Good-bye June!

Where did you go?

Our feast day table was a bit hodge podgy this last month.  But here are a few of our decorations.

 We came across this card during an organizing spree- perfect timing. 

When you turn it one way, it is the Sacred Heart.

The other, the Immaculate Heart. (The photo kind of blurs the two hearts)

For the feast of Corpus Christi.

Votive candle holder dollar store find.

However!! Note to self- never ever leave a flame lit near the open door and think it is safe enough. The wind came through and blew this right in to the flame! I really thought I had checked it out, but was obviously mistaken!

Made a few years ago by one of the boys.

A fun June read: 

This book contains snippets from the lives of 115 saints. Some familiar (Bernadette, Jerome), and some not so familiar (Ansgar, Benilde) are included. Each saint gets just a page or so description plus a little "thought for the day". I'll admit that some thoughts are better than others, but we are still enjoying this fun little book that came to us via James' Easter basket. 

Happy Feast Day of Blessed Junipero Serra!! 

A favorite of us Californians- click his name to hear about him. 

Two Feast Days

September 14th- The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
and
September 15th- The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

You can listen to a brief explanation of these feast days by clicking on the feast day name.

We did a craft for each of these days as well as reading about each feast day in our Saint of the Day book. My "go-to" craft source is our Seton Art 1- it is a first grade book (my boys are a bit older than that), but it has a nice simple craft for many of our feast days throughout the year.

While the crafts in this book are simple, they are not childish, so even my older two boys don't balk at helping out. The purpose of these crafts is for us to spend some time together creating while learning about some of the treasures of our faith.

Our two projects:

The boys worked together to make these two crafts.

The cross for the Sept. 14 feast day.

Our Lady of Sorrows mobile- the pictures don't do it justice. Mary is at on top with 7 hearts hanging from a ribbon below- each heart has one of the sorrows printed on it. The bottom oval has the title "The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady".

Even if you missed the Sept. 15th feast day, it is not too late to honor "Our Lady of Sorrows". The month of September is dedicated to this devotion. You can read more about it at About (dot) com and find some more cool craft ideas at Catholic Icing.

THE FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Michelle (my daughter) started making these craft bags for me last summer. In each bag is a copy of the instructions from Seton Art 1, the pattern needed for the project and most of the materials needed for three boys to each complete the project. Scissors, glue and crayons and other materials that are not included are highlighted on the instruction sheet and added when we do the project. Today we pulled out our "Sacred Heart" craft.

The Pattern

Materials for one craft.

James gluing his project together.

Paul's completed project- James gave his away to Grandma before I took a picture!

"We show our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by honoring the symbol of His Heart of Flesh."

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Great books to have on hand for all feast days and saints celebrations are Father Lovisik's small volumes. We have this one about the Promises of the Sacred Heart.

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This explanation of the symbol of the Sacred Heart comes from Fr. Lovisik's book:

The flames that come forth from His Heart remind us of the His burning love for us and His desire that we love Him in return. The crown of thorns around His Heart reminds us of sacrifice to make up for sin.

Craft for The Feast of Corpus Christi

I love simple and easy, and I love making use of resources that I have on hand. This project covers all of those. We have the Seton Art 1 for Young Catholics that has crafts for many of our feast days (a few for each month), so we pulled it out today and made good use of it. First the boys colored a tabernacle. It was a basic house shape with a cross on the top and angels at the sides. Even my 12yo colored one.

I often hear from people that their boys "hate" to color. My boys are mostly okay with it. They love to create, so they are usually agreeable to the process. They do like to use fine tip felt markers for outlining- it gives the project more of a finished look.

Advent Projects Complete

Ta-da! The completed Christmas countdown angel turned out adorable. :) He took a bit to get to stand up. The stand pattern included with the project didn't seem to work well, so we improvised with a piece of poster board. And our "gifts to baby Jesus" poster. It seemed like the pattern was meant to allow for the crib to be more 3D... honestly, sometimes we are just craft challenged. This is when I miss my older girls bring around! Anyway, the boys are happy with their poster and enjoyed gluing there first gifts on today.

Advent Preparations

On Sunday, the first day of advent, the boys helped out a bit by putting a few projects together. James and Mark are working on a Christmas countdown angel. (glue cotton balls- 1 for each day of advent- to a base under the angel to make a fluffy cloud)

Paul is working on a baby Jesus picture to be glued in the middle of a piece of construction paper. Each of the boys colored small presents for baby Jesus. These will be glued around the manger whenever the boys give baby Jesus a gift (an act of kindess, work of mercy, prayer...).

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Both of these ideas are from Art 1 by Seton Press, but could easily be replicated using materials on hand. I'll post pics of the completed projects next. :)

Feast of Christ the King

Glitter is fun! :)

Using Seton's Art 1, the boys (James 6, Mark 9) colored and cut out this scene. They cut the pieces and glued them to a piece of cardstock. The Jesus figure is mounted on it's own piece of cardstock and cut out before being glued on. Glitter was added (in abundance :)) after the pieces were cut.

FEAST OF THE GUARDIAN ANGEL- OCT. 2

We're off- plans for our first ever family feast day celebration! In the "keep it super simple" mode, we are having Grandma and Grandpa (who are also our next door neighbors) over to morning tea. On the menu- Angel bread from our cookbook and decaf tea.

The kids have been hard at work on making a few decorations:

This little prayer card is simply a printed picture of a guardian angel glued to a piece of scrap paper. For decorations, my 5yo glued some sequin type things left over from another craft project- glue and glitter would do. And, on the back, he glued the "prayer to my guardian angel' that I had typed and printed for him.


Below, the colored in and glittered angel prayer cards- (also with the guardian angel prayer glued to the back) and standing angels came from the Seton Press art book.

Here are some instructions for a standing angel- a bit Christmasy looking, but with a few design changes, it will be perfect:

http://www.dltk-bible.com/mangel.html

For a great place to go for more information on Guardian Angels to honor this feast day go here:

http://www.domestic-church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19980901/SAINTS/GUARDIAN.HTM

The explanations are presented in three categories- young families, practiced families, and experienced families. I love this site!!

We are making the 'Angel bread' from our cookbook, but angel food cake (bought or made) would work just as well- cut in to bite sized pieces and make a 'fondue dip' by heating up some hot fudge sauce!

Favorite Resources for Celebrating Our Catholic Faith

The big change that I want to make as this school year starts is to live the church year and feast days more fully. To accomplish this, I searched the internet, looked through our books, and tried to come up with something that I felt was doable. Both of the following resources came to my attention at the same time and fit the bill (keeping it super simple!) perfectly.

This first resource is a little book from Seton Press. My friend was telling me about her son's art book with lessons that follow the major holy days, feast days, or seasons for the liturgical year. I couldn't wait to see it. After looking at her copy of Art 1 for Young Catholics, I was sold. Even though this is a first grade book, any child would enjoy the projects. And, in keeping with the super simple theme, there is not a lot prep work or unusual supplies involved.

Building the Family Cookbook by the creator of the famed Light Weigh program is the next resource that I am looking forward to using. It is just perfect- the book follows the calendar year and provides several saint or feast day celebrations for each month. There is page of so of a explanation followed by at least one (sometimes more) very doable recipe to prepare in honor of that particular day. I have enjoyed the saints' stories so much that I have been reading them myself at night. The author has a wonderful gift for storytelling.