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!

Okay, this was not what I planned to do today! But with a little help from my 8 year old, it kept the little kids happy while I worked with the bigger kids and finished up some school! I saw Tiffany’s post over at Family at the Foot of the Cross this morning and I showed it to, Elizabeth, (my 8 year old) she was sooo excited and jumped right on it!! So with my 8 year old in charge of craft time with the little kids, I hopped into a school day. She handled the little kids okay…I had to step in a few times to help, but the tilmas turned out great!! Feel Free to use this download if you need a coloring page with Our Lady: Check out the directions to make this at: Domestic-Church.com Hope you are all having a great day! God Bless. ~JenMarie

Wisemen Adventures ~ Days 17 to 19 This is our Elf on the Shelf Alternative: If you missed the first few post click here to learn the whole story! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 17 Meeting new friends is always good, but these friends are a bit odd! Particularly the hairy one! I’m not sure they can understand a word he’s saying! Balthazar and Melchior are asking for directions. They had hoped that these strange strangers will have an idea of where the Infant King is hiding.  Sorry no luck, let’s see if Caspar fared any better…. Caspar has engaged in a friendly light-saber battle and he’s winning against two Jedi!!WOW! Way to go, Caspar! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 18 Balthazar and Melchior are checking out the pencil basket in our school room! That Balthazar is a spry older fellow! Look at him scale that basket! But, where is Caspar? Oh no, Caspar! It’s not a pool and that ruler is not a high dive! Don’t jump! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 19 Today we found them in the DVD cabinet looking through the movies! Balthazar and Melchior are looking for a clue as to where to find baby Jesus. They think they may have found something that could help. Caspar became distracted by Zoe in her tutu! He made himself a tutu from a hair-tie and a cut-up tissue! He really does like tissues! He is one crafty fellow! 😉 They don’t have much time left to find baby Jesus! Let see what happens tomorrow! Blessings till then! ~Jen-Marie

The search continues… Searching for Jesus ~ Day 11 Today we found the wisemen searching through the knick-knacks above my kitchen cabinets. This one was hard for the kids to find since the kings blended in with the stuff so well! That made it interesting! Balthazar and Melchior have teamed up to look inside of the tin cans. But Caspar has his eye on that fun little antique car!  Good thing we hid the keys, or he might have taken it for a spin! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 12 While looking for baby Jesus in our mini pool table, Caspar was still having a grand time! Balthazar and Melchior are likely to get hit with a ball as Caspar makes a shot! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 13 Ah yes, the junk drawer! We all seem to have one! It’s the drawer that holds all the little broken things that need fixed and other stray items that need a home.  Balthazar and Melchior are digging through ours looking to find the infant King. Caspar seems distracted by the idea of finding a new staff No luck again, maybe tomorrow will be better! Until then, ~JenMarie

Here is a page of “Jesus Loves You!” valentine tags. I made these to be used as tags on bagged candies, pencils, or lollypops. My kids discovered they are also a perfect size to use as bracelets! Just staple or tape them together! 😉 Download the St. Valentine's tags here: Enjoy! God bless. ~Jen-Marie

I’m most likely getting this out too late for most of you to use it, but I thought I’d post it anyway. This is a coloring activity for Advent. My oldest daughter, Rachel, drew the coloring pages with the Advent Wreath, the manger, and Baby Jesus. She had hoped I’d share them with all of you. For this coloring page activity, the kids can color the Advent wreath, candles, manager, flames, and Jesus. Then they can glue one flame to a candle each week. On Christmas day they can add Jesus to the manger! I’d like to thank my second oldest daughter, Rebekah, for coloring the Advent wreath and Jesus images.  She did a great job, as always!! 😉 We accompanied Rachel’s coloring activity with our family’s Advent Prayer Chain.  The Advent Prayer Chain doubles as a countdown to Christmas! If you want to make one, too, you can access our free download below. Print it onto colored paper (I used red and green). I cut construction paper down to a regular size sheet of paper and placed it into my printer. Worked great! Then cut on the dotted line to make the strips, which you will need to create the chain.  We used a stapler to attach the ends together as we made our chain. We turned the prayer intentions to the inside.  Each night as we are saying our evening prayers we remove a chain link and say an extra prayer for the special intention listed on that chain link. Download the printable prayer chain here: Since Advent is so short this year, there are more chain links on the printables that you will need. So just pick the prayer intentions you like best and use those to make your chain. Hope you have a blessed Advent! ~JenMarie

Happy St. Lucia’s (Lucy) Feast Day! Here are a few easy last minute ideas to make the day a little more interesting! St. Lucy Bundt Cake: Here is the recipe  we used; the only thing I changed was that I added green food coloring to the icing. I also added red sprinkles and a few white candles. St. Lucy Paper Crowns Click Here St. Lucia Paper Dolls from https://www.thebleudoor.com/1972decbetsy.htm St. Lucia Scissors Practice https://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/StLuciaScissorPractice.htm Have a blessed day!! ~Jen-Marie

