Caleb is dressed as St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence is a favorite at our house for a few reasons, but mostly because of his since of humor! During his martyrdom, while being grilled alive, he told the men who were killing him, ”Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”  Even in the face of such a cruel death, he had the ability to make a joke! Read more about him here . Our St. Lawrence is dressed in a black robe. Since Caleb is only 2 I used a larger sized black long sleeve shirt to substitute as a robe. It worked every well. Then, I tied a black strip of felt cloth around his waste.  To symbolize St. Lawrence’s martyrdom I wanted to make a grill for Caleb to carry.  Again since he is so small I was able to tie two cooling racks together so they laid (like a scapular) over his solders. I used cooling racks like these , but I bought mine at the dollar store – 2 for a $1.  I had originally planned to make this costume for my older son, but he decided to be St. Christopher instead. To make the grill on a larger scale, I had planned to use my oven shelf (learned that from a friend) or make one with strips of black cardboard.   On the back grill I placed a sign that read: ”Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”  The costume was so easy and my little guy looks so cute! (but I’m his mom so I’m going to feel that way!!) God Bless. ~JenMarie

Joshua wanted to be St. Raphael. You may remember St. Raphael from the Bible in the story of Tobit. Read more here . Our St. Raphael costume was fairly simple, It’s a red robe, blue tie/ribbon, angel wings, and a few paper fish hanging from the waist. I found a fish picture on-line and printed the image off (2 times). After cutting them out, I laminated them (to make them stronger) and I taped a string to them to tie them around the belt at the waist.   I used a red robe I bought on Amazon. Here are a few similar robes: Red Robe with King Crown Kids Maroon Nativity Gown (lg)   ****************** I bought the wings, also. Here are a few similar wings: Children’s White FEATHER ANGEL WINGS Small White Feather Angel Wings for kids Small White Feather Angel Wings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abby wanted to be Our Lady. She as been Our Lady in past years, but she has never been Our Lady of Snows! 🙂 About Our Lady of Snows A wealthy but childless Roman couple, John and his wife decided to leave their fortune to the Church. They often prayed to the Virgin asking for guidance on how their wealth could be put to use. The Virgin appeared to them on the night of August 4th and told them that she wished a basilica to be constructed on the Esquiline Hill. She would miraculously leave snow in the middle of the hot month of August on the precise area in which she wanted the church built. Pope Liberius also received the same message from the Virgin. The next morning John and his wife and Pope Liberius went to the top of the Equiline Hill which had been covered with snow. After they measured out the area for the basilica, the snow disappeared. Pope Liberius immediately called for the construction of the Basilica.  Learn more about Our Lady of Snows: Behold Thy Mother  { post 1  &  post 2 } Our Lady’s Promise Our little lady is dressed in a white robe and has a sparkly navy blue veil. The veil actually has snowflake shapes, but it\’s hard to see in the picture. I bought the fabric at Walmart. Around her waste is two different colored blue ribbons and snowflakes hanging from a string. The snowflakes are actually buttons I bought at the craft store.

Here is Jacob dressed in his St. Christopher Costume. There are several legends about St. Christopher including the one in which he was crossing a river when a child asked to be carried across. When Christopher put the child on his shoulders he found the child was unbelievably heavy. The child, according to the legend, was Christ carrying the weight of the whole world. This was what made Christopher patron saint of travelers. Read more here  and here . Our St. Christopher is wearing a brown robe with a fleece wrap. He has a walking stick with a travel bag tied to it. Baby Jesus is strapped to his back. We used a tan, fleece scarf with an attached hood (like this one)  to strap the doll to his back. The scarf ends were used as backpack straps and tied together in the back. Then we covered the straps with his brown robe and had baby Jesus and His pouch sticking out the back of the robe.  He wore a robe like these robes: (The robes with hoods might work to hold baby Jesus) Kids Brown Nativity Gown (lg) Child\’s Medieval Monk Robe Costume (Sz: Sm 4-6) The fleece wrap was a scrap piece of material I bought and cut irregularly. Our staff is just a long stick and the travel sack is a cloth handkerchief filled with paper napkins and tied with twine.

