Advent Day 2

BE BORED.

1. While standing in line, sitting in the waiting room, waiting for kids, ... don't pick up the phone. No email, text, instagram, facebook!

2. Take a deep breath instead. Really deep.

3. Say the name of Jesus 3X (in your head unless you want people to think your crazy ;)).

4. Smile. At the cashier, assistant, the lady behind you in line. Just smile. From my favorite movie: "It improves face value".

Take a time away from the constant pull to interact with that handheld device! 

Advent::Day 1

We live in a teeny tiny house (by today's standards). And, it was quite a fixer upper.

For years, in little bits of spare time, our family worked to shore up the building (it literally leaked!), scrape the paint, level the yards, pave the driveway- It took more than 10 years to complete the task.

In the meantime, it led to some humbling situations when we had people over. Too many people, too much stuff, construction constantly going on around us...

Somewhere along the way, I started offering this little prayer up when I knew someone was coming over- or, worse yet, stopped by for a surprise visit.

"God, let my house bless this person in some way." 

My thought was it might, at the very least, allow them to give themselves a nice pat on the back that at least their house wasn't THAT BAD!! (I have a cool story about this that I'll share another time)

Well, this blog is not my home, but I pray the same for the little things I share. I, of course, would prefer to share some grand accomplishment with you.

But this is what I have:

In this time of preparation, I thought I could wing it for our first day of advent.  I brought out the box that I knew had the extra advent candles that I knew I purchased-  they are no where to be seen. We have not gotten out to pick up some greenery for our wreath either.

So, while dad did the blessing, our little candle-less wreath sat on the table with a ring of plastic greenery around it.

Our Jesse Tree devotional book has gone AWOL.

Plus!!- James came down with a fever/possible sinus infection today and Mark did not feel well, so neither boy served at mass this morning.

Can I have a redo? 

I don't share this to be a discouragement.

I know that happy scenes of advent would bless you as they do me, but I hope knowing that not every year begins that way (and some years begin that way, yet get derailed) might bless someone out there.

The point is to just do your best (with God's grace) each day.

Advent past... with candles and all!! It will happen. 

I hope to come back and share what is going to be an amazing advent "recovery"! :)

Advent is Coming!!

I am still in blogging neverland... I miss it!! I really do. But if you follow either of my blogs you may have caught mention of the fact that life has just been crazy. I am working on it!

Have I mentioned that I just love fall decorations? The colors, the feel, the smell of fall scented candles... 

                                   

Our feast day table did not change much from October to November. Even though her canonization was last month, we still kept sort of a St. Kateri/fall theme. 

I am looking forward to Advent. Can it really be beginning THIS NEXT Sunday? (Thank you to Patty for the correction!:)) That does not seem possible. Last year, I got in to gear by participating in an Advent Blogger Round Up hosted by Jen at Forever, For Always, No Matter What. It was so much fun and I just loved all the contributions. 

I also participated in an Advent/Christmas book link up. I love holiday books!! This link up was for favorites- I honestly think they are all my favorite. If you want to see some great book suggestions visit Jessica at Shower of Roses. 

I hope to come back and share some more of our Advent devotions/adventures/wonders. One of the things I am most looking forward to are the "O Antiphons". We had so much fun with these last year. I am hoping to assign each of the children and hubby a night that they pick a food to go along with the reading. I have had fun doing it, but I am thinking sharing might be an interesting way to go. 

You can read about the "O Antiphons" and food at Catholic Cuisine. 

Just a last happy thought. My son on left serving at our local parish on a Friday morning with his friend on the right.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Advent Week 4

The fourth week of advent in pictures (lots!)- just the good notes! 

The candles are all lit!

The second "O" Antiphon 

 Still learning about this new "tradition" that we began last year. 

 Food can be presented to go with each night of the antiphons. 

I was happy to have found these to go with the third night, "Root of Jesse". 

 Prepping some treats for our class party for Spanish co-op.
(check here if you are wondering about the crazy hair and face tattoos)

Found on Pinterest! 

 Mikes and Ike's candies for the noses, sprinkles for the eyes of the snowmen (couldn't find black writing gel- recommend finding the gel!! Sprinkles were a pain.), and round pearl sprinkles for the reindeer eyes (they worked well).

To prove that I actually have a daughter even if she is rarely home.
Also shown- her boyfriend, who we also rarely see as he works
very hard and goes to school.

More advent cleaning

And decorating...

And treat making! 

waffle pretzels + hugs + 2 minutes on 300 degrees

 let sit for 1 minute and top with another pretzel

don't let sit on tray for too long or they get too melty! :)

Mark lighting the candles with help of nephew, Nicolas.

