On St. Valentine’s Day
Right now, my girls are coloring Charlotte’s lovely picture, the boys are playing “Lord of the Rings” Risk, Snuggles is playing with his “toys,” hubby hasn’t been feeling well and is in bed (but still found a way to surprise me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers), and I am recovering from a super busy week and still blushing after seeing Elizabeth’s post last night! My girls have been asking all morning if they can wear their “sprinkle” dresses and go play with Karoline! =)
Yesterday we had so much fun getting together with a few friends… I took a bunch of photos and will try to post some soon. However, right now I need to go and bake a birthday cake for my sweet little brother Scott, who was our Valentine gift 19 years ago today! Happy birthday Scotty! While I am out delivering it to him, I think I will pick up a couple heart shaped pizzas (and maybe some chicken soup) and a movie for tonight (any suggestions?).
What are your plans? Whatever you are up to, I hope you have a very blessed St. Valentine’s Day!
Most Gracious Heavenly Father, You gave Saint Valentine the courage to witness to the gospel of Christ, even to the point of giving his life for it. Help us to endure all suffering for love of you, and to seek you with all our hearts; for you alone are the source of life and love. Grant that we may have the courage and love to be strong witnesses of your truth to our friends and family and to the whole world. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Valentine’s Day Treats
I recently ran across a yummy suggestion for making Candy Coated Oreos for Valentine’s Day. Oreos are one of my hubby’s favorite cookies, so we decided to give it a try.
First we gathered all our supplies. While we were at it, we decided to candy coat some marshmallows and pretzels as well.
We never did use the M&M’s, but after seeing Elizabeth’s post, I was wishing we had! They match the girls dresses perfectly! I loved seeing that our families were doing very similar things, on opposite sides of the country! If only we lived closer… Next, we melted about half of our white Almond Bark in the microwave. The girls mixed it to make sure it was smooth.
Each Oreo was dipped in the melted almond bark and laid on a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper, to cool.
After that, we added a little red heart, or sprinkles, to each cookie.
The boys choose to dip the pretzels and marshmallows in brown almond bark and add sprinkles.
The girls didn’t want to stop with the cookies, so they helped with the pretzels too!
I hope you all have a lovely St. Valentine’s day tomorrow!
In Honor of Our Lady of Lourdes
Yesterday morning we woke up to lots of snow, as well as a delayed start for the public schools in our town. This prevented us from being able to make it to Mass and I was pretty sure that we were going to have to cancel some of our plans… It all melted off pretty quickly though, so we were still able to have a couple families over to help us celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
To prepare for the feast, I had painted an Our Lady of Lourdes Wooden Saint to add to our collection.
I painted her on Sunday after a nice big Espresso.My hands weren’t very steady and it shows…
Before our guests arrived, my children and I built a Grotto out of Fruity Pebbles for Our Lady which was SO MUCH fun!! Last night, my friend Mary, suggested that Cocoa Pebbles would also be great since they are brown in color! Why didn’t I think of that?! Next year!!
I also planned on baking Blueberry Muffins, but I ran out of time, so I quickly whipped up a box of white cupcakes and threw in the blueberry’s. I was disappointed since I had hoped to try out a few of the suggestions in the comments over at Catholic Cuisine, but they tasted fine, or so I was told!
Once everyone arrived, our children all watched Bernadette – The Princess of Lourdes
Using Charlotte’s post as a guide, the children made Marian Grotto’s.
Twinkle Toes shares her finished Grotto!
Here are the ones my children made…
Don’t they look beautiful lined up on our mantel?!
After our company left, it was time to make dinner. We had Blueberry Pancakes, followed by blue berry jello “The Spring at the Grotto” for dessert.
Now, to start thinking about St. Valentine’s Day… I don’t know if I’ll have a chance, but Barbara posted a whole bunch of ideas!
Our Lady of Lourdes ~ Pray for us!
WoW ~ Week 5
With all my inactivity and poor meal planning, I wasn’t surprised to see that I was up a pound this week, as well as 1/2″ in my measurements. I am just happy that it hasn’t been more!!
On a positive note, I went back to Old Navy to get a smaller size in a skirt I bought in December. I love it, but it had gotten way too loose! I was able to go 2 sizes smaller!! Yay!!! Those 4 1/2 pounds have made a big difference!
My Summary:
- Week Four Weight Loss/Gain: + 1
- Inches Loss/Gain: +.5 inches
- Overall Results: -4.5 pounds and -6.5 inches
Goals for this week:
Track my exercise, shooting for 30 minutes a day on average, and make a meal plan for this coming week!
To see everyone’s stats, or report your own, head on over to Regina’s!
A Grotto for Our Lady
A few friends will be arriving shortly to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and I still need to bake some muffins… But, I just had to jump online real quick and post a picture of our Fruity Pebbles Grotto with you all! Didn’t it turn out cute?! We had so much fun putting it together!
Outside my window…
A Bowling Birthday Party
Saturday was Rascal’s golden birthday! For this special birthday we decided to give him a Bowling Party and let him invite his friends.
We were not able to find any bowling themed invitations locally, and since I am such a procrastinator! never did order any, I decided to make our own. I kept them simple, using only supplies I had on hand: leftover card stock from last month’s Little Flowers, white card stock, and a bit of ribbon cut in half (left over from our St. Nicholas Hot Cocoa!). I downloaded a Bowling Pin pdf which I re-sized in Photoshop and added Your Invited! at the top of the pin, and “Rascal’s” 7th Birthday! on the bottom. Then I glued on a piece of red and white ribbon for the lines on the pin. I also downloaded a bowling ball, reduced the size, erased the finger holes and added: Roll on over, there’s no time to spare. We’re going bowling, and we want you there. I added a few white hole punches for the finger holes. Then I just glued the pin and ball to the front of the folded card stock card. I planned on making envelopes like these, but I only had a couple CD envelopes and so the rest got mailed in plain white envelopes… Oh well. They were pretty simple, but Rascal liked them!
Since I had made Captain such a fun cake for his last birthday, I knew I needed to try and find something fun for Rascal too. I ran across the directions for a Bowling Alley Cake and decided to give it a try. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find the bowling pin/ball candles, but it turned out that a friend of mine mentioned she had some and gave them to me!!! I thought it would be fun to make, but let me tell you, at midnight the night before the party I was wishing I would have just ordered a cake!! I know, I say that EVERY time, but if you don’t look too closely, it didn’t turn out too bad! I also made a bunch of bowling ball cupcakes. (Chocolate Cupcakes, Frosted with Dark Chocolate icing mixed with a bit of black icing coloring, and 3 white chocolate chips pushed into the frosting upside down.)
I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to try and add a few games to the party, but when I saw the suggestion for Bowling Bingo I thought that would be fun. The boys agreed, and it sure made just getting 2 or 3 pins exciting! 😉 I also had a big jar of gumballs to give away to the boy who guessed the closest (with a little help from his momma!).
We had four lanes with a total of 21 bowlers, plus a couple more lanes for all the adults that bowled! I didn’t take very many pictures… (I was just too busy, and my camera wasn’t doing the best with the lighting anyway, but another one of my friends took a bunch for me!! Yay!!!) … Anyway, here are the few that I did get.
Rascal’s friends totally spoiled him, and he was given such thoughtful gifts. When he was all done opening his gifts, each boy received their party favors. For these, I used the same bowling ball image (adding each of the boys names to it in Photoshop), and glued it onto the front of colored gift bags. With so many bags, I had to keep the bags fairly inexpensive, so we included 4 different coloring books, a bag of gumballs, a bag of homemade carmel corn, and some candy.
Valentine Cards for the President
The following comes from Totus Tuus Family:
With Valentines approaching, this gets to the heart of the matter.Get a red envelope. On the front, address it to:President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500On the back of the envelope, write the following message.This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.
Put it in the mail, and send it. Then forward this to every one of your friends who you think would send one too. I wish we could send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who died before having a chance to live. Maybe it will change the heart of the president?Another woman wrote, “Good idea but if you get the flimsy envelope then it will not work and it will jam the Post Office’s Automated Machines.” She suggested putting a blank white poster card or card stock in the envelope.MY IDEAS –If you don’t have red envelopes, let your littlest color or paint white envelopes red so they can be involved. The potential of a child……
Another idea for inside the card is a white card stock note saying….OPEN your heart to the lives of your unborn CITIZENS. Be a President to ALL Americans!
Put in a bunch of prayer cards while you’re at it! 🙂 PASS IT ON.
We will be mailing ours out tomorrow. Won’t you join us?
Has it really been 7 years???
