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With the hot summer months now upon us in the Northeast, this cool, edible craft is just right for the feasts of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart. The fun, jiggly jello and the cool, juicy peaches, are a nice mix. My kids enjoyed creating them just as much as eating them! It’s a great way to satisfy your child’s spiritual and snack needs.  You will need: 1 box of red Jello – 6 oz box – whatever flavor you like – cherry, strawberry, or punch can of peaches – we used a 29 oz can but that was more than we needed – slice them thin chocolate sprinkles flower sprinkles pretzel sticks – you only need a handful or two heart shaped cookie cutter (if possible) flat, un-slotted spatula/turner (or whatever you call it; the name depends on where you live)  plates to put the jello hearts on – so the kids can decorate them Make your jello ahead and pour the liquid into two 13×9 inch pans. Chill till it’s that fun solid-jiggly texture. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut hearts into the jello. Use the spatula/turner to gently remove the hearts from the pan and place two hearts side-by-side on a plate. (This is the hardest part.) The key is to gently tap the spatula against the plate as you slide the heart off the spatula. Now cut the peaches into small, thin slivers. Place them at the top of the heart. Try to make them flare out so they look like flames. I let my older kids (8 and up) help with this part. Then all the kids added their own chocolate sprinkles to one of their hearts to create a ”crown of thrones” and they added flower sprinkles to the other to make the ”crown of flowers”.  They used a whole pretzel stick and a half stick to make a cross on top of the heart with chocolate sprinkles. All the kids had a fun, jiggly, and giggly time creating these treats! Although, Caleb thought the best part was eating the jello! Don’t have a heart shaped cookie cutter? If you don’t have a cookie cutter, try smashing up the jello and spoon some onto a plate to form the two hearts. It’s not as clean of a look, but my girls liked the ”gem” look that these have. I made the ones pictured above with the leftover ”scraps” of jello that were around the cookie cutter shapes. Waste not; want not! 🙂  Till later, God bless. ~JenMarie

For our first Liturgical Saint Ornament we created St. Veronica’s veil. This was a nice easy one to start with! St. Veronica’s feast day is July 12 (That’s her historical feast day.) This ornament was created with only a small piece of off-white felt, black and brown permanent sharpie markers, and a needle & tread to hang it (We used gold thread.).  Elizabeth created most of this one. God Bless. ~JenMarie

