Little Flowers for St. Therese
Tonight the girls had their first Little Flowers meeting! They were thrilled!A friend of mine tried to start a group last year, but found out she was pregnant (with our adorable new goddaughter) shortly after, so we only had one meeting. The girls asked all year when the next meeting would be, so I decided to organize and lead it myself this year, with the help of the other moms.
Tonight we had 8 sweet little girls and their mom’s, and we had such a great time, even though I was totally nervous, since I have never led anything like this before! It actually wasn’t the girls that made me nervous, it was all the moms!!! 😉 I don’t know why, they were encouraging me along the whole time… it’s just my personality.
We will be working our way through Wreath One. Each month the girls will learn about a different virtue and how to practice it so it becomes a habit. There is also a saint and flower for each month as well. Tonight was based on the virtue of Faith, Saint Catherine of Siena, and the Sunflower.
We started the meeting with a prayer and introduction to the Virtue and Saint of the month, followed by a short lesson, which I think was way over
We then moved on to coloring a beautiful coloring page of St. Catherine of Siena, thanks to a very talented friend.
We then moved on to the craft. I had purchased the Craft Companion, but wasn’t too crazy about any of the suggestions… Instead I decided to have the girls create notebooks. Each month we will add a page to the notebook based on the virtue of the month, with a picture of the saint, flower embellishments, and quotes (or possibly copywork for the older girls).
I found an image online, and typed up the quotes for the girls to use if they wanted. They each got a sheet of cardstock, some green construction paper, some cardstock letter punchouts, and–my favorite part–a couple Martha Stewart dimensional sunflower stickers. (You can download my notebook page here.)
Here is the sample page that the girls and I created before the meeting:
I loved seeing how all the girls put their pages together.
I love how she added a little drawing of herself!
The other night I picked up some darling pink binders with the clear pocket on the cover, so we will be decorating those and placing each of the pages into the binder. One of the moms said that she has quite the scrapbooking stash and offered to help out with this! She even said she probably has some rose stamps that would be fun to use as well!
Next it was snack time. I will be assigning each mom a month to provide snacks, and one of the moms made the cutest sunflower cupcakes for the girls!
The meeting ran late, and we may need to start it earlier in the future, but overall we had a wonderful night, and one my friends even came over to visit afterwards!!! It is always nice to have visitors, but even more so with hubby gone! Thank you Amy for staying and chatting, it was fun!!
Frustrated…
As I mentioned before, I am working on starting a local Little Flowers Girls Club. Our 1st meeting is tonight, and I am frustrated!
I had a difficult time finding out exactly how many girls we would be having this year, and our local bookstore (which is allowing us to use their meeting room) didn’t want to place more than one order for books, so I am short materials for tonight.
Thankfully I do have about half of member’s guides, the leaders guide, craft companion, etc which I had ordered last year, in addition to the supplies for the craft I planned for tonight, but what I don’t have is a Member’s Guide for each girl with the coloring page for tonight, as well as the list of assignments for the coming month. We will be ordering a book for each of the girls, so I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to copy the assignment/coloring page this one time. I assumed wrong.
I called the company just to make sure and she said no. They don’t allow ANY exceptions. Even if you have already purchased a book for each girl, you still can’t copy out of it. (We will be making notebooks this year, and I hoped to add the saint coloring pages. If we want to do this we will need to take apart the books, or trace the pictures.)
I understand the need to protect copyrights, and sell the books, but I also think that if each child has or will have their own purchased copy, that this should have been okay, and that you should be able to use the images for crafts etc. Oh well… On to plan B.
Well, I had better go, I now have to spend the afternoon typing or writing out the assignments for the month and coming up with a coloring page for St. Catherine of Siena, so half of the girls (who are mostly too young to trace themselves) will have something to do.
Things like this make me REALLY appreciate the publishers of coloring books like Fenestrae Fidei, who allow the original purchaser to make copies for family and classroom use, and talented women like Charlotte, who share their talents with all of us. I believe that God will reward them greatly for their generosity! I am just bummed that neither of them have an image of St. Catherine of Siena!! 😉
I’ll be back later tonight or tomorrow morning, and I promise I will be more positive then! 🙂
Update: Thanks to a very sweet friend, the girls have a beautiful page to color tonight! (As well as a couple additional options that were just emailed from another friend.) You all are truly amazing! THANK YOU!!!!!! ♥
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
This weeks Little Saints theme is “My Five Senses”… This afternoon the girls worked on learning the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. It was quite fun, and I thought I would take a second and share a few of the video clips. 🙂 (Just ignore my goofy laugh!)
Rascal wanted to show the girls how it is done:
A New Bouncy Chair
Remember this home video of Snuggles?
I sat Snuggles on the recliner for a second so I could vacuum, and then had to grab my camera! He is so funny!
The Fire
Photo Credit: InciWebA Good Day
Carrying Our Cross Daily
I just listened to a wonderful (12 minute) sermon on “Carrying our cross daily” which was just given on Sunday, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
It was very inspiring, and something I very much needed to be reminded of this morning. If you’d like, you can listen to the whole sermon here.“There are things that God gives us to, in a way, bring more sanctification into our day to day life…
…Sometimes God wants to give us larger crosses…
…So these crosses, apart from our day to day crosses, God gives us extra large ones if he sees we are able to carry them…
…but He never gives us a cross that we are not able to carry. And so we know the way to holiness is by making sure we carry our crosses in the best way possible…”
The Stressed Out Momma’s Daybook ~ September 15th
Outside my Window… there is lots of smoke. A constant reminder that hubby won’t be home for awhile.
I am thinking… that we will postpone beginning the Alphabet Path till next week.
From the learning room… just the basics. That’s it.
I am thankful… for the kind emails and prayers from you all; the much needed overtime that my hubby is receiving; that my 8 fingers are only sprained and not broken; for a chiropractor who was able to squeeze me in and realign my “very out of joint” jaw (to quote my doctor); for drive thru restaurants; for ice (my chiropractor teasingly suggested an ice bath!); that Snuggles goose egg has reduced in size and the bruise isn’t that bad; and for the fact that my 8 year old son knows how to wash dishes.
From the kitchen… taco bell wrappers from lunch, and no plans for dinner. I sure wish the pizza man would deliver up here…
I am creating… lower expectations for myself… At least for this week, and maybe next.
I am going… crazy.
I am wearing… an ice pack.
I am reading… nothing at the moment, but I am really looking forward to reading all the links shared in the From Thy Bounty Fair on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross! I really need to read something uplifting and positive!
I am hoping… that my car battery is not dead again the next time I try and start it… (OH! That reminds me… I am also thankful for spare car keys, that the tutor was still here when I tried starting my van this morning, and that I had a set of jumper cables available!)
I am hearing… lots of static on my phone line… The repair man will be back out again tomorrow morning.
Around the house… I really don’t want to think about it.
One of my favorite things… SLEEP!!!!!!!!!
- Tutor will be coming Mon, Tue & Wed Mornings
- Dentist appointments for our 3 oldest on Thursday. (rescheduled from last week)
- My very first Little Flowers meeting on Thursday, which reminds me, I still need to plan the craft, and confirm a babysitter.
- Try and make a trip back up to the Fire Camp to visit hubby and bring him a home-cooked meal.
- Try and clean the corroded things on the vans battery with the stuff the auto parts guy sold me.
- SURVIVE the week!
Here is a picture thought I am sharing:
Bring on the chocolate!Thank you for letting me vent! :o)
Smoky Mountain Picnic
It was so nice to be able to see hubby today. He has been working the 3pm to 7am shift, and was able to meet us for Mass this morning after he got off. I had packed along our feast and so after Mass we headed up to the lake near fire camp for a picnic lunch.
We found a nice shady spot under a few trees not too far from the lake. Despite the smoke, it was still beautiful.
Rascal got right to work coloring in the brand new coloring book he received from the tooth fairy last night. Can you believe it? She actually remembered on the FIRST night for ONCE!!
Awww! There is my toothless boy, with a bouquet of flowers for his momma!
Lunch was delicious!!!
Although, it is a little bit harder to eat without those two front teeth…
After lunch it was time for a little running and exploring…
The time flew, and we had to let daddy go back to camp so he could try and get a couple more hours of sleep before he was back on the clock at 3pm. We miss him already!!!
Ouch!
For some reason, I keep hurting myself today!!
This morning, as we were headed out the driveway for Mass followed by a picnic lunch with hubby, I realized that I forgot the cookies on the coffee table. I turned the car around and ran back into the house knocking my shin on the corner of the table. When I got back into the car Captain asked what was wrong.
I replied: I hurt my leg on the coffee table.
Captain asked: Which leg? Your right or your left?
I replied: It was my left leg.
Captain said: Oh, that’s good. At least you can still drive!
Yep… I could still drive. My leg wouldn’t stop us from making it to Mass and to see their daddy. (Glad to know he knows his left and right so well, and which foot is used to drive!)
Oh, and that wasn’t my only bruise of the day. Just after we got home, I was trying to dump the old water out of our kiddie pool so I could refill it, and somehow bruised (I think?) 8 of my fingers. They are so sore…
At least I can still use my thumbs type! 😉
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