 More antiphons

More uncle time.

I am going to end the week here. We have a Christmas tree to purchase and decorate, more Christmas treats to bake, a few more decorations to put up, and presents to wrap. We will also continue lighting our candles, adding ornaments to our Jesse Tree, and making an attempt at the "O" antiphons (my hubby suggested that our less than musical family should perhaps read and not sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" ;)).

Have a blessed rest of advent and a 
Merry, Merry Christmas!! 

As I am sure many bloggers are, I am taking a break until after the new year to enjoy time with my family during this beautiful season. I have truly been inspired this year by what other bloggers have shared and I truly thank each of them.

Awesome "O" Antiphon resources: 


Catholic Culture

Shower of Roses

Waltzing Matilda 

Other Credits: 

The snowmen donuts were originally pinned from this post @ Creative Gift and Party Ideas

The reindeer donuts can be found here @ One Craft Mama

The ever so yummy pretzel hugs are @ Cookies and Cups

Advent Week 3

Tomorrow we light our fourth candle. We have been blessed this advent to have most evenings at home, so I feel like we have been able savor our time together. We are missing our daughter (Erin, 18yo) most nights as she is very busy and often at school. I am hoping that we can have her join us more frequently during this final stretch of advent.

 Tonight, Saturday, is the first night of the "O" Antiphons.

We are enjoying learning about this lovely tradition.

(coins)

All four candles will be lit tomorrow!

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was Monday. Is there anyone who does not absolutely love this day? So sweet. While I thought I might be done adding to our picture book collection, this one, added for this special day, arrived this week:

It's a pop up book! I just love it. I guess I bought it more for me than the kids.

We were also blessed to have a priest say mass especially for our little homeschool group. It was wonderful! Father sat down and talked to all the children about this special day and gifted each of them with a little book about their faith. James was also seriously excited as Father let him serve at mass (the age at this church is 10+).

At home, we enjoyed some Mexican Wedding Cakes as a treat in honor of this feast day. 

To top the day off, hubby and kiddos went to Bethlehem. Yes, just down the street from us is a live nativity that is just awe inspiring. An amazing act of generosity is in each night of this performance. We have gone in years past (these pictures are from a few years ago), and it is always incredibly moving. 

 It's hard to tell in this picture, but that is an angel at the top of the building
announcing the birth of our savior to the shepherds. 

Tuesday was, of course, another special day- St. Lucia's Feast Day. Having no girl to wake everyone in the morning with special treats (well, I have one, but she would have not been happy to wake up early when she did not have to be to school until 1!), we don't have the traditional morning that some do. We did, however, endeavor (still not quite done) to put up Christmas lights on our house. I had thought we would go look at lights in honor of this special day, but I think this was a good trade-off. We might have created a new tradition.

Can you see Paul up there?

Wednesday was a big day of preparation. As this is our only whole day home that I can see in the near future, I wanted to get as much cleaning caught up on as possible. At one point I told the boys that they were complaining just like Big Anthony in Merry Christmas, Strega Nona. Their response was was- "yah! why can't you just use your magic to get this done!". :) Well, if I had some, I'd probably have used it.

An early Christmas present arrived at my house this afternoon. It is a bit big for our little dwelling, but I love it! I have wanted a table to set up for the special feast days and seasonal displays.

 Isn't it pretty?! 

My husband's customer just happened to be giving it away! Since moving our bookshelf to another room, we have no surface to set our advent candles and Jesse tree on. Each night they get shuffled back and forth from kitchen counter to table and back. Now they have a home. :)

Thursday was ortho appointment day. There is nothing that makes my son grouchier than having wires tightened, but his mouth really truly needed help!

We also managed to continue our advent purging and cleaning. It feels so good. Although... at the end of the day, just when I was ready to give myself a good pat on the back, someone (who shall remain nameless for the sake of this blog) tracked dog doo through the WHOLE HOUSE!!! Sigh. The upside is that hubby wiped down the entire kitchen floor while I spot cleaned the rest of the mess on the carpet. Grrrrrr. :)

Friday held a sweet morning of babysitting my 4 week old grandson and having Spanish class. In the afternoon, I took my 13 yo clothes shopping. What do you do when what your 13yo wants most for Christmas is clothes? I cannot pick them out myself. Size and style would be impossible to guess. We had a great time, found some pretty good deals, and Paul is happy with our finds. I just hope he is happy on Christmas morning when he knows (mostly) what he is getting.

I am also holding tight to my cleaning and purging theme- some time is spent each day working on this. Today (Saturday) was general cleaning and some clothes drawer purging.

