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For almost 10 years my kids have been enjoying a CD called ”Kids Sing for Jesus” by the Renna’s. This adorable Catholic CD is full of fun and learning for Catholic kids. My teen girls, who were only about 5 when I bought this CD, still sing these songs! And their younger siblings are enjoying these cute songs today! I sure got my money’s worth out of that CD! 🙂 The Renna’s, who sing the songs on this CD, are a beautiful Catholic family!  Mary Ann the mother of this talented family, started creating these songs to help a teacher teach a group of Catholic kids about the faith, and the idea just grew from there! The music is not only sung by the mother of the family but also the kids of the family (who are now much older). I found the story behind this family to be cute and worth reading, click here to read more (scroll to the bottom of the page -look for the music note on the left-side). The Renna’s also have a web page here .  Today I wanted to share my thoughts on this CD, because I thought some of you would enjoy this as much as our family has! Perhaps you’d like to purchase one for an Easter basket! It would also be great a CD for a CCD/RE/religion class, Bible camp, homeschool family, Christmas, or any occasion!  You can visit their site to hear a short clip from the songs on this CD { Click Here } Click on the little symbols beside the song titles. Then you can decide for yourself if you think you and your kids would like these songs. -My kids sure do enjoy them! 🙂  Click Here I hope your kids enjoy them, too!

Hi Everyone! I LOVE May! It’s so beautiful! The flowers, the trees, the sunshine and NO snow to shovel!! It’s just so nice! Aside from being a beautiful month it’s also the month that God placed me into the arms of my mother, and it’s the month that God adopted me as His daughter! Yes, I love May! One of the best parts of May are all the Marian events, because May is Mary’s month! A few years ago, my daughters (all 6 of them) and I decided Mother’s Day was a perfect day to have a fun little tea party in honor of our special mother, Mary. We called it, “Tea with the Blessed Mother”. While we like to do a few small things for most of the Liturgical Year’s Feast days, we often like to make our “Tea with the Blessed Mother” an extra special party!  We have tea (or hot chocolate for the non-tea-lovers), Marian themed treats, Marian crafts, we make a BIG Mary altar, and we have lots and lots of decorations!  We also invite the Grandmothers, too. My girls LOVE it! It’s a fun Mother’s Day event! If you are planning to have a nice party for Our Lady, here are a few of the things we do. – These are older photos — I wanted to post this two years ago, but as much as I love May, it’s also the busies month for me. I’m wrapping up the school year and getting portfolios ready to send to our evaluator and school district.  So, these ideas and files are ones we have used for several years now, and my girls seem to think of them as family traditions…. The Invitations: I “send” my girls invitations, they think it’s so neat! The excitement they show is more fun than the actual party! These are the invitations I “sent” to my daughters the past two years…. They are made with a card that I created, an 8 inch paper doily, and some curling ribbon. I recommend printing these onto stock paper or photo, but regular paper is okay. Download Tea Party Invitations and Tea Pot and Cup Décor: Decorations: A Mary Altar is a MUST! You can’t have a Mothers Day Tea Party without our Most Holy Mother!! This is our altar from two years ago. It was made using a mosquito canopy, fancy ribbons, strings of pearls, white roses, and large drop gem beads. Read more and see more pictures HERE . We also have a little Crowning for Our Lady. Learn to make a floral crown for Our Lady HERE . Here are a few “mini altars” that we had sitting around the dining tables and serving tables: I drew a few teapot and teacup pictures to use as decorations around the dinning room. They looked cute along the streamers and ribbons! The teapot has a small Immaculate Heart on the design! Download above. Here are a few pictures: The pot and cups are taped on a oblong paper doily and “fun-tacked” to the wall. The bow is made from purple paper and the teapot and cups were printed onto purple paper. The decoration in the picture above was created with the teapot/cup download, some tape and curing ribbon. I taped about 6 to 8 strands of ribbon to the teapot spout (on the back) and taped the cups to some of the ribbon strands. My girls added the “tea” color to the cups with a colored pencil. The colored teapots and cups above were simply printed on to colored paper. These cups may make great place-cards, too! I took all these pictures from the leftovers we had from last year. I hope to have nicer pictures after our party next Sunday. But I wanted to get this out so those who wanted to use them would have the chance to use them this May. Marian Crafts: Check out all the post about Our Lady HERE My girls and I are looking forward to our Mother’s Day tea party with Our Mother Mary! I hope all these ideas help you to share the love of Our Lady! Have a blessed May! ~JenMarie

A few days ago I shared a list of things that are traditionally placed on a St. Joseph Altar – HERE . Today I want to share the altar our family made to celebrate the Feast day of St. Joseph!  This is our first year making an altar, and this is the completed altar. This is what is under the clothe: It’s a small end-stand, a wooden crate, and our table. St. Joseph is on the top with lots of flowers and a candle. I placed the bird nest there as a reminder of the swallows of Capistrano!  Here is a cute children’s book about the Swallows: The swallows return to Capistrano every year on March 19th! Here is the shaped flat bread; made by Elizabeth (She turned 10 today!! – and she’s proud to share the day with St. Joseph), Hannah (age 8), and myself.  This is our second tier on  the altar.  Prayer Intention Basket Sawdust – Cracker crumbs – Which were good with our soup! Our ”whole” fish which were made with the Tuna Ball Recipe . Our yummy cake shaped like a piece of wood and a saw!  I have posted instructions to make this cake HERE . All went well for our first year of creating an altar!  We are all looking forward to next year! Hope you all had a blessed day!!

