ve had to cancel so many meetings lately… So, to make up for that, the girls all got to choose a couple Coloring and/or Father Lovasik books as rewards for working so hard! =)
Then I introduced the next virtue we will be working on, Piety, and we read a short biography of the saint for this month, St. Cecilia.
After telling the girls the definition of Piety, I used Father Lasance’s “Colors of Piety” (from the Wreath One Leader’s Guide) to further explain this virtue to girls:
Rosy Red: Zeal in hearing Mass
Scarlet Orange: Works of Charity
Bright Gold: Practice of Frequently Raising the Heart to God
Verdant Green: Sanctification of Sunday
Celestial Blue: Fervor in Prayer (daily prayers)
Violet: Self-Denial (make sacrifices and learn to be obedient)White: Pious actions (the Rosary, the Scapular, and Eucharistic Adoration)
To make it a little easier, I printed out a rainbow image (including the seven “Colors of Piety” made with Photoshop) for each girl to color as they listened to the explanations. Then they could then add the Rainbow and list to their notebooks!
Following the lesson the girls began making their notebook pages. Last month one of the moms lent me her Cricut
Here is my sample page for the girls. I included the memory verse and for Piety, a quote from the book of Job, and the prayer to St. Cecilia. It was pretty simple, but turned out cute!
Snack time was next. The poor mom that had snacks this month had a little accident on her way out the door and all the Forget-me-Not cupcakes which sounded so adorable (and were made in Ice-Cream Cones) did not make it to the meeting… Nevertheless, she still found away to quickly decorate some from Safeway! (Which is much more than I would have done at that point!!) The girls all loved them!
There are so many directions you could go with the snacks for this meeting. You could tie in music notes for St. Cecilia, Forget-me-Not flowers, and then there are all the different things you can make with “rainbows.” Wouldn’t Fruit Kabobs in the “Colors of Piety” be fun?! (The ice-cream cone cupcakes that were intended for this meeting reminded me of the Flower Pot Cupcakes we made awhile back… They would be fun for the girls to make sometime!!)
Anyhow, after we finish our meetings, the girls *always* love playing Memory with the Little Flower Memory Cards. This month, since we tied in the Rainbow with the Colors of Piety, I also brought along Noah’s Rainbow Race, which is a fun game for younger children too.
I had wanted to play the St. Cecilia Glory Story CD for the girls, but we just didn’t have time. In fact, I even forgot to take a group picture!!! Can you believe it?? As it was, we didn’t all leave until almost 9:30pm, but the girls were having such a great time we hated to end the night! So many of them were shy at first, but they are starting to warm up to one another. I can’t wait till our next meeting… Actually, we won’t have to wait long since I scheduled for next week. Gotta catch up! 😉
Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!
A Trip to the Park
Today we took a short day-trip to visit one of my dear friends, Juliana. She and I have been friends since I was a teenager. Back then, I use to make the 3 hour drive to the coast to visit her ALL THE TIME, especially in the summer! Now that we are both married with children, we aren’t able to get together near as much, but we still try to once or twice a year. We have been talking about meeting half way (at a park) for months, but the weather and our schedules were not cooperating. We finally were able to make it work. It made for a busy day, since I also had Little Flowers this evening, but it was SO worth it!! It was great to be able to visit with Juliana, and our children had so much fun playing together.
(Can you tell that my boys *love* their new little league hats!?!)
Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can get together again!!
Well, time to get some sleep… Tomorrow is going to be another busy day including a field trip to the airport followed by baseball practice for the boys. I’m am really looking forward to the weekend, when (hopefully) I can start to catch up with everything that hasn’t been getting done this week… Goodnight, God bless!
Love’s Delay
The Lord is waiting to show you His favor. He yearns to have pity on you, and happy are all who wait on Him.
As you all know, I have a special devotion to our dear St. Therese. I pray for her intercession often, but only a few times have I asked for a particular favor through a novena. Each time she has answered my novenas and sent me roses.
This past September I prayed another novena to St. Therese leading up to her feast day. I was asking God to grant me a healthy baby and a safe delivery for our little one that was due to be born around June 13th of this year. I finished the novena, but I never did receive a rose. The only roses I saw were those that others told me they had received and those pictured here on my blog, which don’t count, right? Where was my rose??
Shortly after, I stopped “looking” for roses and ended up forgetting about that particular novena I had prayed. One month later I found out that our little one had died. I lost our little Gabriel on November 24th, the very same day that I lost my first baby (he was born and baptized on the 24th and went to heaven on the 25th), and at the very same hospital, which I have avoided over the years as much as possible.
I don’t believe in coincidences and knew, as hard as it was at the time, that God must have had His reasons. He did! I have already noticed so many blessings that have come from our little Gabriel’s short life. I won’t share them all here on my blog since they are so personal, but I do want to share a little story about that “forgotten” novena.
Last week, when I was packing for the drive to California for my Grandfather’s funeral, I grabbed a few books to read on the way. One of the books I brought along was Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s St. Therese – A Treasured Love Story
I wish I could share the whole chapter with you! Fulton Sheen talks about how love is not immediate, and that Scripture often tells us to “wait on the Lord.”
