Do you use PaperBackSwap?
I signed up last Fall, and have been very pleased with the club.
It is absolutely free to sign up, and if you post 10 books (hardcovers too) you automatically receive 2 credits to use right away for FREE!
The books you list go into the system, and if someone requests one of your books, you mail it to them (it usually costs $2.15 approx) and earn another credit.
For each credit you have you can request a book of YOUR CHOICE ABSOLUTELY FREE!! In fact, if the books that you are looking for aren’t in the system, you can even create a wish list and you will be notified when the book is posted!
It is SO cool! I have been very happy with all the books I have received. So far, they have all been in like new condition. For Christmas I got hubby a book
off his wish list, a cookbook for myself, and the kids a few Catholic Mosaic titles. It has saved me so much money so far!In fact, here is the book I received today:
Can you believe it? An out of print copy of the Christmas Mosaic
book, The Trees Kneel at Christmas! Yeah!!! Not only that, it is in like new condition, and this book is listed for over $26 on Amazon for this condition. It really is worth it to create that account and place some books on that wish list!Anyways, the following link is coded so that if you use it to sign up, I will get a bonus credit on my account. Although, I would be telling you about this club even if that wasn’t the case… I am that pleased with it!
A Butterfly Box
Lots of Butterfly thoughts and activities are still floating though our home…
I am always on the look out for craft ideas, and new books, especially books filled with recommend crafts for the Liturgical year. So, this morning, I was excited to see that Ann Ball just published a new book called Crafty Catholic Kids
What perfect timing!!!
It is a pdf file, which you can print out or save for later!
I modified the directions slightly. Instead of tracing the paper, I printed the pattern right onto a piece of card stock. Twinkle Toes choose pink, of course. She cut along the solid lines, and I helped her cut around the butterfly’s wings.
Next she folded on the dotted lines, and added a bit of glue.
You can decorate it however you’d like. We decided to use a gold paint pen to color the butterfly and then add a few brads. We kept it simple, but this is where you could really use your imagination.
This is such a fun craft for little girls, and perfect for the Easter season since Butterflies have been a symbol of the Resurrection since ancient times.
Looks like I just might have to order Crafty Catholic Kids
Out Like A Lamb
Today was not only the last day of March–which did indeed go “out like a lamb” after a week of totally crazy weather including snow!–but also the Solemnity Feast of the Annunciation! The Annunciation is usually celebrated on March 25th, but since it fell during Holy Week this year, it was transferred to today.
We had our afternoon snack & craft time this afternoon in honor of the Annunciation.
Prayer:
- The Angelus
- The Magnificat
- Litany of the Blessed Virgin (a perfect tie in for our Lamb cupcakes!)
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Reading:
- The Annunciation from Mary: The Mother of Jesus
- March 25th ~ Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Saints for Young People Vol 1 (our book is out of print, here is the new edition)
Snacks:
- Lamb (of God) Cupcakes
- Lily Sandwiches (adapted from recipe in Catholic Traditions)
Craft:
- Color “The Annunciation” from Fenestrae Fidei
Throw in the kids actual schoolwork, chores, meals, and a trip to town all together it made for quite the busy Monday. However, it was a great day none the less… Hope yours was lovely as well!
On the Feast of the Annunciation
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my savior because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid.
Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed, For the Almighty has done great things for me.
Holy is His name, and His mercy stretches from age to age for those who fear Him. He has shown the power of His arm, He has routed the proud of heart. He has pulled princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.
The hungry He has filled with good things, the rich he has sent empty away. He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his mercy according to the promise He made to our ancestor of His mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.
To read about the Annunciation click here.
Our Divine Mercy Sunday ~ A Lovely Day!
The Second Sunday of Easter is honored as Divine Mercy Sunday. You can read more about this wonderful feast here, here and here.
Just like every Sunday, we started our day with Mass. Since I inevitably forgot to bring our rice bowls to church on Good Friday, we brought them today. Filling the Rice bowls with money for the poor is a Corporal Works of Mercy, and what better time to deliver them than on Divine Mercy Sunday!Our Lord said, “The first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of mercy…I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me.” (Diary, 742) I guess my forgetfulness worked out after all!
Once home again, the kids were so excited to find that my brother Brian was coming by for a visit! Immediately they surrounded him on the couch and pulled out some old photo albums to look through and laugh at! My how time flies. Brian will be 22 in May, and he was only 11 when hubby and I met!
The kids all worked on some coloring while I got busy making dinner. If I haven’t convinced you yet to order Fenestrae Fidei yet, let me say again how much we love this coloring book! (The coloring page at the top was taken from it!) Also, as a reminder, tomorrow is the last day to mail your entries for Illuminated Inks Easter Contest. Captain was busy trying to finish his entry… It looks like I will be making a trip to the Post Office tomorrow.
In the meantime, Snuggles fought sleep hard, as hubby was feeding him some rice cereal. He didn’t sleep well last night, and he was very tired today. Poor baby!
O.K…Back to dinner. I had planned to attend the Celebration our parish at 3pm, but it ended up not being possible to make another trip into town. So, without much time to plan our own celebration, I decided to try to tie in the colors of the two rays (white and red) into our meal. Dinner ended up being pasta with red sauce, white grape/cranberry juice, and rolls, with Strawberry Shortcake for dessert! (Thank you Nancy for the Strawberry’s!! They ended up being my inspiration!)
