First day of school!!

Marshmallow's First Ash Wednesday

I love the innocence in this picture! They look so angelic here!

Marshmallow did NOT want the Deacon to touch his head. Hence the off-centered smudge mark of ashes. LOL.

Lent Calendar

So...I've been reading a book called "Guiding Your Catholic Preschooler". In the book, they give you an example of making a Lent calendar to help teach your children about things we do during lent (prayer, alms, fast). I've also looked at the one on one of my favorite blog, Shower of Roses, as an example. Here's our calendar:

Each day we will be doing the following:

I'm really excited about the 40 bags in 40 days. I've already packed three bags, two for trash and one for donations. It's so nice to be able to see the top of the china cabinet shelf and the entertainment center. I'm sure I'll be able to fill 40 bags of "stuff" easily. It will be so nice to be de-cluttered! Princess and Junior are especially excited to fill their jars of pennies. And they can't wait to put the purple cross stickers on each day when they have finished the tasks.

Wherever there is a fish, we are to fast and abstain from meat. Though, since I'm still nursing Marshmallow, and the other two are so young, we are exempt from fasting, but are eating less or no "snacks" during those days. We are, however, having either fish or no meat on Fridays.

Colored Pancakes! Oh my!

In honor of Fat Tuesday (aka Pancake Tuesday), we made Mardi Gras pancakes for lunch!! The kids were titally amused that their pancakes were colorful and were extremely excited that there were leftovers for breakfast the next day. (They didn't quite come out the colors I'd have liked, but the kids didn't know the difference.) Princess kept commenting on how "we've never had pancakes like these before!"

  

I also learned that the reason people make pancakes on Fat Tuesday is because in the "olden days", you were not supposed to have ANY animal by-products during lent, and so they would have to use up all of their eggs and milk by making pancakes.

(Sorry for the cruddy pictures. My camera's battery had died, so I had to use my phone. The next couple of posts are this way.)

Time Flies!

Holy cow! I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've written on here. So much for daily blogging! LOL. We've just been so busy throughout the past couple of weeks, we haven't really gotten much schoolwork done. We started our Alphabet Path letter "B", celebrated a couple of Feast Days, and read several Saint books and Bible stories. So, we did a little bit of school in our own way. That's the wonderful thing about home schooling. It's ok if stuff doesn't get done right on time (although, once Princess is four, we will REALLY focus on school and learning to read).

Marshmallow still isn't sleeping through the night, so I'm taking advantage of nap time and napping myself. Unfortunately, that's taken a toll on my house! Ahhh! So, I'm having a playdate (with two sets of twin girls and a pair of "Irish" twins) on Friday which has now motivated me to get the house CLEAN!

I'm also trying to read Holiness for Housewives, our book club book for the month, and finish the Dave Ramsey book, Financial Peace Revisited. Mostly because I can't wait to start next month's book club book, Unplanned by Abby Johnson. (My sister-in-law started our Catholic Book Club. I haven't been able to actually attend a meeting because I live 30 minutes from her and it starts at 8pm, but I still try to read every book so that I can continue to learn more about our faith! I hope to be able to attend the meetings soon.)

Anyways, I don't know if we'll get much school done this week either, but I'm sure hoping to. Princess wrote her full name for the first time yesterday on the white board! I'm so proud of her! She has also learned her address and phone number.

Junior is talking more everyday! I can't believe how quickly his vocabulary grew!

Marshmallow has had a HUGE two weeks! He cut a tooth, started to army crawl, sits up unsupported, reaches out for me, drinks from a sippy, and eats lots of solids!!

I still haven't had any other moms show up for my Little Saints Catholic mommy group. I know these things take time, and that it will happen, it's just a little hard not to get discouraged. But, I'll keep pushing through!

Anyways, back to work! Lots of cleaning to do!

The Amazing Effects of Prayer

I've been searching for MONTHS to find a Catholic Mommies group in my area. Since I couldn't find anything, I decided to start one on my own. In November, I finally approached the pastor of my parish church. It took until January, but we got it started. We've already had many bumps in the road, and many trials, but I KNOW that God wants me to do this.

Anyways, the first week, we had one mom show up. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been for that meeting, and I hope that didn't deter her (the kids had just been recovering from bronchitis, croup and an ear infection). She seemed into it, but I haven't seen her since. Then, the second week, an Aunt, who babysits her nephew came. I was a little better prepared, with a bible story and a 10 Commandments project, but note to everyone...CHECK THAT YOUR GLUE STICKS ARE NOT DRIED OUT before you bring them to a function where you will be glueing!

Week 3, NO ONE else showed up. But, I was prepared and my kids and I did the activity we had planned. I didn't read them the story again, as I had read it to them earlier in the week since it was "A" week. We read Tomie dePaola's Angels, Angels Everywhere. On Little Saints group day, we did the "A" is for Angels activity from Catholic Icing. The kids went a little crazy with the stickers, but they sure do love stickers. (I had to zoom in on the actual artwork because their names were written in the corners.)

Junior's...

 Princess'



Anyways, week 4 (yesterday). Again, NO ONE shows up! Well, (so, I had this REALLY long post written and it didn't save, so I'll have to just use a shortened one!)

So, week 4. NO ONE showed up. The Feast of St. Blaise was the day before, so I read the story of St. Blaise to the kids and had them color a picture of him from Waltzing Matilda.

My New Year's Resolution was/is to go to Mass one day a week in addition to Sundays. And of course on all the Holy Days and special Feast Days. St. Blaise's Feast day was on Thursday. My kids were EXTREMELY well behaved! Anyways, as I'm packing up the diaper bag to leave, a man comes over and hands me something and says "this is for your Mommy group". I said "Thank you! Thank you so much!" I didn't have time to look at it just that second, and I don't know if I would even know the man if I saw him again. Anyways, when I got to the car, I looked and it was a $100 bill! Now, I have been praying about starting a Meetup.com group, but just haven't had the funds. God had definitely heard and answered my prayers! This man was a vessel for God. I now am able to start a meetup group (which will hopefully bring in more mommies) as well as have leftover funds for supplies, snacks, and anything else).

GOD LISTENS!

Happy Saint Brigid's Feast Day

(Yes, I know it was actually yesterday, but naptime is just about the ONLY time I can ever get on here.) :)

For St. Brigid's Feast, we read St. Brigid's Cloak by Bryce Millligan, as well as a short story in Twenty Tales of Irish Saints.

We also made St. Brigid's Oaten Bread from Catholic Cuisine...

  

 

and colored a St. Brigid coloring page from Waltzing Matilda...

We were going to make this St. Brigid's Cross from Family Fun (thanks for sharing Catholic Icing!), but we just ran out of time. We may still make it today.

Overall, we had a WONDERFUL fun-filled day!