Elizabeth as “Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha”

~Jennifer’s Thoughts: Faith, What is faith? The dictionary defines faith as “a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny”. Faith is also an English word which is thought to date from 1200BC–50BC. It comes from the Latin word fidem or fides, meaning “trust”, derived from the verb fidere, to trust. So then the word meaning “trust” is actually the same word that describes a belief in God. If the two are really one, then our “Belief in God” should truly be our “Trust in God”. But do we as humans really trust God? Most of us don’t. There are countless stories in the Bible that tell of the faith/trust that God’s people had. Abraham certainly did when he was willing to leave his family and his home to travel across the desert to an unknown land. And again he had faith/trust in that same God as he was about to sacrifice his only son on God’s command. On the other hand there are also stories in the Bible of the times when God’s people didn’t put all their faith/trust in Him. Such as the Israelites and their straying from God whenever they were afraid of starving or when Moses took too long to come down from the mountain. They foolishly did not have faith/trust in God, who had already freed them from Egypt and brought them safely to that point. We in our society today are more like the Israelites than Abraham. They were happy to do what God asked but only when it looked as though it was going to help them. Equally with us, if the situation looks rough or unpleasant then we stray from God and ask why isn’t he helping! The famous poem of “Foot Prints in the Sand” is a wonderful example of how we as people don’t even notice God in our lives. The man in the poem didn’t even realize that God was really carrying him though those tough times. He pessimistically only noticed the lack of the extra footprints. But are we that same way? If we have faith/trust in God and follow his examples at all times, even when the path seems unfriendly, it will bring us to a greater point in our lives. But will we keep that faith/trust in God as we live even the hard times of life? To have true faith/trust in God we need to work at it and that’s where most of us go wrong. When having a bad day at work do we optimistically say “Your will be done, God.” or do we grumble (like the Israelites) and say “God, I’m a good person, why are you doing this to me?!” Jesus is the “Good Shepherd” so why would he let me get hurt? The symbol of the “Good Shepherd” has more depth than most people know. In the times of Jesus, shepherds would break a leg of a sheep that had repeatedly strayed away from the flock. This way the sheep could not stray and it would be fully depended on the shepherd for food, water and to carry it from place to place. This created a closer relationship between the sheep and the shepherd, so when the sheep was healed it would not want to leave the shepherd. Like the shepherd, God allows bad things to happen to us so we can grow closer to him. We need to have faith/trust that sometimes God is allowing bad things to happen so we can grow closer to Him and so we can grow stronger as a person. But we must try to remember everyday that bad things are God’s way of bringing us to a greater point of faith and trust in our lives.

~Jennifer’s Thoughts: Extreme individualism has weakened our family structure over the last 5 decades. Busy families, which are too active in different directions to spend quality time with one another, uninterested fathers and/or mothers who get absorbed in on-line games, instead of reading or talking to their children or spouse, has contributed to an epidemic of broken families. More than 50 years ago, families did not have the distractions that families do today. Imagine no televisions, computers, game systems, Ipods, cell phones, no bi-weekly baseball practices coupled with dance, piano, and karate practices! These older families spent most of their extra time together, talking, singing, and just making their own fun. But after generations of families with a self-interested agenda, the problem of unhappy, stressed families has only become more rampant and the idea of a broken family is becoming the norm. Should we have our family chase after those things that the world thinks is good and fun? If all the family members become more family/God focused and less worldly focused, they will become happier and less stressed. The first step toward this happy less stressed filled life is prayer! Often, each day, pray together as a family, Mom, Dad and kids. And yes, both parents need to be included whenever possible! Kids need to see that praying is something important enough to draw the attention of both parents. The next step is to drop the extra needless stuff that your lives are centered around. It may be hard to discern if an activity is necessary and have the strength to choose to drop it. For example, you can make a decision to only check personal e-mails once a day, only carry a cell phone for true emergencies, limit the television and games systems to an hour a day, limit the family to one extra curricular activity (preferably, one you can do together), eat your meals together, and turn off the music/computer when your kids are around and talk to them. Another thing that can be a wonderful step to helping the family is to trash, trash, trash, and organize, organize, organize!!! Get rid of all that extra stuff that is all over the house. If you haven’t used it in the past year it’s not necessary. Trash it! Then, organize so you can find everything you need when you need it. Then do it all over again, it’s a never ending process. The less clutter in your life, the more you can focus on family and God. This entire process of simplifying your activities and house as well as praying will be a fight in the beginning but it’s worth it. In the end your entire family will be happier for it. The process is much easier for everyone if both parents can decide that it’s what they need to do to make their lives better. Isn’t your family worth it?

