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My family and I are adamant scapular wearers. From about the age of 7 or 8ish my kids enroll in the Brown Scapular  and start to wear a scapular 24/7. If you don’t wear a scapular I HIGHLY recommend it!! To learn more about the scapular click here  and here . I also recommend you read these books.  These are wonderful books and they have some awesome miracle stories about the brown scapular.   You can buy some really pretty scapulars, but they can be kind of pricey. So on our tight family budget I like to go simple and cheap. Here is a great spot to get a  FREE scapular ! On the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16) I like to have a little something for my kids to make, color, or create!  Here are a bunch of ideas I found: This is a few past posts from Catholic Inspired: Make an Our Lady of Mount Carmel Felt Doll Click here to see this post Or make this wall scapular craft to decorate your room or home. Here’s more from other websites and blogs: Fun Food for the feast day: Scapular Brownies from Catholic Cuisine Scapular Cake from Catholic Cuisine Coloring pages:  Coloring pages from Coloring Book 4 Kids here and here  Coloring pages from My Catholic Source here and here More beautiful coloring pages from Hope you see something you can use! Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

I’ve seen many beautiful examples of these little Triduum displays, so I thought you might like to visit a few of these websites and blogs to get some inspiration to make your own. Craft, Interrupted  has this fun Easter garden. Here is a neat tomb; it\’s an egg!  See this at Toddler Activities at Home Familia Catolica has made clever use of a potato in this garden. Go check it out! The Crafty Homeschooling Mama as a great post about this lovely garden: At the Butterfly Ball made this cute little display.  Mary and Joseph\’s Gem has a few pictures of this colorful garden. A Holy Experience  has pictures of this garden.  Visit The Frugal Homemaker for this tutorial.  JOY-filled Family has a beautiful garden, too. Visit Tiffany to see her Resurrection Tomb Terrarium

Our Lord said to St. Francis of Assisi, “Rebuild My Church!” My kids thought this craft was so much fun! But before we stated I read about St. Francis from our "Once Upon a Time Saints" book. “But that night, he (the pope) had a dream. He saw the great Church of St. John Lateran falling, crumbling into dust, and only one ragged little man was holding it up. It was Francis. Our Lord said to the pope, “This is the man through whom the church shall be rebuilt.”” St. Francis of Assisi Craft After reading the story about St. Francis of Assisi my kids made this craft. All you need is: the printable - download below (stock paper is best) building material like:-brown or red paper square “bricks”-wooden craft sticks, cut in half-toothpicks-mini rocks scissors (and cutters if you are using sticks) glue (we used Tacky white glue) Download the St. Francis Craft Here:  It is super simple and fun! Just print out the St. Francis and church printable and glue your “building material” around the image of  St. Francis. Feel free to be creative about what “building material” you will use! Choose the 6 small printable templates or the 2 larger templates. Here is a quick view of the craft pages: God bless. ~JenMarie

My kids love to give me weeds - I mean  flowers - during spring and summer! Some days they bring me so many flowers I don’t know what to do with them all!! Most of these floral bundles are tiny and cute. In fact they are so tiny they don’t fit in any of my vases. Most vases that stores sell are large vases for bouquets you receive through a florist. They just don’t work for the little bouquets that my sweeties hide behind their back and try to surprise me with! Really, a 3 inch tall bouquet just falls down into a deep 10 inch vase. It just doesn’t work! So what should I do with the tiny bouquets that are so lovingly given by my biggest, little fans? Maybe I can just secretly throw them into the trash? Oooh, if my young little fan club found out that I was throwing those flowers into the trash I would be in BIG trouble!! The feelings of my little crew would be worse than the way Naomi felt when Joshua fed Prince Charming to the dinosaurs!! Besides, if I did trash the flowers, I’d have to explaining to the little upset faces what happened to the beautiful posies my precious posy pickers picked!  What to do; what to do! My solution:  Votive candle jars! Many small votive candle jars are a nice size for my tiny bouquets of flowers!! This past spring, while I was at a yard sale, I found a set of 5 votive candle jars which were held in a small shallow basket. These have been working GREAT for holding my petite perfumed posies!!! The posy pickers are thrilled to fill up all 5 jars. I display the jars with their basket and my statue of the Blessed Mother and the infant Jesus. I added a few strings of pearls to make it look a little more royal for Our Lady.  The pearls really added a nice accent to the basket! It’s been such a joy!  Not only do I now have great little vases to display my tiny flowers, I’m also able to share them with my Mother Mary!! Can you get any better than that?!? Here’s another cool thing about it….They are easy to clean!! Love it! It’s nice that my kids can freely bring in flowers to give to Mary! That might be a nice new tradition for teachers to do in the month of May for Our Lady, too! Votive candle jars are easy to find at thrift shops or even a regular store in the candle area. Be creative! I like to think ”outside the box". Now, if I could get my hands on one of these: Click here to see on Amazon I could put a statue of Mary in the middle, where the large vase is. Then add little flowers all around, in the votive candle jars!! That would be sooo pretty! I’d just have to figure out how to add something to the middle to support a statue. Oh, well, just a thought….. Oh, by the way – for any one concerned – Prince charming was able to escape from his hungry captives.   He only sustained minor paint scraping and a disappointed Naomi who tossed him down when she realized the doll wasn’t actually hers. It was her sister’s – Abby! What a disappointment! Well, at least Charming got out with all his limbs intact! God Bless you and your family! ~JenMarie