“The two rays, according to what Jesus Himself told her [St. Faustina], denote blood and water. The blood recalls the sacrifice of Golgotha and the mystery of the Eucharist: the water makes us think of Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” Pope John Paul II Divine Mercy Sunday 2001Before I sign off, here are a few more plans that I hope to use in the next couple days:
- Print Coloring Pages & Word Search from Divine Mercy Kids
- Review the words to the “Works of Mercy” song. (I can now rattle off all the works of mercy, just from listening to this CD with my kids… I could never remember them all before.) We have both the CD and the DVD, and LOVE them both!
- Let kids each choose a page to color from the Works of Mercy Coloring Book.
Well… It has been a busy day, and it is getting late. I must get some rest if I am to be ready for the busy week we have ahead of us. Tomorrow is the Solemnity Feast of the Annunciation, as well as Captain’s first lesson with his tutor. So, Good Night and God Bless!
Divine Mercy Sunday
Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
For more information about Divine Mercy Sunday, visit Catholic Culture.
Easter Candy + Cookies
= One of the reasons I am not looking forward to Wednesday.
Yes… I was inspired by Eileen’s post when I saw it on Friday. It just sounded like so much fun! So, since we had plenty of Easter candy left, and the boys were gone for the day, the girls and I decided to do some baking! They ran to grab their aprons and hats as I pulled out a Costco sized box of cookie mix that had been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas. (Most of my Christmas baking plans fell through since we were so sick at Christmas, and I am still trying to figure out what to do with all those baking supplies including 5 bags of powdered sugar!)
You could really use whatever cookie recipe that you like, and Eileen posted a very simple one, but this one worked for us. The girls had fun mixing the batter.
Instead of making normal cookies, we decided to try out my mini muffin pan instead. The girls took turns using both hands to squeeze the dough out of a small scoop and into the greased pan.
The cookie’s then headed into the oven, pre-heated to 350 degrees for about 6-8 minutes.
While the cookies were in the oven, we unwrapped the candy, one for each cookie. Twinkle Toes went with Miniature Snickers and Chiquita choose the Lemon Creme Hershey Kisses. As soon as the cookies came into the oven they got busy pressing the candies into the center of each. The heat from the cookies did the rest!
On the next batch, I decided to go with one of my favorite Easter candies, the Cadbury Mini-Easter Eggs.
Yum!!!! Don’t they look delicious?
We finished up by making a few random ones as well… My favorite was the one made with a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup… It was too good! Unfortunately, or rather, It was a GOOD THING that there were only 2 left from Easter. I have a weakness for both Cadbury Egg’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
So, what have you been doing with all that Easter candy?
Chocolate, OF COURSE!
| You Are a Cadbury Creme Egg |
 You’re the type that stole little brother’s easter basket so that you could have MORE CANDY! |
Ummm…. And just what is wrong with that?? 😉
On Lap Books
I recently posted about the Butterfly Lapbook Twinkle Toes made. In addition to leaving a great Butterfly finger play/song in the comments, Jamie asked, “Do you buy the folder like that, or do you cut paper and fold it?” So, I thought I would take this opportunity to share a little about Lapbooking with you all. I know some of you are old pros at this, and Lapbooking is new to us, but I thought I would share a little bit of what I have found helpful.
When we made our first lap book, I too wasn’t sure if I had to go and purchase a special folder. The frugal momma in me was very excited to find that all I needed was a file folder, and I had a whole CASE of those from Costco!! Yeah!!
Here is a basic tutorial on how to make/fold a file folder to become a Lapbook:
For our Butterfly Lapbook, we used the basic layout with a yellow file folder–yes, I couldn’t help buying a pack of various color folders!–and added an extension.
We now have a great book called The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook that illustrates all the various types of Layouts, Extensions and Assembly, in addition to directions on how to make a number of various mini-books and ideas for Lapbook themes. (We are hoping to make the “Ten Commandment” lap book soon!) However, if you scroll to the bottom of this pdf file you can see an illustration of how to add on the small extension that we used. It says to use cardstock, but since I didn’t have any yellow cardstock, we trimmed a piece of yellow construction paper and attached it with clear packing tape, and this worked just fine.
Now, if you need to make your Lapbook really roomy, you can use two file folders and make a Double Lapbook:
We used a Double Lapbook when the boys made their Grinch Lapbooks. OH! There is quite a few more quick lessons on youtube too!
In addition, here are a few of the resources that I have found helpful:
- Lapbooking on Squidoo -This site is packed with info and pictures!
- Notebooking Pages – Lots of free resources including notebooking pages and lapbooking templates.
- CurrClick – Each week they offer a free product for download–This is where we got our Grinch Lapbook.
- Hands Of A Child – This site offers a free download each quarter– This is where we got Turkey Time.
- The Home School Mom: Lap books – This has pictures of student lap books.
- Homeschool Share – Lots of Free Lapbooks — including quite a few based on FIAR books.
- Homeschool Share – TONS of printable mini book templates for inside your lapbook.
- Homeschool Helper – This has even more lapbook designs–I got some of the ideas for the Butterfly lapbook here– as well as lots of printable lapbook templates!
- And, I must mention Meredith! She is full of ideas, and I just love Matthias’s 1st Communion Notebook (slightly different than a lapbook). Captain has begun one like it in preparation for his First Communion.
Anyhow, what it comes down to is that there is just SO many links, and SO little time!!
If anyone has any favorite resources they like to share, go ahead and leave them! I’m always on the lookout for more ideas!
Speaking of Peace…
… I wanted to share this prayer by Mother Teresa with you all.
“May today be peace within. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be… May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you… May you be content knowing you are a child of God… Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of you.”
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