Some days I feel like my kids are second-class homeschoolers. Almost every other homeschooling family I know is paying to put their kids in some kind of music class.  Weather it’s piano, guitar, viola, or flute, they are paying for these super expensive music lessons. Sadly, our family is unable to pay for music lessons for all 9 of our kids. So I signed-up our kids for our parish’s children’s choir. Unfortunately, since our kids were the only ones to join, the choir soon disbanded. I was in the choir as a teen and I’ve been told I’m a good singer, so my husband and I asked our parish priest for a few extra music books like those we had at the church. We started singing Mass songs each evening with the kids. My oldest became quite good at singing a capella  and I’ve been very pleased with her growing talent – especially since she learned from an amateur vocal teacher (me). Singing church music is a great way to teach kids a few basics, but I was looking for another way to teach music that would help them to understand music history, vocabulary, as well as, learn a little about how important music is. Many of the early composers played their music in Catholic Churches and they built the foundation of the music which the Catholic Church uses today. I thought it would be interesting to learn about the lives of these composers. The has a number of books about these early church composers, as well as many other famous composers. I tried one of these book sets out last year. For our first year we choose Bach . The main book is a story book which tells all about Sebastian Bach . The story is cute and draws you into Bach’s world. It tells about his childhood, his family, and his career. I also bought the companion CD which has samples of his music. These samples are meant to be played during many different parts of the book. The CD not only includes the MP3 music samples, it also includes printable coloring pages and sheet music (not that my kids can use the sheet music!). The study guide was also a great help. It gave a short synopsis of the reader, discussion questions, a timeline, plus, some other interesting facts. I used this set it for all my elementary level (grades 2 – 7) kids.  It was an easy read for the older kids and too hard for the youngest, but understandable as a whole. When I first introduced this book and CD to my kids they were very unhappy with the idea. They seemed to think that it was going to be “boring elevator music”, but by the end of the book they were sad it was over. I’ve seen a change in their attitude about music. It opened their ears to hearing the heart and soul of the sounds that these composers put together. It’s even more uplifting when one of the kids gets excited and points to the name of a familiar composer in the Mass music book at church! 🙂 Here are a few notebooking pages which I created to accompany this book and the music: Music Appreciation: Listening to Music This is a free worksheet which allows kids to write down the background information (e.g.: the composer, type, year composed) of a piece of music which they are listening to. Their is also space for the children to write down their thoughts about the music. It can be used along with the or along with ANY music appreciation program. Note: If we couldn’t find a exact date that the piece was written we just wrote the years of the composers life spanned. Music Vocabulary Worksheets My kids used this sheet to write down any music related words they didn’t understand. Usually, they were unfamiliar words which were in the story about the composer. Once we finished reading the chapter or paragraph we looked them up and wrote down the definition. The kids drew a picture of the idea/item if they could. Download the Music Appreciation and Vocabulary Sheets Here: This year I plan to have my kids read about Joseph Haydn and Beethoven.  There are many different composers to choose from: Sebastian Bach …….  ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Motzart ……………….  ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Joseph Haydn ………  ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Beethoven ……………  ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Franz Schubert ……… ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Johannes Brahms …  ( Reader ) ( CD ) ( Study Guide ) Check out all the other music books by Opal Wheeler : HERE No, these books are not the same as learning to play an instrument, but they are great books to teach music history. And I plan to use them until the day we can actually afford to pay for guitar or piano lessons. Then, on that day, we can stop searching YouTube for free lessons! 🙂  Hey, YouTube is a great resource for free lessons. Just don’t expect to get professional results! How do you teach music to your kids? Till Later, God Bless, ~JenMarie

The original name of the ladybug is “Our Lady’s Bug.” It seems that during the Middle Ages, a plague of small insects (probably aphids) attacked the crops, threatening Europe with starvation. The people had recourse to Our Lady, and petitioned her to save them from this plague….. Finish reading this awesome story on Catholicism.org . In honor of Our Lady we have Ladybug cookies every year at our Marian Tea Party!! These ”ladybug” cookies they are yummy –No, they are not made with real ladybugs like my oldest daughter, Rachel, once thought when she was very little! But they are cute and fun to make! You will need: 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup butter (soften) 1/2 tsp. vanilla 2 eggs 2 cups flour 1/4 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. baking soda 1/2 square unsweetened chocolate melted.(I used chocolate chips ~ about 15 regular sized chips – I think) Mini chocolate chips for the bug’s spots Red Cookie Paint (OR – You could use red sugar sprinkles instead of the paint) egg yoke 1 tsp water red food coloring Blend sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. Slowly add flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix until well blended. Take 6 tablespoons of the dough and stir in the melted chocolate. Refrigerate the two balls of dough in different bowls for about an hour or until firm and easy to handle. Preheat oven to 350. Grease cookie sheet. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet – 1 inch apart. Flatten them a little and use a knife to cut a deep line length wise down the center of each cookie. Create a head for the bug: Shape the chocolate dough into finger-tip-size oval shapes and add one to each of the cookies to form a head.  Make the ”red paint” by added 1 tsp of water and 5 to 10 drops of red food coloring to an egg yoke. Use a small spoon or clean (new) brush to add the red paint to the bug’s body. The cookie area will need to be flat so the red doesn’t roll off.  Press three mini chocolate chips (upside-down) into each side of the bug’s body.  Bake 12 to 15 minutes until lightly brown.  Makes about 3 doz. We also made these in the past without the ”paint”.  We just added maraschino cherries that had been chopped into small pieces: They were good this way, too, but a few of my kids didn’t like the cherries. Next year, I was thinking it might be fun to sprinkle them with red sugar and add the mini chocolate chips! Hope you enjoy these, too! God Bless. ~JenMarie

Summer is in full swing and my 10 year old daughter, Elizabeth, has been complaining that she is ”bored”. Elizabeth is a very creative young lady, but it’s her creativity that often feeds her feeling of boredom. If she doesn’t have something creative to do she just looks lost and kind-of wonders around. So I decided to give her something to spark her creative juices. I asked Elizabeth if she wanted to make little ornaments that centered around the liturgical year. We have a ”tree” in our house which we decorate throughout the year. The changing decorations include: Saint Medals ,  Mary flowers ,    Catholic Snowflakes,   Lenten Jesus Tree ,  Assumption décor ,    and more! I thought it would be nice if the kids had an ornament to hang on the tree after we talked about the saint of the day. I told Elizabeth that she could use the stuff in my craft box which is over flowing with chenille stems (A.K.A pipe cleaner), pom-poms, felt, sequins, beads, etc.! That was almost too exciting for her to handle! She couldn’t wait to begin. Each of the ornaments that she (and I – if she needs help) will create will have a liturgical centered meaning. Most will be symbols of saints. Here are the first three she and I made. I did help her with these first few. She seemed to need a little help getting her creativity going. Now that she has an idea of what I was asking for, I'm sure she’ll be doing most of them on her own. But ether way it’s a great mom and daughter bonding time! 😉 All the ornaments will be added to this page: HERE I’ll post about our new ornaments as she/we make them. I’m not sure how often she/we will make one of these ornaments, but I’m hoping for at least 2 a month or even one a week -but no pressure. You can’t force creativity! It just has to happen on it’s own.  I’m hoping to get future ornaments posted *before* the saint’s feast day, but life is a bit crazy sometimes. (I’m sure that will be especially true once school starts again.) I’ll do my best to keep posting!  God Bless. ~JenMarie What do your bored kids do during summer break?

St. James the Greater, who was one of the sons of Zebedee, is celebrated in high honor on July 25th (in the new and old calendars). He is, of course, one of Jesus’ apostles and is attributed to being Jesus’ first apostle. He is the brother to John (the ”disciple whom Jesus loved”) and is know as ”the greater” – not because he was smarter or better but because he was larger then the other James (James the lesser). He had a full life and brought many souls to Jesus. Read more about him here and here . For his ornament, we used the  ”Cross of St. James” image. This symbol is a mix between a cross and a sword. The cross is for Jesus, and a sword represents the instrument used to behead James at his martyrdom. To create this, I first drew the ”St. James Cross” on red sheet of felt. Then I cut it out and flipped it over. Elizabeth glued it onto a off-white oval with the drawn side down – because it was kind-of messy looking. Using a brown permanent marker, we lightly outlined the plan side of the cross to add a little bit of interest. Then, we added a threaded loop of silver thread. Because July 25 is the feast day for two well known saints, Elizabeth and I created two ornaments for the day. St. James, pray for us. ~JenMarie

St. Mary Magdalene’s feast day is July 22 (New and Traditional calendars) The story from John 12:1-8 tells us how Mary Magdalene anointed the feet of Jesus with expensive perfume. So for her liturgical ornament Elizabeth and I decided to make a perfume bottle (an older style). We used light blue felt, and a light blue permanent marker. We folded a 2×3 inch rectangular piece of light blue felt in half and cut half a perfume bottle shape from it so that it could be opened into a full bottle. Then we added a light blue marker outline and glass-glare. The shaded-outline really makes it ”pop”! A silver threaded loop was added to hang it on our Liturgical Tree.  St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us! God bless. ~JenMarie

Sts. Anne and Joachim are remembered and honored on July 26th in the new Catholic calendar (Traditionally – July 26th for Anne and Aug. 16th for Joachim). While we don’t know much about these two saints, we do know that they were blessed to the the parents of an amazing woman – Mary the Mother of God. How special was this couple that God allowed them to conceive a baby with no original sin!? Wow! What a blessing! St. Anne and St. Joachim, were the first teachers of Our Blessed Mother, so my daughter, Elizabeth, and I decided to use a book for one of the symbols. Because Anne would have also taught Mary how to keep house, cook, and make clothes, we use a spool of thread as another symbol. We used maroon, light blue, light brown and white felt to make this ornament.  The book was make with a larger maroon rectangle shape which was folded in half. We added  three smaller, white, rectangle shapes inside the folded maroon rectangle to form the pages. It was all hot glued at the ”binding”.  The spool was a light brown spool shape and a few small strips of light blue to make the ”thread”. The spool was glued onto the book. The above picture has a better view of the spool of thread.  Sts. Anne and Joachim, pray for us. God bless you all. ~JenMarie & crafting buddy, Elizabeth 🙂

St. Christopher was a very large and strong man. In his kindness he often would carry pilgrims (travelers on a religious journey) across a river. One day a child asked to be taken across. St. Christopher was happy to help. He placed the child on his shoulder and carried him across the river. The child became heavier and heavier, till the weight became almost too much to hold. Then he realized it was Christ – the Lord of the world- that he carried. (Christopher means ”Christ-carrier”). Read more about St. Christopher – here .  St. Christopher\’s ornament includes two symbols: one for St. Christopher and one for the Lord of the World. St. Christopher is represented with a travelers staff  and sack. Our Lord is represented in the image of the world with the triumphant cross.  We used dark brown, off-white, light brown, and light blue felt to create this ornament. We used a light blue marker, a green marker, and a brown marker to make the world with the triumphant cross. Brown marker was used on the sack, too. All the parts were glued onto an off-white oval-ish shape so they could be hung on the liturgical tree.  St. Christopher shared his feast day (July 25th) with St. James the Greater. St. Christopher, pray for us. Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

The second ornament Elizabeth and I made was for the feast of St. Benedict, whos feast day is celebrated on July 11 (in the NEW calendar). His traditional feast is March 21.  Scholastica’s feast day is celebrated on Feb 10.  These two saints are twins, so we just kept them together.  This ornament was made with maroon and off-white felt, black and brown permanent sharpie markers, half of a gold pipe cleaner, and a small plastic dove (optional). All the parts were glued together. Hot glue or a good quality craft glue will work. (I prefer the hot glue – it lasts longer and it’s quicker.) The book was decorated with the brown and black markers. Dots were all that was needed to make the ”writing” on the book. Marker details add a lot! The dove was a nice touch, but not necessary. The dove is really the symbol for St. Scholastica – not so much St. Benedict.  God Bless. ~JenMarie

We celebrate the feast of St. Bridget of Sweden on July 23. (Her traditional feast day is on Oct. 8th.) She married around the age of 14 and had 8 children. (Including St. Catherine of Sweden). St. Bridget was a visionary and after her husband died she worked hard trying to restore the Church. She is the founder of the Brigettine nuns, and the patron saint of Sweden, Europe, and widows.  The symbols on the ornament which we created for her includes a ”pilgrim’s” staff,  because she took MANY pilgrimages. The staff is accompanied by a book – another common symbol of her’s.  Read more about her HERE and HERE . We used gray, dark brown, maroon, and white felt to create this ornament. We glued the staff onto a white oval for stability (we used hot glue). The book was created using a gray rectangle (the cover) and thee small white rectangles (the pages). It was all glued (hot glue) together at the book’s ”binding”; so it will partly open. Then the book was glued onto the oval with the staff. A silver threaded loop was added so it could be hung on our Liturgical tree.   Note:  St. Bridget of Sweden is also known as St. Brigit, St. Birgitta, or Birgitta of Vadstena. She is commonly confused with St. Bridget of Ireland, whose feast day is Feb 1. St. Bridget of Sweden, pray for us! May you all have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

St. Kateri Tekakwitha is a new saint who’s feast day is July 14th. Elizabeth had a hard time coming up with a symbol for this beautiful saint. So I helped with the design.  To create this ornament, we used dark brown felt, off-white felt, a black permanent sharpie marker, thread, small Indian beads, and glue. (We used hot glue, but high quality craft glue will work.)  Two strips of brown felt formed a cross and two feather shapes with black marker detailing were the decoration on the cross. We glued all the parts together. Then, using thread, we made a few beaded dangles and threaded them onto the feathers. To give the feathers more of a feather look we cut slits in the sides. Just don’t cut all the way through!  It’s just a small tribute to such a wonderful saint! St. Kateri, pray for us! Till later, ~JenMarie