I know this is a bit late for St. Stephen’s feast day, but kids don’t care if you are a little late (or early)! So feel free to celebrate his feast day this week! St. Stephen was a great preacher who spoke strong words for Jesus. His words angered many people, and so they drug him out of the city and stoned him to death. St. Stephen’s was the very first martyr and so he was blessed to have his feast day on the day after Christmas. (Dec. 26) You can read his story is in the Bible in the Book of Acts 6 – 7. So look it up and have a read! Or click here to see it on-line. For St. Stephen’s feast day we made rock candy.Why rock candy? The stones that killed St. Stephen were hard, sharp, and painful, but they brought St. Stephen to a sweet life in heaven!  Our rock candy is hard and sharp, but it’s also sweet. Many saints have shown us that a life lived for Jesus is a hard life, but it’s a sweet end, and this candy is much the same! So remember that through hardship and pain we can reach the sweet life in heaven! Quick and Easy Rock Candy Recipe  Ingredients: 4 cups of sugar 1 cup of water 1/2 tbsp. of vanilla extract (for better taste) red food coloring Instructions: Mix the sugar and water together in a sauce pan. Heat it on high until the sugar dissolves and begins to boil. After it has come to a boil, continue to let it boil for about 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the vanilla extract and food coloring. Poor it onto a large foiled jellyroll pan and let it sit until it crystallize.  In will take about 10 minutes to start to become solid. Once it’s to a point where it will keep its shape, scoop it out of the pan and place the chunks into another pan to finish cooling. (It’s easier to break it up when it’s still a little soft than to wait till it’s totally cool.) This rock candy can be used for other Saints feast day’s as well – Barnabas and Philip were also stoned to death. Enjoy! 🙂 Blessings, ~Jen-Marie

On with the search for the Baby King: (If you missed the first post click here to see it) Searching for Jesus ~ Day 5 After no luck the first 4 days, Balthazar, Melchior, Caspar, and their camel checked in a baby wipe box. Nope, no baby in the *baby* wipe box, but I’ll give them a “A” for thinking “outside the box”. Hee Hee!!! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 6 Caspar is a daring fellow and after meeting a friendly pommel horse gymnastics athlete, he decided to take a break from searching and give this neat talent a try. He’s got good form! What do you all think? Should we give him an 9.5?? I think we better wait to see his dismount! Not far away, Balthazar and Melchior were checking out another candle and trying an acrobatic feat of their own!!! Wow, I’m not sure how they got into that position, but that’s got'a hurt! The true question is how will they get down! Searching for Jesus ~ Day 7 Oh boy, now Caspar did it!! He managed to get himself trapped inside the medal basket which he was using  as a pommel horse the night before!! But with quick thinking Melchior grabbed the nail clippers and tried to break him free! Good thinking Melchior!! The search will continue tomorrow!! Blessings, ~Jen-Marie

Wisemen Adventures ~ The Search for Jesus is over! The moment you have all been waiting for this week!! Our Wisemen have finally found Baby Jesus!! I know you were all beginning to wonder if the wisemen were actually going to find the newborn king – it was a lot of nail biting – edge of your seat moments, but they finally found him! Hooray!! I have to tell you, our house is kinda sad to see them succeed, only because we will miss seeing them each day! Oh well, we have next Christmas to look forward to! I hope your family can join us in the fun!  We have been posting all the adventures our little wisemen have had as they searched for the infant Jesus. It’s our Elf on the Shelf Alternative, and our kids have LOVED IT!! If you missed our other “Wisemen Adventure” posts this week   Click here  to read all about it and see the entire story!

In 2011, I posted a shell ornament for the Baptism of Our Lord. In that post, we used real shells. As much as we loved that craft I thought I’d offer another shell ornament for Our Lord’s Baptism which is made from paper. This one is for anyone who does not have the shells to use. Here is a picture of the completed paper shell craft: Here is the completed real shell ornament from 2011: Click here to see this old post. You will need: Printable scallops (Free Download below) Or you can buy a basket or bag full of shells at a dollar store or craft store -like in last year’s post . Printable image of Jesus Baptism and the Holy Spirit (Free Download below) Silver glitter or silver glitter glue (optional) String and needle – or tape a string it to the back scissors A glue stick Download the Baptism Craft here: Instructions:  Print the pages from the download above that work best for you: ***Print just the first sheet in this set if you are using real shells Or if this works better here is three sets on a single sheet: Cut out the shell, Baptism and Holy Spirit images. Glue the Baptism image to the shell and glue the dove above the baptism picture. Use the thread and needle to create a hanger for the ornament – Or you can tape a looped string to the back.  Now decorate it with silver glitter/glitter glue if you wish. A few of my kids added the silver glitter glue around the image of Jesus and John the Baptist. (Sorry, not pictured) It’s that easy! May God bless you! ~Jen-Marie

Here are a some Wisemen Activities and Ideas Most of these are printable, a few are not. First Palette  has the temples for these Wisemen Here is a crown your kids can make and wear! Go to  DLTK  for the instructions I liked these, they are nice and easy! 😉 DLTK  also has a 3D star project: Click here DLTK  has this cute Three Wise Men Song, too! We always give our kids little gifts on the Epiphany. So I thought these were a cute and easy idea to wrap the gifts.(Sorry the website shut down) This cute craft idea came from:  Mollie’s Mom  I gotta try this!! Here’s a coloring page form Sermons 4 Kids  They have a great selection of coloring pages Be sure to stop by and see them all! The Wisemen page is  here . Making Learning Fun  has these pages: Here is a coloring page: Here is a magnet page: Dibujos Para Pintar  has these coloring pages: Here is a easy  crown craft  from our blog: