Thursday, March 23, 2017

Books for gifts

I love shopping for new books! Here's some that the kids are going to receive for Easter.  I try and buy good used ones- that always cuts my cost way down.  I especially like buying ones that have been retired from libraries- they always have a dust cover. Be sure and check ebay for used books as well.



You can find cute little Matryoshka nesting dolls that match on Amazon as well. I am currently looking to find one set for Zoe that has some hens.


The pictures in it are lovely! The animals are so cute.



A great Easter story....is












The bunny illustrations are adorable! Any little child will love this book.





The Saint of the broom!



Hope you all are enjoying this awesome weather! My kids don't get a spring break, but they still have been hustling to get their work done so they can enjoy the outdoors every day. Have a great week!

Monday, March 20, 2017

Holy cannoli with San Guiseppe!

We began praying the Litany to St. Joseph back on February 5th. If you haven't read it yet, it's not very long. My kids memorized it in 2 weeks, it's beautiful. They are counting it as part of their poetry in our MODG curriculum. I am having them draw a picture with it.


We have a beautiful St. Joseph altar at our home parish, this picture (of that buff St. Joe) is at our local Cathedral, as our parish doesn't offer mass on Mondays. He looks more like a blacksmith than a carpenter I think. My kids always say it doesn't look like him! lol But the scene is very stunning, Mary is looking towards the opposite side of the church at Christ crucified, and Joseph is looking at Mary.



We spiced up our little St. Joseph's altar with the new Catholic Icing St. Joseph Altar printable! I am glad she posted something! I sure have missed reading her stuff. We still don't have a worth St. Joseph statue. Our friend Cheryl had a lovely altar a few years ago if you want a better visual.


We decided to make Italian desserts for the feast day tea party. We had sloppy Joe's for dinner (of course!)


We made cannoli cups with real imported Italian mascarpone and ricotta cheese. And the tarts are imported mascarpone cheese as well. It's hard to resist!




The kids sliced fruit and decorated their tarts. Now there is no way we ate all this tonight, some is going to our neighbors tomorrow- they aren't Catholic or have a clue about our feast days but we like to share anyway ;)


This is a cannoli face.




This weekend my sister also planned her annual St. Patrick's day feast, we had a load of great Irish food there- we basically came in town from 8 hours of rock hunting and drove straight to her house covered in dirt, we were exhausted. We went to Cottonwood Falls, one of our favorite places to visit in Kansas. It's so scenic! We used to ride our motorcycles there waaaay back when we dated. Yes I still have my class M.


A beautiful over look of the Flint Hills. One of our progeny is missing, he was up the road with his hands in the dirt.




I fooled Brenden, he has never been out in open prairie or a cow pasture, so he hasn't been familiarized with what cow patty's are. So when he asked about them,  I told him to pick up (a dried one) and it was the biggest fossil in Kansas. He asked what it was, I said a cow patty. He looked at me and said, mommy are your tricking me? lol! My sister Erin actually thought they were fossils when she was a kid. They get dried out enough, so I can see why the shape can fool someone!



Can you see brad waay out there with the kids?


This is what we were looking for on that particular stop. Goethite pseudomorph after pyrite. Very small, geometric, and hard to find, and this is the only place in Kansas it is found.
 And of course plenty of fields being burned. 



We ended our day with a walk on the river tonight before we ate our desserts. It was so beautiful here- warm day, so warm we could have swam.




St. Joseph Pray for Us!

Monday, March 6, 2017

One of our favorite family Lenten devotions



Our kids love The Stations of the Cross. A while back we made homemade stations to use at home through out the week. We like to mount them near our windows in our homeschool room in the house we currently are in. Each station we light a tea light. I always get scented Polish Ikea tea lights blessed at Candlemas for us to use. (You have to carefully check the packaging, usually the apple ones were from Poland. They are getting harder to find, lately more of their candles are not imported but made in the U.S.A.  I know I should be happy for that, but I really like my Polish ones.)
So far Zoe hasn't destroyed them...lol  These were made all by hand. There are directions out there on the internet and even a kit you can buy, it's the exact same thing as making them by hand pretty much. (Make Stations of the Cross, or hereor here, or here.)
  I have a pile of books we have collected over the years from the Goodwill and Amazon and even a printable version we love to use to follow along with the Holy Heroes CD version of the Stations. It's really handy having so many books to follow along as the kids never seem to get tired from week to week, or through out the week of using the same old one. They love using  a different one each time.




We have added these awesome books, with real art work to our collection, Children's Stations of the Cross and ABC Life of Christ. 






Sacred Heart Prayer book- what an awesome find at the Goodwill! I have never seen it anywhere else, but there is one copy on Amazon. It had an 8th grade graduation sticker inside of it from a local Catholic School with the students name. I almost wanted to call them and tell them they were crazy for giving it away..lol

Jesus Make Me Worthy- has some wonderful  stations of the Cross, 1st Communion prayers and Litanies and Confession guidelines. Also if you attend Latin Mass- this book is helpful for this purpose. It comes in black and white, for boys and girls. Each of our kids has received one for their First Communion.


One of our other Lenten traditions is using sacrifice beads. The last year or two, we have pulled thorns from the Crown of Thorns or added flowers to a paper sacrifice cross in our homeschool room. They kids have the option to do either any time. We definitely run out of room on the cross and run out of toothpicks so we may add a bean jar to help them see the fruits of their labor. You can find out more about those ideas on my old posts about Lent.


Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Mary's Meals- Lenten Almsgiving

Hi again (tonight) We decided for a family Lenten project that we would try and fund raise (alms) for a school in Liberia through Mary's Meals. They can be found here. The founder is a Scottish Catholic. They provide meals to children in the most impoverished areas world wide by feeding them a meal at school, the videos on their website very informative, watch them with your kids. 
Can you imagine as a child, walking a few miles every day, just to go get one meal, and then after they eat they can concentrate a little to learn a little.  We talked about this today (on Ash Wednesday) and wondered what it felt like to just have that one meal and no snacks. How would our bodies and minds feel, especially while we are trying to learn here in our homeschool. 
 If you can please support Amos A. Fully Primary school, clicking on the link below. We sure would appreciate the support. Any amount $5 or even $10 is appreciated. God Bless!


Shannon is raising money to feed 218 children for a whole school year at Amos A.Fully Primary School in Liberia.

The Catholic Chicken Coop Etsy Shop now open.

I made an Etsy shop. It's called the Catholic Chicken Coop. Please click here to view the handmade jewelry I had previously posted, there are some new earrings and a matching bracelet.  All Italian holy medals! You are always welcome to contact me for custom pieces or specific colors or holy medals. Please share with your friends!