This cross is a fun, simple and FREE activity to create at Bible camp, while sitting at a campfire, or on a nature walk. It’s also great for Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha’s Feast day (July 14) All you need: (all free!!) two sticks (one shorter – one longer) a long stem of green grass. (about 1 to 2 feet long)You could use twine if you wish. Carefully tear off the grass blades from the grass stem. Criss-cross the two sticks so they are in the shape of a cross. Place the long grass stem behind the criss-crossed sticks.  Leave about 3 to 4 inches to use to tie a knot when finished.  Wrap the long end around the criss-cross sticks about 3 times. Then switch directions and wrap it around the opposite corners 3 times. Take both grass stem ends and knot them together. Use a knot like you use when you start to tie your shoe.  Use this knot two or three times. Break off the extra stem. That’s it! It’s great for bored kids on a camping trip! Hope you can use this idea! God Bless! ~Jen-Marie

To make our cross we used a few old wood pieces we had laying around our house. With our house under constant remodel, finding wood is easy! For those of you who are lucky enough to have a completed house, you could buy some thin lattice strips or other pieces of wood at your local lumber store (Lowes is great!). My  “Handy-Hubby” used two small screws to attach ours together, but if you don’t have a “handy-significant-other” string wrapped in a criss-cross pattern at the center should work, if tied tight! Lent Our Lenten Cross looks like this all Lent until Palm Sunday. I used a purple robe from our nativity costumes to drape over the cross, and I made a paper Crown of Thorns. For the instructions to make a paper crown of thorns click here . Palm Sunday Again I used a robe from our nativity costumes(I love to recycle!). The palm is paper. Click here for instructions on cutting a palm. Spy Wednesday I used glitter foam to make a blue bag with silver coins. I also added a black string to the bag. Holy Thursday Using glitter foam I made a chalice and host. I know this is not what Jesus would have had, but I wanted my kids to realize that Holy Thursday was the first Mass.  Good Friday I added a large black scarf, three red drops, and a red slit (cut from red glitter foam) and I added the paper crown of thorns . Holy Saturday It’s empty Easter Here I used another robe and a bunch of fake lilies. If you would like to make your own paper lilies  click here . Okay, That’s a lot of pictures!!  Hope that explains it all!  Have a meaningful Passion Sunday and Holy Week, and a wonderful Easter! God Bless. ~Jen-Marie

Here’s a simple idea to make for the kids if they are doing a skit of Our Lord entering Jerusalem or use it to decorate your home for Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday).  It’s just a simple paper palm! You’ll Need Green construction paper and scissors. Fold the paper in half longways. Cut out a half leaf shape with a thin stem. Now cut out wedges.  Be sure the leaves, which are left behind, are pointed and the bottom of the leaf, at the steam, is flat. Open it and you have this: It’s great for decorating on Palm Sunday! I used one to decorate our Lenten Cross… God Bless. ~Jen-Marie

Last Saturday we were able to attend a one day retreat with Matthew Leonard .  Admittedly, I really had not heard of him before. I had heard that he was on EWTN  and that he worked with Dr. Scott Hahn at the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology . But that was it. So while I expected a good talk by Matt, I thought it might be kind of “ho hum”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Matthew’s talks were captivating, enjoyable, and extremely useful for the day to day struggles that all people of faith have. He is not only a very talented speaker, he is surprisingly down-to-earth. I was even fortunate enough to actually eat lunch with him! If you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak or attend a conference where he is a presenter, it will be time well spent! St. Isadore of Seville said, “Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. … If a man wants to be always in God’s company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us. “ Making a concerted effort to read can be hard for some of us. Not only does it take time, it requires QUIET time! Getting quiet time in a house filled with 3 teens, 2 tweens, and 4 children can be about as hard as pushing a snowball up hill with your nose! So I’ve been trying to at least make an effort to to go to these spiritually enriching events as often as I can. Our parish has been hosting events to help its parishioners to grow in faith. Pete from The Catholic Book Blogger has been a huge role in organizing these events.  Pete has been able to schedule some awesome authors to visit our parish and help the Catholics in our area. Through his help we have not only heard Matt Leonard , but also, Mike Aquilina , Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle , and even Scott Hahn ! These authors have all given amazing talks that have help us grow in faith! I was amazed at how much I’ve learned from these events. All of the speakers had talks that each focused on different aspects of life. They gave informative ways to live your faith in simple meaningful ways.  They not only show us ways to grow closer to God, they also taught ways to grow closer to our fellow men! Today I want to urge you  to go to these types of events in your area. Many dioceses occasionally have speakers, adult classes, or retreats. I do realize that it can be very hard to pull yourself away from daily life and take the time to go, but the blessings that you will receive will outweigh whatever else you would have gained had you not gone.  Get out there and let God speak to you through these priests, authors, and other speakers! May God bless you with joy! ~JenMarie and Jonathan