But to keep to the point. Here all through Scripture is the delay of love. If you start with great success you may be like a skyrocket. Go up with a lot of fire and noise and come down like a stick. Some of the hardest and cruelest words in Scripture are, “You have already had your reward.” You wanted something? You got it. That’s all you’ll ever have. So the Lord sometimes does not give us all that we want. But even when we so not receive it, we can find a divine answer as she [St. Therese] did.
Fulton Sheen reminds us that “God sometimes does say no in love’s delays.” He tells us that if we are praying for certain favors to be prepared for love’s delay, but keep praying.
So, never give up on your prayer, because the petition that you seek is distinct from the prayer itself. All prayer is dependence. Prayer is love. And you will find that as you love more you will be seeking less and less material favors. Maybe God is answering your prayers without our knowing it very often. In the divine intent, the day that Pope Leo put his finger over the lips of that fourteen-and-a-half year old girl, God had already decided that she was going to enter Carmel. And I am sure that when Pope Leo went to Heaven, the one thing that he was most sorry for in his whole life was that he told that little girl to keep still. Here we are praying to the Little Flower and not to Leo XIII. What a lesson that is! I am sure a few readers have said a prayer to Leo XIII, as great as he was, and he controlled the life of the Little Flower. You see, everything changes in the mind of God.
I went on to read the following chapter as well titled St. Therese and the Power of Intercession. In this chapter Fulton Sheen mentions that there are “actually three wombs. One is the womb of nature by which we are born physically, the second is the womb of grace, and the third is the womb of eternity.”
By this point I was thinking about Gabriel, and recalled my novena, last September, to St. Therese. Even though I didn’t receive the exact results that I was intending, or receive a rose from St. Therese, God did answer my prayer. Through the conditional baptism that we were able to give Gabriel, we were blessed with a spiritually healthy baby. And what more could we, as parents, ask for our children than a safe delivery into eternity!?!
Anyhow, we arrived home from our trip Saturday night, just in time to celebrate Lætare Sunday. I didn’t have much time to post, so I quickly updated and reposted my post from last year. Lætare Sunday is also known as “Rose Sunday” so wouldn’t you know that St. Therese would choose that particular day, with my novena for Gabriel last September so fresh in my mind, to send me my rose!!!
That very day I received a comment from a fairly new visitor, who did not know that I had had a recent miscarriage:
Happy Catholic Mother’s Day! I found a really cute rose bookmark with a sweet smiling baby on it. I don’t know why I feel like you are meant to have it but I do. Since I can’t shake that feeling I would love to actually get it to you:o) (maybe it is from St. Therese or something!!) If it is not too off the wall, you can send me your po box and I’ll mail it right away. Thanks for your great blog! Praise God for you and your beautiful family.
I, in total awe of God’s grace and love, emailed her back with my address and mentioned my novena for Gabriel. I logged in yesterday to find another email from her:
I’ve seen rose after rose and never thought–gee I should send this to Jessica–but the rose and the sweet smiling baby seemed just for you. I’m sort of in disbelief that I really just contacted someone I’ve never met and with such a story. I was so certain that I should get this to you that I practically tripped over my feet today to get your special letter in the mail.
I am now anxiously awaiting the arrival of my precious rose!!!! What great faith this new online friend must have, to recognize and act on a little prompting from God, like this!! I could hardly wait for hubby to get home yesterday to tell him this story, on his birthday and the traditional FEAST OF ST. GABRIEL!!!
God is good!
Happy Birthday, To My Husband
Today was my hubby’s 36th birthday! It is also the traditional feast of St. Gabriel, and the “nameday” of our precious little one that we lost this past November. I have an amazing story to share with you about that, but it will have to wait. Right now I want to share a few (36 to be exact) of the reasons I love my husband so much.
I love being married to a man who…
- …loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength.
- …is a practicing Catholic.
- …is pro-life.
- …is open to the gift of life.
- …is such a great daddy.
- …is a hard worker.
- …does his very best to provide for us, so I can be a stay-at-home mom.
- …
insistsallows me to home educate our children. - …has beautiful eyes! He has passed them on to our children. I can’t leave home without hearing, “What beautiful eyes!” 🙂
- …is not afraid to get his hands dirty.
- …looks so cute in his fire gear. 😉
- …is a “strong silent type.” He’s the perfect balance to me, as I’m usually the talker.
- …puts up with my whining and complaining.
- …lets me stick my ice cold feet on him to warm them up.
- …is logical…although, sometimes this drives me crazy.
- …loves me without makeup.
- …I can count on.
- …is not afraid to stand up for what is right.
- …is ferociously protective of his family.
- …always puts his family first.
- …loves me unconditionally.
- …gives the best back rubs.
- …takes such good care of me when I am sick.
- …buys me flowers.
- …secretly took dance classes when we were engaged since he knew how much I loved to dance.
- …is a good listener.
- …cleans the bathrooms so I won’t have to!
- …is always willing to help me around the house.
- …drinks Guinness, of course!
- …does (most) of his laundry so I won’t get Poison Oak.
- …loves my cooking.
- …can always help me correct my grammar and spelling! 😉
- …makes me laugh.
- …is my best friend
- …I can’t imagine my life without.
- …chose me.
Easter Hope Challenge 2009
A year ago I hosted an Easter Hope Challenge, for our dear friends the Hadley’s, here at Shower of Roses. Since they are still in need of help, I have decided to host it once again this year.
The Hadley’s have three children, two of whom have now been diagnosed with Niemann-Pick type C.
Niemann-Pick type C disease is an autosomal recessive disorder affecting lipid metabolism (the breakdown and use of fats and cholesterol in the body), in a way which causes harmful amounts of lipids to accumulate in the spleen, liver, lungs, bone marrow, and brain.
This condition is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern, which means two copies of the gene must be altered for a person to be affected by the disorder. Most often, the parents of a child with an autosomal recessive disorder are not affected but are carriers of one copy of the altered gene.
Type C is characterized by onset in childhood, although infant and adult onsets are possible. Other signs include severe liver disease, breathing difficulties, developmental delay, seizures, neuro-degeneration, increased muscle tone (dystonia), lack of coordination, problems with feeding, and an inability to move the eyes vertically.
The Hadley’s have been faced with enormous medical costs. The drug (Zavesca) their children are currently on costs 9,000 per month each, and although it may allow them to “buy time” so that their “children may participate in future trials, and potential therapies,” it is not a cure. As with anyone facing such a huge financial burden, they could use our help. On their website they say:
Many people have asked how they can help. Most importantly, we ask that friend’s and family keep our children and family in their daily prayers for we firmly believe “with God, all things are possible.” There is no greater value to us than the gift of prayer, but we face the reality that funding for medication, therapies, and potential research is extremely high.
So, I would like to ask you once again to remember Peyton and Kayla Hadley in your prayers. More specifically, we will be praying a Nine Day Novena (March 25th – April 2nd) for them at the request of their parents.
For those of you that can do more, I’d also like to ask you to consider a little extra Lenten alms giving, as we prepare for Easter and participate in the
It is simple and fun… Here is what you do:
1. I have added a Paypal “Donate” button to my sidebar. All I’m asking you to do is make a donation IN ANY AMOUNT that you can spare. You can donate one dollar, two dollars, five, ten, twenty or more. You decide. The dollar amount is entirely up to you.
2. Then, come back and leave your name in the comment box of this post for a chance to win your choice of one of three great prizes–the prize is my donation to the Easter Hope Challenge. (You do not need to leave the amount of your donation in the comment.)
Want to increase you chances of winning?? While every donation receives an entry, for each $25 increment donated another egg goes in the basket for you. For example, a donation of $1-$49 receives one entry, $50-$74 equals 2 entry’s, etc. It’s all up to you!! You can decide how much you want to donate, and if you win–you choose your prize!!
Last Easter we were able to give the Hadley’s $3250!! Every little donation adds up, and it would be so nice to be able to do the same for them this Easter as well!!
The contest will be open for 2 weeks, and as the days go by, I will write the names that appear in the comment box on little pieces of paper and place them inside plastic Easter eggs. On Wednesday, April 8th, Chiquita will choose an egg from the basket, and reveal the winner. There will be ONE winner and that winner will choose ONE of the three great prize options above.
If you would like to participate but would rather not use paypal, email me (my address is listed in my profile) and I will be in touch.
All funds donated will be given to the Hadley’s in the form of a check to be deposited to the Hadley Hope Fund at Liberty Bank. Hadley Hope Fund is a Federal 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization. Donations will be used for medical expenses and to accelerate ethical scientific research for a cure for all afflicted with Niemann-Pick Type C Disease.
So, what are you waiting for? Help us spread a little EASTER Hope!
Praying for the Hadley’s
Will you all please join me in praying a Nine Day Novena for the healing of Peyton and Kayla Hadley, at the request of their mother, my dear friend Laura. The novena will begin on March 25th and continue through April 2nd.
Please help us get the word out by posting this prayer request on your own blogs and/or emailing it to your friends and family… Let us beg heaven for a miracle for these two precious children!
A Resurrection Set for Easter
A few months ago I received an email from an online friend letting me know about a lovely Resurrection Set that was available at Autom. The set is made from resin and includes a figure of Christ, 6 witnesses, and the tomb. I really wanted to order it, but I just couldn’t justify spending $41.94 (including shipping) for something we didn’t really need…
Well, last week, a friend of mine was over visiting and I mentioned it to her. She had been thinking about purchasing a Resurrection Set that she had seen in the Oriental Trading catalog for less, and when we checked online it was the very same one I had been looking at, AND the price had dropped even more! We combined our orders to get free shipping and only had to spend $17.49 each!!
Anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know, in case you wanted to purchase one for your families. I think it will make a lovely addition to our Easter decorations this year!
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