We started to say a family Rosary together about 5 years ago. It amazed me how much it seemed to help me and my family life!  So I highly recommend saying a family Rosary! Saying the Rosary may take those precious 20-25 minutes out of our overly busy days, but God more than makes up for it in other ways! I’ve been asked by several people “How can you say a Rosary with so many little kids?” And I was just asked that question again by a wonderful lady who also has her hands full! __________ While every family is different and our tricks may not work for everyone, this is what we found works well for us: When and How: We normally say the Rosary at night after the kids have had their night time snack and the little ones are ready for bed. The room you are praying in needs to be clean – toy, book, and distraction-free. We have a few rules: The bigger kids must stay sitting or kneeling. The little ones must stay laying down or sitting and they normally have a pillow and blanket, too, but no toys! It did take a few days to get them to understand the “no toys, stay sitting” rules!! We just had to keep bringing them back to the room and taking toys. Once it becomes an everyday event the kids just learn to accept it. Now the little kids just lay down and often times they fall asleep. Types of ways we pray the Rosary: 1. With a DVD:  Years ago when we started saying the Rosary as a family we used Rosary DVDs. It helped the kids to learn how to say the Rosary and the images helped them to stay focused. We got the DVD’s from EWTN, but they might be cheaper somewhere else. The DVDs I found to be the best ones for kids are: Use the DVD — “Rosary in the Holy Land” (The one in the picture is different than mine, but I guess it’s the same.) For Holy Land Rosary Link ~Click here! Other DVD — “The Holy Rosary” -it’s the one with the stain glass window pictures. For Holy Rosary DVD with stain glass window Pics. ~Click here! Note: The Rosary DVDs which are made special for kids are often too distracting and seem to make them think it’s more playtime!! 2. With Pictures: We also have pictures of each of the 20 mysteries. They are the 8×10 size and I put them in a poster frame.  For 20 Mysteries Prints ~Click here!   We just display the correct set of mysteries before we begin. Before we had the 8×10 pictures, the kids each had small Rosary books (Simple $1 book) to help them follow along, but those eventually were just too ripped up to use. 3. With Scripture:  Sometimes we will read scripture verses before each Hail Mary. “Rosary of Praise” or “Scriptural Rosary” are good books to use for this. 4. Other ways, times, and places we have prayed the Rosary: We have also said the Rosary on the drive home from different events when we know we will not have the time when we get home.  A few times we have loaded the kids in the van to say the Rosary while trying to get a baby to sleep. We have said the Rosary while walking outside around our property. We’ve said the Rosary at nap time, it helped to put the little kids to sleep. Distracted Kids? We change the way we say the Rosary (with the pictures, DVD, scripture book, etc.) if they seem like they are becoming more easily distracted. **In other words, if we say the Rosary with the scripture book for a few weeks and the kids seem to be losing interest we switch to the DVD for a while. Other thoughts:  It might help if you start saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, then after a few days/weeks switch to the Rosary. We give each of the kids a turn leading a decade of the Rosary. If you plan to buy or make Rosaries for children, I recommend “all-twine knotted Rosaries” ~ they are much stronger and more difficult for kids to break!! __________ If you are considering trying to say a daily Rosary together as a family, I hope this can help you to get you started. I hope it all made sense, if not please feel free to leave a comment!

Hannah as “The Angel Gabriel”

This is a popular game at our All Saint's Day parties! This simple game was made using 2 liter bottles with Satan pictures and a soft ball. You should never let Satan try to get you to do something bad. The kids rolled the ball and knocked the 3 evil demons down!

The Feast of the Holy Innocents. This feast day is to remind us of the day Herod murdered all the baby boys so he could kill the King of Kings. But Joseph took Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt and escaped the massacre. See Matthew 2:1-18 Today is a special day to remember the babies who have been murdered, especially those who have died due to abortion. Pray for all babies that they may have the chance to grow as God intends and do God’s will throughout their lives. To help stop the anti-life push around the world, the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen encouraged the spiritual adoption of an unborn child. This is done by praying that the one particular but unknown child’s life is spared abortion and be allowed to continue to live. To help accomplish this, it was recommended an individual say the following daily prayer for a period of nine months. ~ Prayer of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Please spiritually adopt an unborn baby. For more information go to: http://www.spiritualadoption.org/

I remember the days when Jon and I only had the two oldest girls. I was so stressed and overwhelmed. I understand how people feel when they ask “How do you do it?” It’s amazing how God gives you what you need. As I had each baby God gave me more patience and understanding. I’m not perfect and I’m still learning, but I’m less stressed with 8, going on 9, kids than I was with two!! Praise be to God for His wonderful ways!!

I made using a wooden sectioned crate (you could use separate boxes or buckets), plastic play fruit and veggies, and a basket. In this game the kids organized the produce by putting red produce in the box labeled red, yellow produce in the box labeled yellow…etc. Younger kids could take the basket of produce to the wooden crate and sorted them. Older kids tossed the produce into the correct box.