Our Elizabeth wanted to be Saint Catherine of Genoa for All Saints Day. St. Catherine of Genoa was a new saint to me, and when we read about her life, Elizabeth chose her as the saint she wanted to model this year.  (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, born Genoa 1447 – 15 September 1510) is an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. She was a member of the noble Fieschi family, and spent most of her life and her means serving the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in 1510. Read more here and   here Our St. Catherine costume is a fancy long dress and gold trimmed veil, because she was born of a noble family. She is also wearing a stethoscope to symbolize her years spent as a nurse and administrator at a hospital in Genoa.

Have you ever heard of the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See” by Bill Martin/ Eric Carle? It’s a cute book that my kids just love! Well, Sarah Rose at Rose’s Supposes created a Catholic version of that book for her son. She called it: “Saints, Saints, Who Do You See?”. (See her book here ) I thought the idea was so sweet and beautiful that I just had to create a book for my kids, too. Sarah Rose used images from the Nippert and Co. Artworks Faith Keepers series and these are very cute pictures. If you like these images and you want to make your own personal book with saints that are close to you and your child(ren)’s hearts drop by and see how to get these adorable images so you can create your own book. As much as I loved the images Sarah Rose used I wanted our families book to show the saints in fine art.  So I searched Wiki Commons for saint images that were more personal to our family. You are welcome to print out the book I created or feel free to make your own, too! NOTE – I have 2 versions: I was informed by a few of my followers that there are two versions of the “Brown Bear” book. In one book the child can read who’s on the next page and in the other book the child doesn’t know till they turn the page. I added the second version. Download the guessing version here: Download the NON-guessing version here: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you chose to print out ours, (I printed mine on stock/heavy paper) you can put it together easily with a stapler or a hole punch and ribbon. Simply cut the pages in half at the line. Place them in order on top of one another. You can staple them together or use a hole punch to punch holes in the left side or each page. I had to adjust my hole punch to the correct size. I used gold ribbon to tie the pages together. When you knot the ribbon, make sure you leave enough room for the pages to turn. Here are a few of the pages in our book : These little books are so much fun! Kids will love to read them again and again. (Mine do!) It’s a fun treat for All Saints Day, too! I hope you all enjoy this idea as much as I did! God Bless, ~Jen-Marie And don’t forget to stop by Sarah Rose’s blog for more great Catholic ideas!

I wanted to share a picture of the cupcakes we had at our All Saints Day Party.  The toppers I created are from the same PDF I used to create our ”God’s Fruitful Harvest” craft. I just printed off the page, cut out the images, and taped the top of a toothpick to each picture. Like this: They make great toppers and the kids loved them!! All the kids had to make sure they had one to take home with them! Download the saint images here: Happy All Saints Day! ~JenMarie

Autumn is the time when plants die and farmers gather their harvest.  It’s a time to remember that we are going to die. Our death is the time when God, like the farmer, gathers His harvest. Those who were His “good and faithful servants” will be gathered by God and enter into heaven. God’s harvest is the saints!! So whenever you see references to harvests at this time of year, remember that we are meant to strive (work really, really hard) to be part of God’s harvest. We should STRIVE to be saints!! And that is what November is all about – the saints! Someday I hope I will be good enough to be part of God’s fruitful harvest! Strive to be Part of Gods Fruitful Harvest Craft I had this craft available for the kids to make at our All Saints Day celebration. Most of the kids took it along home to create. They were having too much fun doing other things! This craft is a simple coloring page. The kids add a picture of a saint to each pumpkin – symbolizing that the saints are God’s fruitful harvest. You will need: Pumpkin Coloring page (download below) Pictures of saints (in download) Crayons, coloring pencils, markers, OR watercolors (you choose) scissors glue Download the coloring page and saint images: This is super easy! Just have the kids color/paint the pumpkins and leaves. Then have them pick three saints to paste on the pumpkins. You may like to cut out the saint pictures before the kids create this project. Don’t forget to have them add their name! Bulletin Board Idea You may like to create a large bulletin board with this idea! Here is ours: Our pumpkin and leaf PDF patterns can be downloaded below. I had each of the kids color and cut out a pumpkin. Then they added a picture of their favorite saint to the pumpkin. You could use a holy card for this.  If you prefer – use our saint pictures found in the download below. Download the Bulletin Board Pieces Here: Then I printed out a few pages of leaves onto green paper. I cut a few spirals from green paper, too. I used these to create the vines. The board had a variety of colored and painted pumpkins: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May all the Angels and Saints in Heaven, pray for us! ~Jen-Marie

