Our Lady of Lourdes

The girls made a sweet little grotto for Our Lady....

Valentine's Day

Several days ahead of Valentine's Day we made Valentines for our family. Gma came with lots of yummy food and flowers and a few days later we did it all over again with Papa and L. Here's the kids making their candy hearts...

Candy molds are awesome!

Joseph stirs the chocolate.

Maria and Anna.

We love to bake!

Filling the molds.

We had a great Valentine's Day! The girls all received lots of special gifts and of course a day full of chocolate. We also read the story of St. Valentine, did a cross word puzzle about the book (thank you Jessica). Joseph slept in and it was an all girls chocolate breakfast!

Elizabeth searching for chocolate kisses.

Here they are...

Best breakfast ever...

Anna loves headbands.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Maria and her swimsuit cover-up.

Where's my kisses? Chocolate, that is...

Yummmmm

Katherine's Nearly Walking!

Here's are some pictures from last month, she's still cruising around but we don't mind. She's easier to catch!

Well, it won't be long now....

Katherine's First Haircut

We are so blessed with hair in our family. Lots of hair! Fortunately, we are also blessed with my mother-in-law to keep it up for us!

In keeping with tradition, Katherine received her first haircut around her first birthday! She wasn't so sure at first but she quickly decided she liked it!

Are you sure about this?

I don't think I like haircuts!

Oh, I can see you!

That tickles!

I do like haircuts!

Oh, thank you Grandma!

Jack the Cat

Our striped kitty Jack.

Today my children said good-bye to their kitty, Jack. This was a good kitty. Lots of personality, lots of spunk and quite adventurous, which is how the cat got the name Jack, like Jack Sparrow!

The real surprise was on us, when only a couple of weeks ago did we notice Jack was a Jackie! Jack was just 6 months old, so while the cat's life was short, it was great. She brought us a lot of laughs, particularly when she would knock in her pitter-patter way at the door to come in! We are dog people and had never really given cats a chance. The kitty was given to the children and we immediately learned what a hoot a cat can be!

The hardest and saddest part of the day for me was not saying good-bye to a sweet kitty. I'm a grown woman and know that pets come and go throughout our lives. What I didn't know was watching my children say good-bye would be such a heart-breaker! Watching them realize how quickly life can be snuffed out was dreadful, just dreadful. How I try to protect them from all kinds of things, and yet I was unable to spare them this hard lesson... so out of the blue. Fortunately for me, my dear friend and neighbor L. was home to help me with a very nice kitty burial. The things our friends do for us....

After all the good-byes the girls felt a chocolate cake was in order and here's what they came up with...

So long Jackie, thanks for the laughs.

Candlemas

Feast of the Purification

February 2nd

February 2nd is Candlemas! 

Candlemas celebrates three occasions 1) the Presentation of The Child Jesus, 2) Jesus' entry into the Temple and 3) the Purification of the Blessed Mother. Many people refer to Christ as the "Light of the World" so it is fitting that candles are blessed at Church on this day and Mass includes a candle-lit procession.

I found the picture above and some terrific reading at fisheaters.com. I highly recommend reading it when you get a chance:-)

Our family made candles in honor of the special day! Juliette had received a great candle making kit as a gift this past Christmas and was kind enough to suggest we use it for this special occasion. This is the second time we made candles..the first was a set for our Advent wreath and everyone really had a good time. 

This kit came from Magic Cabin.

This particular kit had a lot of beeswax pieces so even our younger children were able to "roll along" and create some fun. Because we made our candles that evening, we were not able to take them to Mass to be blessed.

 

Joseph rolling his candle.



Joseph adding his "dots."

Anna works on her candle.

Pretty stripes!

Nice job Anna!

Joseph, Maria and Anna

Checking out the results!

Maria and Anna are happy with their work!

Joseph loves an opportunity to blow out candles!



Celebrating St. Brigid of Kildare

Today the children and I celebrated the feast day of St. Brigid of Kildare.

The story as I remember it is one of a very beautiful girl "owned by" her wealthy father, a pagan. After Brigid continually gave away his monetary possessions he sold her into slavery rather than kill her. A kind king purchased her, but not for himself and instead delivered her into freedom. St Brigid often prayed to the Lord asking Him to make her unattractive so her many suitors would depart. The good Lord knows our hearts desires and indeed she became very unattractive. However, upon her final profession, her beauty was restored. She spent the rest of her life doing great works for others.

At some point I'd like to add Brigid's Cloak and The Life of Saint Brigid: Abbess of Kildare to our home library. For now, we enjoyed the story together from our St. Joseph's Picture Books collections. The girls wrote a paragraph on the back of their coloring pictures we printed from Charlotte over at Waltzing Matilda. Thank you Charlotte! We've been printing your coloring pages for a long time now and we always love them.

Maria's picture

Anna's picture

Anna & Maria with their St. Brigid pictures and potato perogies.

While we were honoring the patroness of Ireland we thought of my grandmother, Sally and added an Irish potato to the dinner menu since we ran out of time and didn't get to make the Irish soda bread!

Before...

After...Joseph didn't like the middle!

Katherine waiting patiently for perogies.

Snow Day for Homeschoolers?

How about a half-day instead?!

        Homeschooling on snow days are hard because our sweet neighbors are home and we don't get to see them very often. Doesn't that sound funny? We don't see them very often but we live next door to them!

        Anyhow, everyone is sooooo busy these days, a snow day proves to be a good day to play..even with Daddy... at least for a half-day :-)

Daddy and Maria working on the igloo.

Maria is desperately seeking snow for bricks.

Our puppy Mac.

Daddy working on the igloo.

Joseph takes a break from igloo building to smile.

Joseph loves to play outside in the snow.

Joseph hard at work.

Anna always helps Daddy outside in the snow.