All ready to go Bowling…
Ideas for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes
On February 11th the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
This feast day “marks the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year-old Marie Bernade (St. Bernadette) Soubirous. Between February 11 and July 16, 1858, the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times, and showed herself to St. Bernadette in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Since then Lourdes has become a place of pilgrimage and many cures and conversions have taken place. The message of Lourdes is a call to personal conversion, prayer, and charity.” ~ Catholic Culture
Last year I posted our plans for celebrating this feast, followed by a few pictures. I thought I would update my links and add a few more great ideas I remembered seeing on a few of my favorite blogs.
We will be using just a few of these ideas in our home. Now if I could just decide which ones!
Storytime
Our Lady of Lourdes
Bernadette: Our Lady’s Little Servant (Vision Books)
Our Lady of Lourdes
More Saints: Lives & Illuminations
Family Movie Night
There are a some WONDERFUL videos worth watching on this feast day! One of our all time favorites is The Song of Bernadette
A couple other great movies about this apparition are Bernadette
Crafts
- Illuminated Ink sells a beautiful Marian Grotto Kit for Our Lady of Lourdes. “This striking kit will allow your child to create his or her own miniature grotto for the Blessed Mother from wooden sticks, beautiful illustrations and polished semi-precious gemstones.” If you are like me, and planned to order this kit last year, and never got around to it, it still can be done! Charlotte picked up a few supplies for her family, and they did an amazing job.
- Charlotte also has a beautiful coloring page of the Immaculate Conception that could be used since Our Lady said to St. Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
- Mary at Our Domestic Church shared a couple great crafts for this feast last year on her blog, including directions for making lovely little holy water fonts! Over at Cottage Blessings you can find the directions for a couple different holy water fonts, and yet another one over at St. Athanasius Academy. How fun!!
- If you are blessed with lots of snow at your home, which we are not, what about building a snow grotto?
- I hope to paint an Our Lady of Lourdes to go with St. Bernadette.
- Or how about making Spoon Saints for St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes.
- Make a homemade grotto and place a holy card or small statue of Our Lady of Lourdes inside. Dawn shared a simple suggestion for one using a disposable loaf pan!
- Last year we made the simple Grotto Craft suggested in Seton’s Art 1 for Young Catholics
. All you need is an image of Our Lady of Lourdes (one is provided in the book, but I am sure there are many available online — in fact, Charlotte’s coloring page would be perfect!), brown and yellow construction paper, tissue paper for the flowers and leaves, and a bit of gold glitter and glue for Our Lady’s halo. My children really enjoyed making these!
Food
- You could make the Crepes for the Feast of St. Bernadette or Candlemas Crepes. (Crepes are a favorite in our home, though I always just use my Grandmother’s simple recipe which calls for 12 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk, and 1 cup of water.)
- Blueberry Muffins, or Blueberry Pancakes, would be another great option for breakfast. I posted the recipe for our favorite Blueberry Muffins over at Catholic Cuisine.
- You could serve an all white menu symbolizing the purity of Mary’s immaculate soul.
- Last year we also made a blue jello mold which represented the Spring. This year I might use the foil cupcake liners and make mini “springs” for our snack.
- In this 4Real Thread a grotto made with Fruity Pebbles Rice Krispie Treats was suggested. My kids would LOVE that!! UPDATED: Here is a link to the recipe/directions.
- A Blueberry Cheesecake Pie would also be fitting. The all white cheesecake (white and angel food cakes are other excellent options) symbolizes Mary’s purity, and the blueberry topping is is symbolic of her blue mantle.
- Another fun option would be to make a cupcake rosary since, when Our Lady first appeared to St. Bernadette, she smiled and told her to pray the rosary. Oooohh!! How about making the rosary with mini blueberry muffins!?! Although, the pink could symbolize the roses at Our Lady’s feet… Hummm…
Prayer
Say the Rosary together as a family.
Pray the Litany of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Sing the Lourdes Hymn, Immaculate Mary.
Using holy water from Lourdes, give your children a parental blessing.
The following is the beautiful novena prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes:
O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Comfort to the Afflicted,
you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Deign to cast upon me a look of mercy. By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors; and already many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal.
I come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain, O loving Mother, the granting of my requests.
Through gratitude for favors, I will endeavor to imitate your virtues that I may one day share your glory.
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us. Amen.
(Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.)
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