My kids love to help the poor! They have tried to come up with many ”schemes” to help the needy. For example, several years ago they got together with their cousins and created a ”stage production” to raise money. It was just a simple little production, which they preformed for our extended-family at our Easter dinner. They passed around a hat for donations and they sent all the money to a charity for the poor. They also sold tickets for prizes (all handmade prizes), and gave that money to the poor, too! A few years ago my kids created some handmade crafts to sell to raise money for the less fortunate. One summer, on a Sunday afternoon, they held a "fair” in our back yard to help raise money. So, yes, my kids have HUGE hearts for the poor. And they have found some very child-friendly ways to raise money to donate to various charities.  Well this year we are attempting to try a new way to help raise awareness and donations for the less fortunate. Here at Catholic Inspired, with the help of Cross Catholic Outreach and a few other bloggers (listed below) we are hosting an on-line Art Show for kids to help raise money for the needy. All the donations will be given directly to Cross Catholic Outreach and used to feed impoverished children and families in El Progreso, Honduras at the Prince of Peace Nutrition Center.  If you missed our first post about this event please click here to read more . Today I wanted to share the art work that several of my children created for this event! My oldest daughter, Rachel E.L. (age 15), has been trying her hand at watercolor painting and has been doing a wonderful job!   The Miracle of the Sun was created by my son, Jacob K.L. (age 12). He used colored paper and crayons to create this bright image! Incidentally, this young man was the guy who came up with the name ”The ART of Giving” for this event! Clever fellow! Joshua J.L. (age 10) is not fond of art or drawing, but he did a wonderful job on his picture of the Blessed Sacrament! Miss. Abby A.L. is only 6 but she has an artist’s hand! I was shocked at her drawing of ”Queen Mary”! Hannah M.L. (age 7) loves birds, so she wanted to create a drawing of the Holy Spirit! Elizabeth G.L. (age 9) has had a life-long love our St. Therese! So she just has to draw her favorite saint! My kids have been asking family and friends to make donations on behalf of their art work. They have sent out this letter , too! On behalf of my young artists I humbly ask that you donate to Cross Catholic Outreach . Please consider supporting them and donating here in their name. (write their name(s) in the comment box when donating.) All donations go directly to Cross Catholic Outreach for the poor in Honduras. Thank you for any help you can give! You can see all the art work that all the kids have created on Flickr ~ Click here . (New art is added every few ”work” days.) Do you have kids, students, or grandkids? Do your kids want to help the poor and needy? Would your kids like to draw a picture and ask grown-ups for donations?  Please click here to read more about ”The ART of Giving” We will be having a parade of posts this week to help build awareness for this fun child-friendly project!  Please join us for all the upcoming posts and visit the other blogs as they post about the art that their children have created!! A Parade of  Posts  for the Poor: Sunday, Dec. 1 –  Catholic Inspire d  Monday, Dec. 2 –  Enter Under My Roof Tuesday, Dec. 3 – Designs By Birgit Wednesday, Dec.4 – Happy Little Homemaker Thursday, Dec. 5  – Equipping Catholic Families Friday, Dec. 6  –  Campfires and Cleats Saturday, Dec. 7  –  Do Small Things with Love Sunday, Dec. 8 –  The Catholic Book Blogger After our parade join us for our Link-up: The link-up will start Monday, Dec. 9 and continue through Tuesday, Dec. 31. If you are a blogger and have posted (or plan to post) about your child’s art work please join in our ART of Giving Link-up! Thank you for any help you can give during this Christmas season! God Bless!~JenMarie

Have you seen all the BEAUTIFUL works of art in our Cross Catholic Outreach Art show!! Click here to see all the art work on Cross Catholic’s web page  or see it on Flickr These kids are giving it their all! So PLEASE support them and donate to Cross Catholic Outreach !  If you want to make a general donation on behalf of all the young artist please type ”all the young artists” in the comment box. ~*Please Donate Now*~ If you don’t you might forget later! I know I would! 😉 All donations go directly to Cross Catholic Outreach to help feed the poor in Honduras. Today I\’m hosting a link-up along with a group of other wonderful bloggers! This link-up is to show your child\’s artwork which was sent to Cross Catholic to be added to the Art Show. Haven\’t heard about this event yet? Well, this year Cross Catholic and a few Catholic Bloggers are attempting to try a new way to help raise awareness and donations for the less fortunate. We are hosting an on-line Art Show for kids to help raise money for the needy. In a nutshell:  Kids draw and grown-ups donate to Cross Catholic to show their support to the young artists. All the donations will be given directly to Cross Catholic Outreach and used to feed impoverished children and families in El Progreso, Honduras at the Prince of Peace Nutrition Center. To learn more about this event –  Click here . This link-up is to show your child\’s artwork which was sent to Cross Catholic to be added to the Art Show. This link-up is open to ALL, not just bloggers. ANYONE can link-up. You only need a URL address to a photo of your child’s art. For example, the image can be uploaded onto Pinterest and the pin’s URL can be added to the link-up.  A Flickr image and URL will work, too! So bloggers and non-bloggers are welcome!! ******************** Ready to donate to the hungry in Cross Catholic on behalf of these young artist? ~*Donate Now*~ A special thanks to my army of Catholic Bloggers who have been fighting to help get the word out about this event! Pete from  The Catholic Book Blogger Jen from  Enter Under My Roof Chris from  Campfires and Cleats Monica from  Equipping Catholic Families Birgit from  Designs By Birgit Jen from  Happy Little Homemaker Nancy from  Do Small Things with Love Thanks ladies and gentleman! 😉  Also, a BIG thank you to anyone who has helped get their kids motivated to help raise money for the poor and another special thanks to those who donate to Cross Catholic Outreach! You are all in my prayers. ~JenMarie

This past December, Cross Catholic Outreach , Catholic Inspired, and a group of Catholic Bloggers (listed below) joined together to host an opportunity for kids to raise money for the poor in Honduras.  This campaign  was   was  meant  to help empower kids to raise money for the poor while using their artistic talent!  Children were able to enter a work of art in an on-line slide show and ask family and friends to donate in behalf of their art work. Today, I’m listing the amounts which were donated on behalf of each of the children who entered a work of art into the ART of Giving.{ Click here to read more about The ART of Giving} Here is the total amount that each individual child raised: Addison D. $50.00 Kevin V. $3.15 Xotchil F. $50.00 Samual R. $12.50 Rosemary A. $50.00 Mary Catherine H. $20.50 Maria P. $6.67 Estrella F. $50.00 Ellie P $26.67 Ava F. $50.00 Anna P. $31.66 Owen J. $3.15 Mary J. $3.15 Luke C. $3.15 Kelly M. $24.82 Evelyn J. $3.15 Cole J. $3.15 Annaleigh J. $3.15 Simon $5.00 Rachel $5.00 Sarah J. $5.00 Kelly $24.82 D. Steed $3.15 Bridget $24.82 Abby J. $5.00 Moira $3.15 Gus $10.00 Seth $3.15 Jacqueline G. $3.15 Leah M. $3.15 James. M. $3.15 Molly S. $3.15 AF $3.15 Katie S. $3.15 Elizabeth GL $10.00 Rachel EL $10.00 Joshua JL $10.00 Jacob KL $10.00 Hannah ML $10.00 Abby AL $10.00 Total amount raised for the poor in Honduras was:$562.84*  THANK YOU  to all the young artists for your support and for taking the time to create such wonderful works of art to help the poor! AND THANK YOU to all those who donated to support the wonderful, young artists and the poor! AND Another THANK YOU to all the bloggers who helped to support this drive! Pete from  The Catholic Book Blogger Jen from  Enter Under My Roof Chris from  Campfires and Cleats Monica from  Equipping Catholic Families Birgit from  Designs By Birgit Jen from  Happy Little Homemaker Nancy from  Do Small Things with Love They worked hard to spread  awareness  of this meaningful opportunity! Thank you, again, to you all!! Cross Catholic Outreach is a wonderful organization that helps the poor every day of the year. Please, consider donating the them in the future. Click here to visit their web site. Thank you again and God bless! ~JenMarie