Now for my advent faux pas (I figure this is a violation of accepted norms!)-

So this is how it happened- for his birthday, Marky got tickets to go see his favorite football team play. All of his brother-in-laws, his dad, his brother (Paul), and a good family friend are going. Way back when is September (when tickets were given), Mark asked if he could get a mo-hawk for the occasion. Being the super fantastic mom that I am (insert wink), I said sure- do whatever you want in your hair! Then he got it done. I had an appointment for him to get it shaved even on Monday, the day after the game. I am thinking there is nothing that is going to make this even. I am going to have Christmas pictures with this!!! (insert capital letters and bold type!!) I am half laughing and half crying.

God bless you on this final week of advent!

*On my daughter's camera, I have pictures of James serving mass that I hope to get and add.

Crafting An Advent Tree

I had a bit of advent tree envy after reading Tracy's (A Slice of Smith Life) blog post that featured hers. I love her pretty tree with purple ornaments hanging from it. I knew if I was going to have one, it would have to fit in a cubby in the my kitchen, so I decided I would have make my own.

Its a little hard to tell in the picture, but it really does look tree-like (mostly;)). I have to say that my two younger boys think it is amazing. They walk over to it several times a day and admire our handiwork.

To make our tree, we painted one of those Styrofoam cones purple. After letting it dry, we glued ornaments around the tree starting at the bottom using hot glue. It took a bit of patience as the ornaments needed to be held firmly in place for a few seconds or they would fall off.

Now we just need to find a silver star for the top!

Advent Week 2

We light the third candle for advent tonight! As cliche as it sounds, I cannot believe how fast this season is flying by. I want savor each moment and make it special, but the days seem to demand so much activity. In spite of that, we are having a wonderful advent. Tabitha's Travels is being enjoyed by all as are the rest of our advent devotions.

On to this week: 

We began Monday planning on purchasing a cassock for James (our church is short on ones his size) and visiting a spectacular nativity exhibit just north from us. Plans were quickly derailed as I told my daughter we would babysit for her 2 year old while she took her newborn to his doctor appointment. As it happens, my sister's baby also had an appointment (at the same Dr. down the street from our house) so we watched her children as well. It was a happy morning of playing with cousins and entertaining little ones! But the nativity display was on hold... however, we did manage to purchase a cassock.

Tuesday, the feast on St. Nicholas, was our horse lessons that had been bumped from Monday. When we finished there, we were planning on trying again for the nativity exhibit (that ended Weds.). In my exhaustion, I suggested that we pick up Breakfast Jacks and head home instead. To which James replied, "I was really counting on going there this year."

I quickly decided that is was a feast day after all, and we not only went to the nativity display (350 + displays from all over the world), but to lunch at In and Out Burger first. We don't have one very near us, so this is a very special treat.

(one of our nativities)

AND just to be really frivolous, we made another stop on the way home! 

 This is an even rarer treat (James only remembers going one other time) as the only one I know of is near where the nativity exhibit is held. 

They bit the heads off! 

Wednesday was art lesson and family time. I do love stay at home days! 

Thursday- what a beautiful feast day. I was happy we (hubby, boys and I) started the day the same mass. Often we have to go separately to accommodate schedules. An added bonus, all four of our grandchildren were there too! It was a special morning. And, as if we did not have enough feasting this week, hubby took us (boys and me) out to breakfast!

table from 2010

In what seems very fitting for this feast day, our homeschool teens had their annual shopping trip to provide gifts and food cards for local families who are in need. I was a bystander (not organizer this year), but Paul, who is officially a teen, helped with the shopping. As always, I was amazed and impressed and how sincerely the teens approach this task. Each child on their list was provided with at least one (if not more) toy and some warm clothes. The budget is tight, but those kids can stretch a dollar! 

We had our usual Spanish class on Friday. More than learning Spanish (as nice as that is), the kids really enjoyed some time just hanging out and playing together.

December Calendar

Several years ago I saw a poster board calendar at my friend's house that her children had drawn and decorated. On it was their entire Advent/Christmas schedule with the very special activities highlighted. I thought it was such a great idea that I copied it- sort of. I purchased a blank calendar from the school supply store that we filled in and decorated.

This year, no such blank calendar was to be found. I was able to purchase this one with colorful dots on it. I just happen to be holding on to (I mean for years and years) a Christmas sticker pack that I was just sure would come in handy one day! Go figure. Christmas stickers are now in all of the dots! So, this is our December calendar (pictured not quite filled in all the way)- 

I did finally finish filling it in (no picture though)- All the feast days and special events we have planned are included. The kids are having fun reading it and anticipating the rest of a full month!