Thursday, April 24, 2014

White Pelicans! Yes, in Kansas

Pelicans are in early Christian symbol- as in the Christian Catholics. We spotted a flock of them today at Redmond Dam and Reservoir. We knew about them because of bird watching book we bought for all the sparrows in our bird feeders.  They typically migrate to the east of us, but we live to far away to see them. I was surprised we got today- completely unexpected and a neat surprise!




Tuesday, April 22, 2014

free downloads today...JP II Divine Mercy and Veggie Tales today

#1. Light House Catholic Media is offering this MP3 for free this week. I received the email, not sure if it's online on their website, but you might want to check.  It's a VERY good talk! The Second Greatest Story Ever Told

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Holy Saturday late night- just a few pictures ;) Laying Jesus in our own tomb, Lego Rosaries...

Here's the picture post..

tomb felt piece put up, but the tomb is sealed


Made a tomb..


we went by candle light and removed the purple clothes...



wrapped Jesus in white burial clothes



laid Jesus in the tomb 



Set the guard and sealed the tomb

 the Saints await His Resurrection so they too can enter Heaven

(kids go to bed)


Now what mommy does...

Jesus' Resurrection! The rock is rolled back and the burial cloth is folded up.



The Saints have been raised with Jesus' Resurrection.



Crown of Thorns (thorns removed from sacrifices kids made daily) is now a birds nest


found these fun little statues today at Goodwill- one for each of the kids

(what's cooler was the little one was made in Italy, and the other made in Mexico- I am guessing someone visited both places)


Lego Rosaries for everyone and a few books and of course candy!



cute little boxes- for Knox and Genna- just for fun



Have a Happy Easter! He has risen indeed!

Friday, April 18, 2014

Our Holy Thursday Dinner, we are all called to Discipleship...washing each other's feet

(yes I saw the typo lol sorry!)
I was able to obtain a copy of Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church late this Lent, and I didn't have much time to sit down and study it. But there was an amazing script for a Catholic Seder meal in it. I think next year we will go for it and invite the grandparents and cousins. It had blessings and toasts and explanations for the roasted meat and bitter herbs that made sense in the context of the Old Testament and what we know was fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. It seemed simple and straight forward- and Catholic.



This year though, we washed each others feet. To keep it orderly, we drew names from folded papers in a jar. I went first and the person who drew my name washed my feet- happened to be my husband. Then when he was done, he sat down, and Knox washed his feet. Then Knox sat down, and Genna washed his feet. Then Genna sat down and Brenden washed her feet. Then Brenden who had been waiting very patiently but was really wanting to get his little foot washed finally got to sit down, and I washed his foot with the help of Genna. Big smiles!























( For prayer we read the Gospel of John) Then we sat down and ate our meal. We had roasted Chicken, green beans (Green Thursday/Holy Thursday), roasted potatoes and unleavened bread. 



Bacon wrapped green beans for Green Thursday, and racon potatoes- they are on my Pinterest Board.




Paschal Lamb shortbread cookies from the bakery- wow were they good.


Genna poking bread dough with a fork


I wrapped the unleavened bread (our version of Matzos) in white clothe/napkins- to represent Jesus' burial clothes. The holes the kids poked in it with forks represent how Jesus was pierced with nails and a soldiers lance. (I didn't get the stripes part till after the fact- which would have been on the other side of the bread- by His stripes we are saved). The kids were excited and chatty about the bread and the symbolism with the burial clothe- I was sort of surprised how excited that made them. After dinner we ran out the door to Mass with my parents. 

Have a Holy and Blessed Triduum!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Felt Easter Lily from your kids hand prints.

How to do with tutorial. A very simple Easter craft. You can even glue a pin to the flower to wear.

Czech Easter traditions, Spy Wednesday jidášky for breakfast

We are not Czech..but our cousins are. Uncle Kale's family hails from Czechoslovakia. In honor of our Uncle Kale (although I am not sure he knows this) we made Judases bread for breakfast and ate 3 spoonfuls of honey. Here's some other interesting info that the Czech's do during Holy Week.  ( I am pretty sure my kids would probably like jumping in a river). They actually serve the jidášky for Holy Thursday or Green Thursday but seems to also make sense for Spy Wednesday. Either way it's a neat tradition. You still have time to make this for tomorrow for breakfast. (Cooking hint below).





Oh now, did you think I slaved away in the kitchen making real bread? No ;0 silly! I used Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls from Pillsbury, sold at Walmart. I rolled the dough in longs strands and then braided them to look like ropes. There are twisted rope variations you can do, I just kept it simple. It not only tasted so good (which was surprising for canned cinnamon rolls) the kids were excited too. Mehh..someone else who is more gourmet might be able to make the recipe and make them right- it's located on Catholic Cuisine


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Palm Sunday poem

I happen to be reading my final book for Lent, and this was in the first chapter...quite appropriate this week.


  I saw the Conquerors riding by
   With cruel lip and faces wan:
 Musing on kingdoms sacked and burned
There rode the Mongol Genghis Khan;

And Alexander, like a God, 
Who sought to weld the world in one:
And Caesar with his laurel wreath;

And leading, like a star the van, 
Heedless of upstretched arm and groan,
Inscrutable Napoleon went
Dreaming of empire and alone.....

Then all perished from the earth
As fleeting shadows from a glass, 
And, conquering down the centuries, 
Came Christ, the Swordless, on an ass?

-Harry Kemp
The Cross and the Beatitudes, Lessons on Love and Forgiveness, Fulton J. Sheen


I love this book...

I have some other good one liners from it. I think I might read it outloud to the kids at some point.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

prehail garden of tulips 32 weeks of MODG of Kindergarten..done

This past Thursday Knox finished his MODG Kindergarten syllabus. We are all very proud, he chose to eat out as his award at Carriage Crossing in, Yoder , KS. I love that place and we were happy to escort him there! I was discouraged last year because he isn't quite 6 yet- end of May he will be 6. I was told to hold him back by several people- umm... glad I didn't.

Here's our year..from the first day in August
these are our school uniform shirts (St. Michael's Catholic School)









Knox thought school was going to be so much fun because of the  "Schultüte". Brenden was just along for the ride. He had no idea but knew something special was going on. He was so excited.



I remember hearing "You're the best mom!", "Homeschooling is so much fun!", "I love you, I love homeschooling", "This is the best day of my life!" and this went on and on. Oh and then they wanted to make sure they get Schultüte's again.


I used Shower of Roses templates for the candy labels- they are so cute! I love her stuff!

Genna really surprised me this year, she has all the poetry memorized, bible stories, and can do all the counting and some reading and easy addition. So I am not sure what we will do next year, she needs to go through the Kindergarten course and do the work books but it will be sort of easy for her. So I need to think on that, it will be a lot of review.

Brenden didn't get any info via osmosis like Genna did...lol So he will be on track for a normal Kindergarten.



last day of Kindergarten 2014


pre-hail garden

According to Knox his greatest Kindergarten achievement was learning how to do and read math problems especially subtraction. (I thought it was getting through the entire Angel reader and lessons and completing all the other workbooks, I left them out for people to pick up and admire.) He recalled on the first day of school and his wonderful Schultüte experience.


before the hail a few nights ago

Also my parents got to go down to Houston to the AAPG's conference and they brought back a treasure chest of souvenirs from the conference- it's sort of a pricey conference so I guess that ups the ante for free stuff. Grandma brought them over the last day of school. What a treat! Geology Rocks!

"Take a bite out of Science"


I am glad we got done in April, as we are trying to sell our house currently. Since my husband's job has very long days it's a good break for me too. I need to focus on some other things right now, like a garage sale and keeping the house picked up for showings, and now we have time to do some other fun things, like more geology field trips. And I can reinforce a few things with Knox in reading and math.

Next year I am considering taking off the 40 days of Lent, so we can observe keep focus on what we should be doing for Lent and just focusing on Holy Heroes and faith activities during Lent. I am not sure how far back that will push us on the calendar if I do go for it. I kind of felt like I should have done it for Advent too. Something to pray about ;)

Hope you have a holy Holy Week!

Kicking off hail week...yikes I mean HOLY WEEK! Hosanna! Palm Sunday



I knew this morning was the last day to enjoy my tulip garden. As bad weather was forecasted for our area. We had a little bit of quarter size hail today right after lunch, my poor flowers and our truck! Guess the snow is coming next.


After the hail we took pictures with our folded palms, and the kids took some over to our great neighbors.


looking a bit tattered from hail

I would like to say I predicted snow back in February for April due to late Easter, I am holding to my hypothesis that a later vernal equinox means we hold onto colder weather patterns longer (it was March 20th I think.)

It tried to rain while we attempted to do this palm and foot print painting for Palm Sunday. We went out on the sidewalk and it sprinkled, went back in the garage and it stopped..and repeat.





But we finally got it done. We did the feet out on the sidewalk and it sprinkled but it's okay, we didn't make a mess except for making the grass a little brown.


They also had been working on this True Presence picture from Catholic Icing- it's a free download for now. (I think you better hurry and download it for later. I bet she plans on selling it at some point as her post indicates.)



Genna finished before him...lol

They both have worked on it since last week. I can't believe how well Genna has started to color now. I can tell she is really concentrating.