Catholic Cultures wed site had a beautiful description of St. Rose that says: "Rose of Lima, a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic, was the ’first blossom of sanctity that South America gave to the world.' Hers was a life heroic in virtue and penance…” Visit their site to read more about her. You can also visit Catholic.org  to read more, too. St. Rose of Lima’s feast day is Aug. 23 (new) and Aug. 30 (trad.). Elizabeth and I were going to add roses to a wreath for St. Rose’s ornament, but decided that it was a bit difficult to make all those little roses. So we made the flowers more simple.  We cut out pink and purple flowers and arranged them on a green circle/wreath. We glued two strips of dark brown felt into a cross shape and then glued it onto the wreath. Next we added a few green leaves among the flowers.  To make it pop, we added a few drops of silver glitter glue and it turned out to be a sweet ornament to honor St. Rose of Lima. St. Rose, oh beautiful saint so kind and loving, intercede for us. Ask Our Lord to grant us all that we need to enter into heaven.  St. Rose of Lima, pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth Visit our Etsy store to buy our St. Rose of Lima felt statue .

For the Coronation of Mary (Aug. 22 -new calendar), Elizabeth wanted to make a sparkly crown with gems.  While I’m sure this isn’t even close to being as pretty as Mary’s real crown, it is very sparkly! To make this Elizabeth first made a crown shape from a gold pipe cleaner. We then glued it onto a scrap piece of yellow felt.  Then we cut out around the pipe cleaner so the yellow was only seen on the inside of the crown shape.  Now for the fun part!! Elizabeth added glitter glue to the yellow felt. Then she used sequins and star sequins to make the gems on the crown. She also added a little bit of red glitter glue to the bottom! She was very pleased with her sparkly crown! ♪ ♫ Hail Holy Queen enthroned above…. Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

The feast of Mary’s Holy Name is Sept. 12th.  There is great power behind Mary’s name! Read about this devotion HERE .  ”Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary.” -Saint Bonaventure Elizabeth and I were trying to make this ornament look kind-of heavenly. So we have two sparkly clouds and a sparkly sun. Plus, we have sparkles all over Mary’s name which is written in the clouds.  We used white felt with sparkles, yellow felt, and light blue felt. We cut out two cloud shapes from the sparkly white felt, a half-circle from the yellow, and a rectangle which is big enough to fit the clouds and sun on.  We outlined the yellow with an orange permanent marker and we added gold glitter glue to it. We glued the two clouds together and used blue fabric paint to write Mary’s name on the clouds. Once that dried we covered it with clear-sparkle fabric paint. After that was dry we glued all the parts onto the blue rectangle. Next, we added silver glitter glue around the edge of the clouds. And we added gold glitter glue around the sun. We also created rays coming from the sun. Once it was all dry we cut out around the clouds and sun. These pictures don’t do this justice. It’s just full of sparkle! Most Holy Mary, Queen above, Pray for us! May every evil flea whenever we whisper the Holy Name of Mary! God Bless. ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

St. Peter Claver is known as the ”Apostle of the Negroes”.  St. Peter dedicated himself to the service of the Negro slaves for over thirty-three years. He was devoted to saving the souls of the African slaves and to abolishing the Negro slave trade.  Read more HERE . His feast day is Sept. 9th,  the day after Our Lady’s Birthday . The ornament for St. Peter Claver is two hands and a cross. The lighter colored hand is giving the cross to the darker colored hand. This is a symbol of St. Peter giving the Catholic faith to the African people who were forced into slavery.  The ornament is made with white, peach/tan, medium brown and dark brown felt. Cut out two hands: one medium brown and one preach/tan. Then cut out two strips from the dark brown felt to form the cross. Glue them onto the white felt square. We used red, orange, and yellow permanent markers to add some color to the white felt. This is now hanging on our liturgical tree. St. Peter Claver, pray for us. May we understand each other and help each other grow closer to God even when we look and/or live differently. God Bless. ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

One way I like to help my kids learn and retain knowledge of our faith is through Catholic picture dictionaries. Their simple design makes them easy to pick-up and read when you have only a few free minutes. To help them retain these words and meanings, I created a “Catholic Words” printable notebooking sheet. This page has space for: the name of the Catholic word they are learning the definition (some definitions may need to be shortened) a picture of the idea/item, if possible Each page has space for 3 words. My kids have these pages in a 3-ring binder and they add a word a day. They do this during the school day when they are finished all their other work and they are waiting on me to check/help them. Each night I write a Catholic word onto our blackboard. Then, during school time the next day, they pull out their Catholic dictionary look up the word and write it down, along with the definition. They also draw a picture of the item or idea if they can. These are the books we used to look up the Catholic words: This book is the one my older kids use: The Catholic Picture Dictionary – by S.J. Rev. Harold A. Pfeiffer (Author) This one was better for the younger kids: My First Catholic Picture Dictionary - by Lawrence Lovasik (Author) Has anyone ever use this book? I’m wondering if it’s good: A Catholic Child's Picture Dictionary - by Ruth Hannon (Author) Vocabulary Sheets Along with the “Catholic Words” sheet I created a “vocabulary” sheet. This one is for everyday words. My kids use this one when they come across a word they don’t know. They write it down and look it up. The word area on this page has space for: the word the definition antonyms synonyms a sentence and they can draw a picture, if possible These are also kept in the same 3-ring binder. They have a page with a tab between the two sections. Both these pages and a cover page are available below. Download these vocabulary pages here: Enjoy! Hope you have a blessed school year! ~JenMarie

For the birth of Our Lady (Sept. 8th), Elizabeth and I wanted to make a liturgical ornament that was filled with baby cuteness! So we made a pink baby and to confirm that this isn’t just any baby girl, we added an Immaculate Heart. This Immaculate Heart is a little different than the regular Immaculate Heart. We wanted this Immaculate Heart to look baby-like, so we made it pink! We also didn’t add the sword, since Mary wouldn’t have had any heart breaking experiences yet. To create this ornament you will need: Felt: pink, light blue, medium blue, yellow, and light brown/peach Permanent markers: orange, pink, green, and red markers. Glitter Glue: gold, silver, and a little red (optional)  Cut out the parts as pictured above. Make Mary first and size everything based off of her. You could glue Mary’s head on top of her blanket-body but it looks nicer if it’s seen through a hole in the pink blanket.  We used pink and red permanent marker to shade the pink blanket that Mary is ”wrapped” in. And we used orange marker on the edge of her halo. We also added gold glitter glue to make the halo sparkle. Glue it all together before you add the glitter or add the glitter to the halo and wait for the halo to dry before you glue everything together. (We used hot glue.) After Baby Mary and all the other parts are glued down, cut out a pink heart and flame. Use the pink permanent sharpie marker to make flowers. Just make 5 or 6 dots in a circle shape and add a yellow dot in the middle area. Then add a few green marker leaves around them. We used a red marker around the edge of the heart. Cut out a yellow flame for the top of the heart. We added gold and red glitter glue to the flame and silver glitter glue around the heart.   Personally, I love this ornament! I think it’s so cute! I hope you like it, too! Mother Mary, Happy Birthday!! God Bless, ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

St. Helena (aka: St. Helen) is the Mother of Emperor Constantine and found the true cross of Christ. Her feast day is Aug. 18 (traditional calendar). Read more about her HERE and HERE .  Elizabeth and I got a little glitter glue happy with this one! The design is simple, but the glitter glue made it sing! 😮 ♪ ♫  We made 7 rays from yellow felt and added a bit of orange permanent marker to them to make them look more interesting. We glued them onto a white oval which as a little bigger than the cross we had made from two strips of dark brown felt.  We added silver glitter glue to the white area and gold glitter glue to the yellow area. We also added a bit of red glitter glue to the yellow area and three drops on the cross.  St. Helena, pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

For the feast of the Holy Name of Mary we made a simple sugar cookie dessert. We used our sugar cookie recipe and our M-A-R-Y cookie cutters to make a super yummy dessert! To give our cookies a blue color we added blue sugar to the top of the cookies before we baked them.  Of course, we realized too late that we didn’t have any more blue decorating sugar. So we made some! Just place 3 or 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar into a zip-loc bag and then add a drop or two of blue food coloring. Zip up the bag and give it a good shake! If the sugar very wet you can spread it on out on wax paper to dry, but we just used our blue sugar as it was.  The cookies came out of the oven with a blue glitter look! Perfect for Mary! Once they were cool we used some whipped cream from a spray can to make a long row of cream. Then we added the M-A-R-Y letters to the front of the row. Here is Mary’s name written in the clouds!! *Don’t have the letter cookie cutters? That’s okay! If you don’t have alphabet cookie cutters, try making the letter by hand. Maybe roll out the dough and hand-cut the letters with a knife. Or make the letters by creating long strains or ropes of rolled dough (my kids call them snakes) and form the long strains into the letter shapes. It’s a great activity for kids of all ages! Super yummy and fun! Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

If you would have known Joseph of Cupertino as a boy, you never would have thought he would become a flying saint! He was neglected and unwanted by his mother, so he became very slow,  hot-tempered, and absent minded. As a young man he failed at all the jobs he was given. He was not accepted by the Franciscans, he was turned out by the Capuchins, and so he returned home. His mother was not happy to see him. She managed to get him into the Franciscan monastery as a servant.  During this time Joseph began to change. He began to learn humility, penance, and he worked hard. He was then accepted into the Franciscan order. He struggled with learning but eventually became a priest.  After his priesthood, he began to perform miracles. He was seen over 70 times rising from the floor while he prayed or said Mass. Sometimes he flew very high. On one occasion he carried a huge cross through the air to a Calvary group, The cross was thirty-six feet high, but he carried it with ease! Talk about super hero power! 🙂  After word of his miracles spread, St. Joseph was often kept hidden. But people flocked to talk to him in confession. He converted many people before he died on Sept. 18 1663, at the age of 60. His feast day is Sept. 18 in the Traditional Calendar. Read more about him HERE . Our ornament depicts St. Joseph flying through the air!!  We used medium brown, peach/tan, yellow and white felt. We cut out the parts as pictured above. We used black permanent marker to make shadows on his robe – to look like he’s flying. Then we used brown and black permanent markers to make a face on the circle we cut out for his head. We also added orange to the yellow halo.  St. Joseph is proof that there is hope for every human being! We can all change and become true saints! St. Joseph of Cupertino, pray for us! God bless you all with joy! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth