45 Years!! Feast of the Holy Innocents

 My parents celebrate 45 years today!  

Happy Anniversary and God bless you both

 Today is also the feast of the Holy Innocents.

You know, the reason St Joseph had to flee with Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt.

"After they had left, suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him." 

Matthew 2:13

These paintings are called "Massacre of the Innocents" by

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

The first one is located in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

It was painted in 1611-12

The details of the paintings are amazing.
Go HERE for more explanation

 This 2nd painting was painted by Rubens near the end of his life,

in 1636-38

It is on display in Munich, Germany

Both paintings are amazing to look at.

The anger, the pain, 

the fear, the mothers and fathers fighting for their children,

mothers interrupted while breastfeeding.  

This is a feast day, 

because these Holy Innocents, who were killed, 

did not die in vain.

Jesus lived

and opened the gates of Heaven for them and all of us

when He died on the cross.

These paintings and this feast day remind me to pray for anyone who has lost a child.

Our Lady of Guadalupe!

For the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Catholic Cuisine has a ton of ideas for celebrating this day!

(like HERE is another one of my recipes for this day, but my kids like

Sopapias better)

 

 

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe HERE

I actually first made this recipe a very, very, long time ago. I was in 9th grade and had to bring a dish from another country for some class and I picked Mexico. Little did I know I'd be using it to teach my children some day so many years later!

Sopapias

4 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

4-5 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons shortening

1 1/4 cups milk (or more if needed, I needed)

Oil (for frying)

Powdered sugar (for coating)

In large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Cut shortening into dry mixture with fork. Add milk, mix well. Here you will need to add more milk if you can't get the dough to form a ball. Next form the ball and cover bowl and let stand 30-60 minutes.

On a well floured surface, roll dough to thickness of 1/4 inch and cut into squares or whatever shape you'd like I guess, but I always do little squares.

Heat oil in pan and place dough shapes in the oil. Cook until brown on both sides, constantly flipping and checking. (I heat it to a med/high temp) The shapes will puff a little.

Drain on papertowel or paper bag and coat with powdered sugar. (I put powdered sugar in a baggie and shake the bread to coat!)

 

My daughters can't wait to make these this year!

Happy feast day!

 

 

Feast of St Nicholas!

Our cake turned out pretty cute!

The kids are on a candy high and we get to go to First Friday Mass

and homeschool rollerskating today!  

Please pray for this little Babycakes!  

She gets to make her first Confession tomorrow!

Today she got to take a bath in my big tub (by herself)

and we talked about how clean our bodies get from taking baths

and how clean God will make our souls after Confession!

We always use Christine's idea 

of a WHITE gift, symbolizing a clean, pure soul

(soap, bath scrubby, white flower bow thingy, book marker, white chocolate candy)

We also bought her a pretty WHITE sweater dress with leggings!

The big kids are excited for her,
they keep telling her how good she will feel afterward!

Confession always makes us feel so happy and full of grace!
If you keep your soul in check, you will yearn for more.

 

Mary Our Mother

Hail Mary Full of Grace, (Luke 1:28)

The Lord is with thee (Luke 1:48)

Blessed are you among women

 and blessed is the fruit of your womb,

 Jesus (Luke 1:42)

Holy Mary, Mother of God (Luke 1:43)

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of of our death

John (19:26-27)

Amen.

(all biblical people!)

We Catholics didn't make this up!

Today is a feast day in the Catholic Church.

The feast of the Assumption of Mary.

We believe she was assumed into heaven, body and soul.

Just as God prevented her body to be harmed from sin in life,

He also prevented her body from corruption and decay in death.

(which is really life)

(I know, that's deep)

See here

and here

And here!

I must defend my faith, my love of Mary.

She is God's mother.

PERIOD

No question.

We are to be like Jesus.

And

well, He loved Mary.  

Simple as that. 

I love her

I don't worship her

I worship God, the One, True God.

I love Mary.

Why is this such a hang up for people?

Mary always points to her Son.

Always.
She never takes away,
 she only adds to my relationship with Jesus.

Have a strong relationship with His mother,

you WILL have a strong relationship with Him. 

If someone loves my mother, well, there is something extra there.

There just is.

 

 We made our blue jello this morning 

so we can celebrate tonite with these

(only we don't have the fancy parfait glasses)

I don't think the kiddos will mind eating them out of a bowl, do you?

(Fake smiles courtesy of my 3 youngest girlies)

Happy Feast day!

Thankful for my faith 

and how biblically sound it is.

Celebrating All Saints Day (Years Past)

 I've been looking at old pictures (while I pump breastmilk)

This picture is from 2009

I think anything before this was not digital

We have

 St Zita, with the broom

St Ursala

The Blessed Mother with Baby Jesus

David, with his giant prop Goliath

(it helps to have a really tall daddy)

and a Y shaped stick and rock

 This is from 2010

I included it because if you click on the picture,

you can see St John the Baptist with his head on a plate!

Creative kids we have in our homeschool group!

 Here's our kiddos in 2010

St Juan Diego

St Kateri Tekakwitha
St Clare

The Blessed Mother with Baby Jesus

I always want to bring something really cool to share, 

but usually do something lame like this cake....

 Last year I made these cookies

a little better...

 Above, we have St Maximilian Kolbe

I just took an old Tae Kwon Do uniform and painted it

 St Joan of Arc

(she's borrowing Goliath's shield from years past)

 St Veronica

(yes, we do the same art projects every year--notice the door)

 I just taped the Holy Face of Jesus

 (a printed off picture from the Shroud of Turin)

to a flour towel, (her veil)

 And, shocking, I know, we have once again,

The Blessed Mother with not Baby Jesus, but the world in her hand!

 OK, we actually had 2 Blessed Mothers

And the snacks were not too bad!

Holy Ghost cookies!

Nutter Butters dipped in melted white chocolate chips, with mini choc chip eyes!

For some reason, we were running late (I know, you are surprised)

and I didn't get a shot of all of them lined up, dang it!

This year we have coming up:

St Longinus

St Maria Goretti

St Philomena

and

I talked Colette

 out of being the Blessed Mother

into being St Kateri Tekakwitha

But 

no worries, Sweetie Pie will take over 

The Blessed Mother and Baby Jesus!!

Just thought I'd share, in case you needed some ideas!

For more ideas, go to Lacy at Catholic Icing!!

or 

go to Catholic Inspired and get tons of ideas, 

click on her sidebar for Saint costume ideas

Of course you can also go to 

Jessica's Shower of Roses for tons of ideas too!

Halloween/All Hallows Eve

 I made these cookies for Monday for our first party....bad recipe!!

Jedi loved them, but not many others did!

They are cute, though, aren't they?

 Our daytime Halloween homeschool party

We played games

We ate food

 Then the costumed kiddos and mamas walked to the local nursing home

 where the cute old people there loved seeing them!  

Look at this cute old lady looking at my pumpkin!!

Afterward, the kiddos walked back and gave oral reports, skits, and piano recitals

Oh, and some 5 year olds told 5 year old jokes (like my 5 year old)

You know....

"There was a deer, who ran across the grass...why?"

"To pick an apple!"

I wish all you non-homeschoolers could see all these homeschoolers,

they are certainly not unsocialized, they have no inhibitions,

 they just get up and do it with such confidence!

Duh

There are no bullies to give presentations in front of

They are confident because they are in positive environments all the time.

(excuse my little dig for homeschooling and it's benefits)

( I really don't think everyone should do it, I'm just defending our decision to do so)

 Onto the All Saint's party that evening...

We have St Maxamilian Kolbe

(I stayed up til 1am painting that jacket!)

 St Veronica

(wiped the face of Jesus on the way of the Cross)

 St Joan of Arc

 Mary, Queen of all Saints

Or

as she says:

"St Mary"

 and Mary, Mother of Jesus

both littles lost their crowns and props in the van never to put them on again....

 Sweetie Pie really liked this little puppy (St Bernard!)

who really liked her baby Jesus....

 Jedi is in band and he and the other trumpet players played "Oh,When the Saints...Go Marching In..."

about 15 times while all the homeschool saints marched around the whole cafeteria...

It was a great night!

Usually our group has each family bring one carnival type game and we run it...

This year, the family that put it on, planned all the games and had mostly teens run them...

All we had to do was show up with our kiddos, bring some kind of finger food

 and provide treats/prizes for the games!

It was really fun!

Happy All Saints!

Feast of St Nicholas!

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas! I also want to wish my friend Lori, a very happy birthday!

(not sure if she even reads, but just in case!)
The kiddos loved the cake last night!
My husband owns a half-way home for men in recovery, so they always get our sweet leftovers, I'm sure they were happy this morning!

St Nicholas visited our home last night!

(the bench must be put in front of the fireplace because of a certain 1 year old who loves to open the doors constantly)

Reading and watching to do today (after school and outside)

Check out our breakfast bread we made this morning!

Here or here.

I have school to teach, laundry to do, baby to bathe, supper to plan, Christmas cards to order, and a million piles to get to today!

In other words,

It's Monday.

For the Feast of St Nicholas

Our St Nicholas cake!

Head on over to Catholic Cuisine for the recipe!

Happy Feast day, don't forget to put out your shoes!

A Bunch of Stuff

I know I should do one of those "7 things" things, but...It's easier for me to just do a post once in a while called "A Bunch of Stuff."

I hope I don't bore you too much!

Here's a picture of the baby on our walk (with me :)

to the graveyard for All Souls Day...

Next to the graveyard, there is a big open field, I'm sure for future dead people, but for now, we love to run in it! (well, the kids love to run in it, I like to take pictures of the kids running in it)

OK, kids, please be respectful of the dead, please don't step on the graves....
or lay on them (Jedi)...

There are a lot of babies buried alongside our woods, on the edge of the graveyard. So sad.

there are a lot of little kids too, so young, like 2, 5 and 7.

Must have been some kind of epidemic or something.

So sad.

The oldest 2 graves we could find were 1892.

Graveyards are so interesting, I love the history.

Look how close these people were buried to the tree, I'm sure they were not that close when they were buried.

We picked several graves and prayed for those particular souls.

OK on to more uplifting things...

NO CANDY TODAY

I can really tell the difference when the kiddos eat candy and when they don't.

It's much better when they don't.

Today is a "don't" day.

Mama needs it to be a "don't" day.

Maybe tomorrow will be a "do" day.

My sweet, chubby cheek, little, 4 year old is going through her terrible 2's now.

(Did I tell you there is NO CANDY today?)

I broke down and bought some of these cute dresses. I've always wanted to do it, not sure why I haven't...but Mary Hannah needed dresses, so I did it!
They really are nice, great quality dresses.

I think I am going to order a couple for Babycakes and Ballerina Rosie.

Oh, Sarah Palin, I really like you, really, I do, but why are you doing this?

I think it will be beautiful to see Alaska, but why a reality show? Why?

Seriously, what are you thinking?

We got Toy Story 3 last night (Netflix)

I have to say, it was my favorite of all the Toy Story movies.

I cried from the time Andy's mom looked into his room until the end.

My friend Susie, told me that this movie has especially appealed to moms out there because I don't think a mom could watch without crying or at least tearing up.

I kept saying to the kids "Aren't you crying?" and they would laugh. Daddy would laugh too.

He was not crying.

It was a great movie tears and all!