Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas!

mmmm...tasty.... brownies with some sort of vanilla peanut butter pudding and chocolate Cool Whip. Pretty sweet for the Angelic Doctor's feast day. (It's somewhere on my Pinterest board)




 we couldn't even eat it all... it was TOO HEAVENLY.. ;)

St. Thomas Pray for Us!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Happy feast dayS weekend! And short picture review of Roses in the Snow A Tale of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weekend! There were two great feasts to celebrate.  St. Francis de Sales who is a doctor of the Church was on Saturday- do you know after his death how a little French nun who was his good friend (like Clare and Francis), St. Jane de Chantal was blessed by his dead hand which appeared to come back to life? It was witnessed by many in her convent and they still have her veil. 
 Then today was the Feast of St. Paul's conversion. Today's second reading really strongly demonstrated how radical his conversion was, "let those who have wives act as not having them," (1 Cor. 7:29 -31). Thank goodness my husband didn't act differently after Mass! lol  Anyway if you let those words sink in it really does make you wonder at his change of heart and how crazy and burning his thoughts of Jesus must have been. Here's a song about his conversion- love it, The Road to Damascus by Kevin Heider.

So...book review.
We love our new book about St. Elizabeth of Hungary! I wished I would have had it last fall during her feast day.  But the snow in the pictures will do you just as well, to make you want to cuddle up and read with your kids. It's really cute and the water color pictures are beautiful, it has some ethnic words which might tongue tie you but that's one things I love about books- we learn something new! (I will say I knew one of the words already) Same author and illustrator as Saint Felix and the Spider. I am hoping those two keep coming out with some more books, Lydia Grace Kadar-Kallen's pictures seem to pair well with Dessi Jackson's story telling, sort of like peanut butter and jelly, which I can say from personal mom experience always go well together ;)
My favorite part of these books, is that they never overpriced! Right now it happens that Roses in the Snow A Tale of St. Elizabeth of Hungary is on sale for $7.99  and both books have free shipping, I think I bought mine for a dollar more, so it's good that it dropped.






Friday, January 23, 2015

St. Patrick and St. Brendan the Navigator puzzles



Just in time to start the first one for St. Patrick's Day. The St. Brendan the Navigator I will save for his feast day- but when Brenden gets a little older. My kids love puzzles, now Brenden our littlest one is finally getting the concept down. I am so proud of him, he can manage to put a 4 piece puzzle together- he does is over and over and over again. These are on Amazon, I checked the company website and they were not listed on there as far as I could tell- so Amazon may be the only option if you want one. (Oh, there was a cute St. Francis as well).

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

St. Agnes Cheerios lambs


It's completely okay to giggle at these lambs- we aren't professional chefs here in momma's kitchen. We had fun making them though, and they do taste very very good. Agnes means lamb...yes yes, we all know that Shannon...okay that was for the non-Catholics.


Do what you would do to make some Rice Krispie treats- except with Cheerios. I used whole grain- there healthy- yea like that matters. You also need Almond Bark, pretzels, toothpicks and yogurt covered raisins.



 plops of lamb's bodies


Make some legs with white chocolate and pretzels.



 I think depending on how big your Lambs' body is, your pretzel legs will need to be broken in half.  They will break in half on the cookie sheet anyway just because they stick to the cookie sheet while they dry.


Make a lamb body (we sprayed out hands with PAM) to keep the melted marshmallow from sticking to us.


Shove their poor little broken lamby pretzel legs into the body.  I know some of you would be worried about "oh they aren't the same length, they won't stand."  They do, all mine stood up, so don't feel bad if they aren't perfect, especially since you probably will be working with a 6, 5 and 2 year old. Squeeze that ball of goo back together if it feels loose, it will stick.


Last take the tooth pick (you may need to cut it down) and shove a white yogurt covered raisin on the end. Then push that sucker into the body of the lamb.


You could take this further and make eyes for them- I was ready to be done with them. We dripped the rest of the melted white chocolate across their backs. You could roll them in the white chocolate or coconut, whatever you have!

Sancta Agnes, Ora Pro Nobis!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Happy Feast of St. Sebastian- and arrow snack

The stores put out their candy months in advance it seems for holidays- so take advantage of it! These were made with Hanover's pretzels and Cherry Jelly Hearts in honor of St. Sebastian. The red hearts represent his martyrdom- which he suffered twice.










Later tonight, our homeschool group had a meeting (it happened they needed a meeting place) so we volunteered our house. The arrows were a hit!





Sunday, January 18, 2015

Our Latin Mass experience

Let me say- WOW!  Today we did our first ever Latin Mass so I am going to give you my reaction...WOW! Did you write that down? First let me say that the music is beautiful- I haven't the slightest clue if it's like that every time, but wow- it's deep, resounding, reflective and Latin.. the music definitely raises the level of formalness of the Mass. Then there are 7? altar servers. The procession into the church is beautiful. What really got me was the majestic consecration- talk about something truly beautiful to behold. Now I am not saying our English masses aren't worthy or anything of that sort, but this was just done differently. And surprisingly enough my kids paid attention, we didn't find ourselves lost because the missals were in English side by side with the Latin. We also loved the veils. My daughter loved her veil and since then she has been dancing around all day with it. She held really still though for mass- it's almost like the veil forced the wiggles to halt for awhile. Veils are beautiful- bottom line, they are fun to wear and ultra feminine.
  
 Not everyone's experience will be the same as mine**I came from a church where the procession was always delayed almost every mass and it appeared to be a circus of confusion each time because the pastor was doing other things apparently, he would even stop mass and walk out into the parking lot frequently and we would sit and wait. Who am I to judge if he had legitimate stuff going on, but I will say I had never in my entire cradle Catholic life been to a mass where that ever happened once and this was a weekly thing. I can say that the priest did bring our marriage into the church and brought my husband to an understanding...that he was was very good at. And I am ever extremely thankful! He had some good jokes too ;)

Oh remember about two years ago when the changed some of the words in our English liturgy, like the "And with your Spirit"? I see why they needed to now- everyone who reads the missal would be able to see it and say "oh yea I get it- duh," You don't need to be a Latin whiz to know that line if you saw it for the first time, makes you wonder why they took so long actually.

Don't wait around, go see for yourself! Make a trek to a Latin Mass.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

For those poking around and who are curious about Latin masses- like me ;)

  If you want some good reading on what Latin Mass is in regards to value within the Church, Pope Benedict XVI had some very insightful things to say, of course from a few years back. (Letter and the Document) I never paid attention to it to be honest, I just went with the flow...until now.  For those who like me had no idea this information was even out there, if you can take the time to educate yourself- after all the Latin Mass is our roots.  I see a lot of beauty in the old tradition from just reading about it online. It's been very romanticized- if that makes sense, and not in a way like a modern romance novel and it was never done purposefully.  The awesome black and white pictures, the Latin -any unknown foreign language aids in romanticism through the mystery of simply NOT KNOWING IT, the veiling, the incense, the garments, it has it's own book that works on a 1 year cycle (instead of 3 yr) it all seems very... mystic.

  I could never wrap my finger around why women like to wear veils or mantillas still, or even understand why "traddies" (Thank you Catholic Memes), "seemed to be separated from the rest of us".  I never had a good answer, I read online about people "feeling called"- well sorry-I don't buy the being called part- that would imply other things. Going to mass is not a calling, cleaning my chicken coop out is not a calling, doing dishes is not a calling, my kids poop pants and vomit- it's just my obligation. But I do see why people are pulled and attracted to it. That I can understand and identify with.

 As I asked opinions of those around me, I got weird answers based on assumptions- it was obvious none of us knew why. Boy are we all wrong. It wasn't something taught or explained in the Catholic school system obviously, now I see a big gap in my knowledge of the Church and tradition, and where my personal and Church family experience of the mass actually has roots. I think that when the vernacular came in the long lived traditions were tossed out with the Latin and that has been an issue for me as well. There is a whole generation, or few generations, of us Catholic school kids who have no idea what a Latin mass is let alone even know they are still being said somewhere near by. And then back to traditions...oh we are missing so much in our present lives, yes I get the blank stares all the time...you do what?

  So guess what?  I am taking my kids to a Latin Mass tomorrow. I have been wanting to find out now for a very long time what this Latin Mass is and isn't. My kids are very excited, I am nervous- just because I am worried they may become lost and not sit as still without knowing the language.  The church we are going to- it echo's something fierce....pin drops sound like thunder booming. BUT I feel like this is necessary part of my growth as an adult Catholic, who is constantly being reconverted- believe me I have had quite a few reconversions.

  I remember playing as a child with my comrades on the playground before we could be "caught" playing Mass and reprimanded by the teacher, we said that High Mass was at noon. Where did I learn that term High Mass from? I never attended a High Mass in my life, let alone understood what one was. That is my only memory of anything at all related to the old mass. And the only reason I recalled that childhood memory was because I recently learned that there is a High Mass and Low Mass.

 So go ahead take the time to at least read through those documents above if you have been poking around already wondering and want something concrete and authoritative- they are short and easy to read.  Oh and I read this inspiring quote as well.  Pope Saint John XXIII said about the value of Latin, "The Catholic Church," he explained, "has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular" (Veterum Sapientia, On the Promotion of the Study of Latin).

Thursday, January 15, 2015

St. Brigid's Fire


"I would like a great lake of beer For the King of Kings. I would like to be watching heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity." ~ St. Brigid of Ireland

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Epiphany dinner and cake, prayer card

There wasn't quite enough batter in my one box for some reason, so I had to pour some extra strawberry batter into the second pan on top of the sprinkle mix...it came out pretty. And there is a baby Jesus in there somewhere. Genna found it when we cut and ate the cake!




 Putting on the last M&M





Be careful with that cake Knox!



Miss Julia cutting stars for an Epiphany Star Appetizer




They decided to come in formal wear to dine





He was working very hard on a felt crown, he got a lot done by the time we left.


mmm...chocolate


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Epiphany candy bars for $0.25! (Erin McFarland our "music teacher" needs to hear us singing)

LOL you think I want you to see the cool candy bars first??  LOOK AT MY CUTE KIDS SAYS THE CRAZY MOM!
;)

They wore their crowns today, up until Knox left for his first piano lesson at Grandma Fisher's.



he was trying to pose I think, but lost it


so then I snapped another when he wasn't looking so he could achieve his goal


Okay, so then Genna says let me see my picture..and then says "Okay take one of me thinking" ...lol  Seriously where do they get this stuff?


oops little out of focus...okay redo!


better but the finger isn't as exaggerated Genna


I love my daughters pony tail..she has curly hair. It's loosened up a lot these past two years but it's still curls under my fingers beautifully!


Okay okay....

I love Christmas clearances!


Wrapped them up for some special people in some goodie bags.  Tomorrow we get to go to an Epiphany party, we have some goodies for that party too.






Happy Feast of the Epiphany!