A Christmas Rose
The Christmas Novena to St. Therese begins today, 12 days before Christmas. One is to pray the novena 12 times per day for 12 days to honor the 12 years of Christ’s childhood. May you receive a Christmas Rose of many blessings this Christmas!
Little Flowers Girls’ Club ~ December Meeting
Well, I had our Little Flowers meeting scheduled for last week, but due to my miscarriage the week prior, I just wasn’t prepared, nor was I quite up for it… Soooooo, I postponed it a week, and we met last night.
At the last minute (well, not quite the last minute, but at 1:30 in the afternoon) I found out that the room, in the back of the local bookstore where we usually meet, was filled with boxes and not available, so plans changed and the meeting was now going to be at MY HOUSE!! Yikes!! Not only did I have to finish coming up with notebook page — I was having a hard time being creative and so I had put it off till the last minute, and when I was almost finished Microsoft Word decided to crash before I saved my document and I had to start over, which was fine cause I didn’t really like it at that point anyway, but still, totally annoying! — but now I also had to clean my house!! (picture a frantic mother running around cleaning, baking and crafting for 4 hours, while trying to take care of a five little children!) Nevertheless, everything turned out fine in the end and I actually really enjoyed hosting the meeting at my home. PLUS, hubby had the opportunity to take all his boys out to dinner! Thank you honey!! 🙂
Anyhow, here is an overview of our night:
As the girls arrived, I had them all start right in on their coloring. We used Waltzing Matilda’s beautiful St. Jane Frances de Chantal coloring page, of course! Thank you Charlotte, you amaze me!
We had a new addition this month as well…
After everyone arrived, we started the meeting with the prayer to St. Therese and the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love. We then continued with a review of last months virtue and saint. Beads went into the jar for all the completed assignments. Next I introduced the virtue we will be working on this month, Love of our Neighbor, and we read a short biography of the saint for this month, St. Jane Frances de Chantal.
Did you know that her feast day is actually December 12th, but (in the United States) it was moved to August 18th so that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe could be celebrated? I didn’t until last night when we were reading about her!!
To further discuss Love of our Neighbor, I once again used the book Chat’s With God’s Little Ones. I highly recommend adding this book to your collections. I have used it for years with my little ones, and it has come in so handy the last couple months for Little Flowers too! It is perfect for the younger girls, and I love that it gets them thinking, and trying to answer the questions. This month I used the lesson on The Fifth Commandment: Chapter 10, Lesson 27:
The Fifth Commandment tells us to be kind. Can you say that? (Help the child to repeat the whole sentence. If necessary, break it up into phrases so that he may repeat a phase at a time. If time allows, also review what the first four Commandments tell us to do.) Do you know who God wants us to be kind to? (everyone). Do you think that includes ourselves? (yes). Do you think it is kind to ourselves or to others if we quarrel and get angry? (no). Do you think it is a sin to hit other children? (yes). If a child hits you once, you might offer it up for love of Jesus. But if someone keeps on hitting you or hurts you in some way, you should go right away and tell your parents of teacher (or babysitter). If a child does something bad to you, do you think that Jesus wants you to do something bad to them? (no). When Jesus was whipped and crowned with thorns and nailed on the cross, did He try to get even with the people who did that? (no). He showed us an example of what He wants us to do, didn’t He? (yes). Jesus also wants us to be a good example to everyone. Do you know what it means to be a good example? It means that if people see you doing good things, they will want to do good things too.
If someone sees you doing something bad, do you think they might start to do bad things too? (yes). So when we do something bad in front of someone else, do you think it might hurt their soul? (yes). But if we do good things, do you think we will be kind to their soul? (yes). Does Jesus want us to be kind to everyone, even bad people? (yes). We don’t have to make friends with bad people but we should pray for them and give them good example. Jesus said that whenever we do something bad to someone, we do something bad to Him. He also said that whenever we do something good to someone, we do something good to Him. Do we want to always do good things for Jesus? (yes).
I continued on with the following question to the girls: What do you think we could do this month for love of our neighbor, and for Jesus?
One of the little girls responded with “we could give food to the poor!!” Perfect!! It was just what I was hoping one of them would say, since that was going to be their extra credit project for the month. At that point I handed each girl a brown paper bag (thank you Marci for picking them up for me!!) and they glued their pictures of St. Jane to the front. Sometime during this month, each girl will fill the bag with food for the poor.
We then moved on to the craft, another page for our notebooks. I printed out an image of St. Jane, and typed up a few quotes for the girls to use, including the invocation to St. Jane, the memory verse of the month, a quote out of the Catholic Girl’s Guide, and a quote on the two great commandments. They also got a sheet of red card stock, some green construction paper, and a couple Martha Stewart dimensional rose stickers. (Here is the link to my document.)
Here is the page that I put together as a sample (which I finished minutes before the girls arrived… Whew!!) :
As usual, the girls all did such an amazing job!
This month I decided to add an extra craft. Since Saturday is the feast of St. Lucy, I thought it would be fun for all the girls to make Santa Lucia Crowns! I was hesitant though, about cutting out all the leaves and berries, until Marci offered to use her totally cool new machine
It was my month for snacks… Yes, I gave myself this month when I saw that the flower was the rose. 😉 And how perfect that the meeting ended up being on the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe — another perfect feast for tying in Rosy treats! (and I had lots of leftovers!!) I served Rose Cupcakes with Rosy Punch. There was also a pot of coffee and brownies for us moms! I wish I would have had a chance to make the Santa Lucia’s Braided Bread, but we will be making it tonight, for tomorrow morning anyways!
While the girls had their cupcakes and punch, I read them a couple books. First we read Hanna’s Christmas
Wow!! This post sure got long!! I’ll end now with the group photo.
We sure missed all of you girls that weren’t able to make it this month!! I hope you all have a very Blessed Christmas and hopefully we will see you in January!
As in the visitation, help us to love our neighbor.
Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!
A Spiritual Bouquet…
Little Flowers
The girls had a great time at Little Flowers tonight… I will post more about our meeting soon!
Must… Keep… Eating…
What you don’t see is that, as soon as Snuggles had finished eating his lunch, he woke right back up when I washed him up, and it took me awhile to get him to take his afternoon nap! Aren’t sleepy babies just the cutest?!
A Poem From My Sis
My little sister is always writing beautiful poems. On Thanksgiving she gave my husband and I a poem that she had written for us.
Thank you Mary!
Christ is Always There
Who knows what God above has planned?
Holding the world in the palm of his hand.
Creator of all we touch, hear, and see.
Creator of all life, love, and beauty.
Knowing all things and to where they will lead.
Knowing our wants but granting our needs.
Though at times it’s hard for us to understand
Why God allows such things under His command.
We must keep in mind that despite how we feel,
Our God is all knowing with a love that can heal.
No matter our state in mind, soul, or heart.
The good Lord above is there from the start.
He knows all our thoughts and sees every tear.
He knows all our joys and our every fear.
God is all loving, all knowing, and all good.
He understands all that we never could.
Everyday we wish that we could have control,
But God alone can lead us to our ever-lasting goal.
Everyday we wish that we could change the past,
But God knows what He’s doing, that pain inside won’t last.
Too often we forget Him, when dealing with a loss.
So often we forget our Lord who died upon the cross.
So much pain we go through, sometimes it’s hard to bare,
But we must not forget the crown of thorns he had to wear.
We fall into depressions and can’t see past the hurt,
But Christ is falling with us, three times he hit the dirt.
Sometimes life can deal such tragedy seeming so unfair.
But it always helps to know that Christ will never fail to care.
My Daybook ~ December 8th
It has been awhile since I have posted my daybook… Three weeks to be exact. Little did I know then, how hard that week (and the weeks following) would end up being. Anyhow, I’ve missed my daybook posts, and so I am going to give it a shot once again…
FOR TODAY:December 8th, 2008 ~ The Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Outside my Window… it is dark now, but I can see the glow of our Christmas lights. We always wait till Christmas Eve to turn our lights on, but this year we have been in need of the extra cheer and so we turned them on even before Advent started. We will wait till Christmas Eve to decorate our tree but in the meantime we have Purple lights on it for Advent, and it looks so pretty!
From the school room… Since we no longer need to rush to finish by June, I have cut back on the assignments for the month of December so we can celebrate Advent and Christmas more fully. I am hoping to spend the rest of the month reading lots of books, making lots of crafts, doing lots of baking, and incorporating lots of prayer into each day. I also purchased an Advent Lapbook for my boys which is awesome!
I am thankful… for my Catholic faith. With out faith, I don’t know how one would be able to cope with the loss of a child.
From the kitchen… lots of yummy treats, the latest being Bumble Bee Cookies in honor of St. Ambrose.
I am creating… our Christ Candle. This year it will be white with just a gold wax Chi Rho added. Simple, but beautiful!
I am going… to really miss my sister and her family. It was nice having them in town for a couple weeks, but it was so hard to see them leave this past Thursday since we rarely ever get to see them.
(All of my parents grandchildren, together!)I am wearing… a light gray sweater, a long dark gray skirt, black boots and scarf, and dangling gray pearl earrings.
I am reading… The Practice of the Presence of God
I am hoping… that no one else asks me if I am over my morning sickness yet. I feel horrible when I respond with a tidal wave of tears…
I am also hoping to catch up on my correspondence. There are a few of you that I am sure are waiting to hear back from me, and for some reason I am having the hardest time writing letters. Lately, it has been so much easier to talk on the phone… Nevertheless, I want you all to know how much your prayers and encouragement have meant to me. Thank you!
I am hearing… the heater click on and off every now and then. We have a fire in the fireplace, but it is still super cold! I guess there may actually be snow this weekend?!? Weird!
Around the house…there are lots of signs that Christmas is coming: Advent Calendars; our Jesse Tree; the Advent wreath; baskets of picture books; and the beginnings of our Nativity, to name a few! Even with the ridiculous amount of laundry that has been piling up, I just love how cozy our home feels.
One of my favorite things… is watching my boys “play Mass”!
Today we attended Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. After Mass we went over to some friends for an all white lunch. Marci & I had a nice time visiting (and playing with her new toy - The tutor came today, and will be working with the boys tomorrow and Wednesday as well.
- Tomorrow I have my follow-up appointment with the doctor. After that I will be taking dinner to a dear friend who just delivered her adorable baby boy. And after that, it is Bunco time!
- Later this week the girls and I have Little Flowers, for which I need to prepare at some point. The theme is Love of God and Roses, so I plan on making Rose Shaped Cupcakes for our snack time! Yum!
- There are also the feasts of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Lucy to prepare for, and celebrate, as well!
- Whew! It looks like it is going to be another busy week!
A picture thought I am sharing:
To view more Daybooks visit Peggy here.
Celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas
We always have such fun celebrating the feast of St. Nicholas… This year was no different!
The children woke up a very tired momma who stayed up way too late bright and early to see just what St. Nick had left for them this year.
As usual they each found a new pair of slippers (except for Snuggles who refuses to keep any form of shoes on his feet) and a new Christmas picture book to add to our collection. It brought tears to my eyes when Captain left the living room and came back from his bedroom with one more picture book to add to the lineup. He said that it was for Gabriel up in heaven, and that he would read it to him.
Hubby led the blessing for the day and then read a story about St. Nicholas while we enjoyed our St. Nicholas Hot Cocoa and Candy Cane Coffee Cake (which I completely forgot to glaze due to the fact that I was half asleep while making it at 2am). It was delicious just the same, and probably a bit healthier. 😉
For lunch we had St. Nicholas Pizza. (I meant to take a picture after it came out of the oven, but I completely forgot!) This was a hit, and I am sure we will be making it again.
God, we pray that through the intercessions of St. Nicholas you will guide and protect our children.
Keep them safe from all harm and help them grow to become loving disciples of Jesus in your sight.
Give them strength to always mature into deeper faith in you, and to keep alive joy in your creation.
Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
St. Nicholas ~ Pray for us!
St. Nicholas Hot Cocoa
Last night the children and I made our St. Nicholas Hot Cocoa!
We had so much fun!!
After I printed out the tags, I was wishing I would have used an image of St. Nicholas, but I was out of time so I left it as it was… Next time. Oh, and now we know that a single batch of the recipe makes 5 jars of the mix… And it is even yummier than I remembered! 🙂
UPDATE: I too had a hard time finding more jars and lids locally, but I was able to find them online at Amazon. Here is a link to the lids
A Makeover for Santa Claus
A Makeover for Santa Claus Chocolates, just adding a miter and a crozier!
Isn’t he just the cutest?!?
You can find the directions at the St. Nicholas Center.
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