If you have been following our blog for the past few years you already know about our super fun Saint Themed Guess Jar games! Here are the jar ideas and labels from 2013 and 2014! This year I made a few new jars again! These jars were a great hit at our party again this year!! Download ALL of our jar labels (our old ones and our 6 new ones) below!! The Guessing sheet is also included in this download! Download All The Sets of these Guessing Jars Here: Here are our 6 NEW Jar labels! Our Lady Undoer / Untier of Knots – Twizzlers St. Dominic – Rosary Beads All Saints’ Halos – Butterscotch Hard Candies St. Lucy – Eye Candies (Ours were bubble gum, like those pictured here.) St. Tarcisius did NOT have butter-fingers!!! – Butterfinger Bars St. Lawrence – Red Hots Ironically, my daughter, Hannah won this one at our All Saint’s Day party- which is appropriate since Lawrence is our last name! 🙂 Enjoy!! May you all have a blessed All Saints’ day! ~JenMarie

It took several days of brainstorming, but I finally came up with a new table game for our All Saints day party – Saint-themed guessing jars! My first thought was to make a guessing jar that had “3 Musketeers” in it and call it a “Holy Trinity Guessing Jar”.  Then I (with my husband’s help) tried to think of all kinds of candies and crackers that could be a symbol or have a meaning that centered around a saint. We came up with several – some are not included here, but maybe I can add them to a future post. Basically, these jars are filled with candy or crackers that have a saint theme. The kids (and adults) can guess how many candies or crackers are in the jar. The person with the closest guess wins the jar! It’s simple, saint-inspired fun! These could be fun for any Catholic event, like youth groups or a CCD/RE class. Check them all out in our downloadable file!! Download ALL of our jar labels (our old ones and our 6 new ones) below!! The Guessing Sheet is also included in this download! Guessing Jar Label Set - Download Here: Our jar ideas included: The Holy Trinity Guessing Jar In my opinion, I think this is the tastiest jar listed here! To symbolize our 3 in 1 God,  I put 3 musketeers mini bars in this jar. St. Nicholas (Candy or Money) A jar for St. Nicholas could be filled with candy coins, but they can be hard to find so you may prefer to put Christmas mints in the jar. ~OR~  If you are doing this with older kids, teens, or adults you may like to add pennies, nickels, and dimes to the jar and have them guess the dollar amount. Choose the correct label below. This jar would be great for a Christmas party! St. Francis Guessing Jar The jar for St. Francis could be filled with animal crackers. St. Peter Guessing Jar St. Peter’s jar could be filled with fish crackers of Swedish fish! St. Isidore Guessing Jar St. Isidore could have a few different candies in his jar. Pumpkin candies, Runts , fruit-flavored candy, or any produce themed candy will work! Personally, I like Runts , but I didn’t have any so I used some cute Raspberry gumdrops! Our Lady of Mount Carmel Guessing Jar Yes, I know that Carmel and caramel are not the same things, but they sound much the same and they tend to wear the same color! 😉 So in this jar, I added caramels. You can use several different varieties of caramel candy: Rolos, caramel creams (like ours), or plain caramel squares. St. Kateri Tekakwitha Guessing Jar This jar was filled with candy corn and candy pumpkins. Doctors of the Church Guessing Jar In honor of all the Church Doctors, I filled this jar with Smarties – because the Doctors are known for being so smart about God and the faith! St. Andrew Guessing Jar For St. Andrew I added those fun waffle pretzels because they look like fishing nets! You could add Chex mix, too, since Chex can look like fishing nets also! St. Thomas Aquinas Guessing Jar Because St. Thomas Aquinas was called the “dumb ox” in his youth, I added Dum-Dums to this jar. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Guessing Jar St. Elizabeth Ann Seton started a school for girls in Maryland in the early 1800’s so letter cookies seemed to be appropriate for her jar! St. Catherine of Alexandria Guessing Jar St. Catherine was condemned to death on the spiked wheel, but, at her touch, the wheel was miraculously destroyed (although later she was martyred by beheading). Those little wheel pretzels seemed appropriate for her jar. The PDF files which include the labels for these jars. NOTE: The St. Nicholas money guessing label is only available in the image at the top of this post. It is not included in the PDF files. The other labels are in the above download. How I created these jars: After Jon (my husband) and I made our list of saint themed candies and crackers, I started cleaning out used peanut butter jars (We eat a lot of peanut butter at our house!).  I saved the jars for when I would need them. If you want you can buy some jars at the dollar store, Walmart, etc. Next, I created the labels for the jars. (Those labels are free to print above.) When I put these jars together for the party, I first added as many of the candies or crackers to the jars as I could (without cracking or breaking them). I counted them as I added them. For larger amounts of candies/crackers, I filled the jar then dumped it out onto a clean surface and separated them into groups of ten. Then after I counted them I put them all back into the jar. Each time I finished counting the contents for a jar I wrote the number down on a slip of SUPER SECRET paper so I would remember the number. After I added all the food to the jars, I closed the lid and I used clear shipping tape to attach the labels to the jars.  I also added a few strips of tape around the lid, too. (Just to be safe.)  I made one sheet for each of the jars so our guests could write down their name and guess. Our printable guessing sheet is available in the download above. Just write the name of the saint themed jar at the top so you know what jar belongs to that particular page. Anyone want to guess how many candies or crackers are in these jars? Sorry, but if you guess correctly, I’m not mailing the jar to you. You will just have the privilege of saying you got it right! 🙂 God bless! ~JenMarie *UPDATE* Nov 2, 2015 We added 6 more labels to the download! Here are images of those:

Hi Everyone! Here are a few Stations of the Cross printable! One is a lift-flap notebook page and the other is a Stations of the Cross mini booklet! I used the notebook page for my younger kids. And we added these to their notebook (3 ring binder) which holds the many other pages we have made during the school year. The mini booklets were great for my older kids, but also loved by my younger kids. They can be carried in their pocket or purse during this Lenten season as a reminder to meditate on the Stations and Christ passion whenever they have a few free minutes. Download These Station Pages Here: 1. Lift-Flap Notebook Page To make the lift-flap page you will need: Printable Pages – (download above) crayons or colored pencils (optional) scissors glue or tape Color the images. Cut out the rectangles along the dotted lines and cut between the station’s title boxes.  Glue or tape the top of each section in the proper place on the sheet which includes a black and white image of each of the stations. After you have it all glued down you can lift the flaps and see an image for the station’s title. 2. Stations of the Cross Mini Booklet The other file I’ve listed in the members area is a mini booklet! It’s small enough to be carried easily in a pocket or a purse! You will need: Printable Pages – (Download Above) colored pencils or crayons (optional) scissors stapler Just color the black and white pictures (optional). Older kids often prefer it uncolored.  Then, cut and fold the pages as directed in the pdf file. Instructions on how to fold the pages and assemble the booklet are included in the PDF. Both of these projects are easy to create, take very little time, and are not a huge mess to make! ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬●✿●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Hope you are all having an enlightening Lent! Please pray for me and my family. I’m praying for all of you. ~JenMarie

Raising kids to completely understand the Catholic faith without question is impossible. No matter how much you prepare them for the world and it’s non-Christian views, they will always come back home with a question about something that pertains to the faith. In my experience, I have always been able to ask a priest or visit Catholic Answers to help me find the truth to those tough questions which I’m not able to explain. Being a mom of 9 inquisitive children, who are either adults or growing into adults, has taught me a lot about the Catholic faith. One thing I have learned is that it’s never too early to start preparing children for the tough questions (age appropriate questions – that is). And one of the toughest questions in our society today is, “Is abortion okay?” So today I want to tell you about a book which is a new addition to our home library. It’s a homeschool (or school) book that is meant to teach children (K-2 grades) about the importance of life, even unborn life. This topic can be a bit touchy and hard to teach to young children, but I feel this program does a good job of hitting the preciousness of new life without diving into topics which are too adult for them. Life is Precious is a program created by ALL (American Life League) which uses children’s books as a launching pad to explain the preciousness of human life in all stages. It uses books like: By Regina Doman  — By Nancy Tillman  — By Dr. Seuss Topics include: A child’s uniqueness Guardian angels Protecting life Standing up for what you believe Forgiveness and much more… It’s loaded with coloring pages and art projects! And you know these are some of my favorite things! Here are images of the Baby’s Development Board which my children and I made: The program is also loaded with many other fun hands-on projects which are centered around these adorable children’s books! I found the program very adaptable for the various children levels in our home. I used it with all my kids from K to 5th grade. If you are looking for a helpful way to introduce the topic of unborn life, I recommend this program . *Learn more about this program on Culture of Life Studies Program site: HERE You might also like: Pro-Life Prints Looking for more hands-on activities for children ages 3 to 7? Culture for Life also has this as a Digital Download called  This activity program is intended to be a stand-alone activity. It’s a fun and engaging way to begin a conversation about the beauty of God’s creation of the human person through art and play! Click here to learn more about it! Enter Our Giveaway: a Rafflecopter giveaway A copy of this book was given to me in return for an honest review. I was also given an extra copy to give away in this giveaway! The program (Book, CD, DVD, and little baby model) will be sent to the winners home address. The winner will be contacted by email and will need to supply me with their address so I can ship this program to them. The winner will need to respond to my email within 3 days or a new winner will be chosen. Learn more about this program on Culture of Life Studies Program site:  HERE

It has been a fun filled Advent for our kids as they watched our Wandering Wise Men search for the infant Jesus! They are continuing the search for Jesus during this Christmas Season and they don’t have much time left! I began this family tradition 3 years ago and we have been enjoying it every year since then! If you are not familiar with this activity CLICK HERE to read last years post about it. Today, I want to share a few of the ADVENTures these guy have had. I’m not posting about every day, but these are a few adventures which we really enjoyed: Trouble in the seed bucket! One morning we found them checking out the bucket full the sunflower seeds which we grew in our garden. If you think Caspar is missing, he’s not. He fell into the bucket and is buried in the seeds… do you see him? The next morning we found them helping Caspar get out of the bucket. But how did Mr. Camel get in there? O boy! Now they need to get him out, too! Adding some Christmas flare to the old Thanksgiving décor! Caspar and his friends climbed down and added a star to our old Thanksgiving pumpkin. Thankfully he avoided adding a mustache to himself! Taking a walk in the flower pots: Guess it was a nice night for a stroll! Balthazar is riding Mr. Camel, Melchior is riding the bunny and…. Caspar is hanging from the branch of the flowering azalea! He almost looks like a flower! Under the sofa? All three (and Mr. Camel) are checking out the area under the sofa. All they could find were dust bunnies. They thought the dust bunnies could help. Melchior had just made friends with the other bunny (above) so he thought he’d try to talk to these mini fur-balls. Going door to door: Nope, no one’s home! In the math blocks?  Some of my kids think there could never be anything of value in a box of math blocks. 😉 After a long search, the wise men agreed, but I’d never tell my kids that! 🙂 Among the science “show and tell” items?  Nope, still no luck! Are they looking in the puzzle or are they distracted by the puzzle? I’m not sure… Maybe they started looking, but I think they are now playing. Well, we all need some time to relax. Caspar is burying himself in the puzzle pieces. And Balthazar and Melchior are putting the puzzle together. Maybe they think the completed puzzle holds a clue! After all, kings live in castles, right? Searching the manger-crib:  Nice idea to search the manger, but it they must have gotten stuck! The next morning they were found trying to escape from the hay filled box. Getting a bird’s eye view: Climbing to get a better view, but still no luck. Searching the stars:  ♫..♪.. Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket ♪..♫ .. Nope… not here. Candy craving?  Are they searching a cup of leftover candy or are they just hungry? Mr. Camel looks hungry and Caspar is playing golf!! ♫ Do you see what I see? ♪ They were found using our handy magnifying glass to check out the star on the outdoor nativity. ♪ Do you hear what I hear? ♫ I think they are listening to a few Christmas carols. I wander if they hear the one about the “star of wonder”. 😉 Breaking into Jesus Birthday Cake! Are they hungry or getting desperate!? Here is a close-up of Jesus birthday cake. Looks yummy! A cry for help! I think they may be losing hope! Hang in there guys! The Epiphany is just around the corner!! 🙂 I’m sure the wise men were thrilled when they found the baby Jesus, but my kids are never happy to know the search is over and the wisemen are packed away till next Advent.

I’m truly honored to have an article published! My article ”Celebrate the Season: Truly Catholic Advent and Christmas Fun” was their featured article in the latest issue Today's Catholic Teacher! I’m so impressed with the way they colorfully laid out my images and information! It just looks amazing! In the first part of the article I wrote about the Advent Tree idea, which I posted about in the past . Read that part of the article HERE on Today’s Catholic Teacher’s website.  In the next part of the article I talked about our Wise Men ADVENTures and I shared a few ways to make this activity fun in the class room. This idea has been great fun at our house for several years now and the idea has spread across the web with amazing zeal! Read about it  HERE on Catholic Inspired and read that part of the article  HERE on Today’s Catholic Teacher’s web site. **If you plan to join us this year in the Wise Men ADVENTures, you might like to take a look at the long list of troublesome situations our wise men have found themselves in over the last few years. Take a look at those images HERE .  (Be sure you click on the ”Older Posts” box, too. So you see ALL the posts. – Each link includes 3 or more images! So there are many ideas!) In the last two sections of the article, I wrote about celebrating other feast days during Advent. The two I focused on were St. Nicolas and St. Lucy. I have some of these same ideas listed on this blog in our Advent section . Thank you to Today’s Catholic Teacher for allowing me to write for your wonderful magazine! May you all have a blessed Advent! ~JenMarie

Here is our ornament for Christ the King of the Universe. This feast day moves each year, but it always falls on the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent. To create this ornament you will need: Pattern and printable instructions (Download Below) black felt white felt (with glitter if you want) yellow felt light blue felt brown felt tan or peach felt green permanent sharpie marker red permanent sharpie marker (optional) gold glitter glue silver glitter glue scissors  glue (hot glue, felt glue, or tacky glue) thread and needle for the looped hanger Download the pattern and printable instructions here: First, cut out the pieces like those pictured above. Use a green marker to add land to the half-circle blue earth. We added a little red to the scepter, but this is optional.  Now glue the earth to the bottom of your black background. Add Jesus’ body on the very top of the earth – only glue it in the middle. Next, lift up the body and add the arms and feet. Now finish gluing down the body.   Now add his head and beard. Add his hands, too. Next add his hair, crown, and scepter. Cut off the extra background. Add gold glitter glue to his crown and scepter. Add silver glitter glue to the black background so it looks more like space.  Once it’s dry add a looped thread and hang it up! Our Lord, Jesus, pray for us! May He bless you all! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

St. Simon, apostle and martyr, shares his feast day with St. Jude on Oct. 28th. Read about him HERE . To make this ornament you will need: white or off-white felt light blue felt maroon felt gray felt black permanent sharpie marker scissors  (these  kind work well) glue (hot glue,  felt glue ,  or tacky glue – like  this  or  this ) needle and thread for the looped hanger Cut out the parts like those above. Use the black marker to add detail to the fish. Paste the pages into the folded maroon ”book-cover”. Glue the book onto the blue background and add the fish to the book area. Cut out around the book and fish to remove all the extra blue background. Add a threaded loop to the top to hang it up. St. Simon, pray for us! ~JenMarie and Elizabeth

One day I was shopping for groceries and saw a box of Italian Waffle Cookies sitting on the store shelf. I thought to myself, ”Wow! Those look like neat little halos!” So I bought a box and created this fun, saint inspired, treat to serve to my kids! I bought our box of waffle cookies at our local Aldi store but THESE are similar, although they are more expensive. My kids all liked the vanilla flavored cookies, but some of them disliked the Anise flavored cookies.  The saint images were cut from old cards, magazines, calendars, or charity mailings. I always keep saint and holy images they always come in handy! But if you don’t keep images like I do you can print a few pictures from the internet.  These were easy to make and the kids were so excited to see the fun display with all the saints! This idea could be used for All Saints Day and many different saints could be displayed, or use the idea for one saint on his or her feast day! Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

Elizabeth is hoping to create ornaments at the speed of light! She twisted my arm (she’s a strong girl -lol!) and begged me to help her make 5 this morning! Here is the ornament for Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s Feast day, July 16 (for the new and traditional calendars). I’ll post the others later when I have more time.  For this ornament, we wanted to make the brown scapular the main focus, and we added a simple image of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts.  To make it we used: dark brown felt, light brown felt, white felt, brown embroidery string, and hot glue.  We used silver thread to add the string so we could hang it on our liturgical tree. The hearts were added with permanent sharpie markers: yellow, orange, red, brown, and black.  It turned out to be so cute! Well, I like miniatures so a tiny scapular is just my style!  Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us! God bless you all! ~JenMarie

Become “fishers of men” anytime or place! (Except in the rain or in the pool – the game is made of cardboard-  it would get soggy! lol!) This cute game is not only fun, it’s also a great way to get kids to remember some key ideas of life. This fishing game is an old favorite for my kids! We made several different fishing boxes over the last 10 years and each have been well loved! In the past, we have played this game at our All Saint’s Day parties, and it’s also been a fun activity on rainy days (in-doors, not outdoors – again soggy!). It’s fun for toddlers who are learning the letter “F” and you might like to have this as a fun activity for the kids to play on St. Peter’s Feast days! It can be a great surprise! This game was made using a cardboard box, which was decorated to look like fish in water. Don’t use real water it might get — ya that’s right– soggy! 😀 Download this Game File and Patterns Here: The box we used is 1.5′ x 2′ x 9”. We painted this box with a medium-blue acrylic paint, but we have also made this in the past using blue construction paper or plain blue wrapping paper. Then I used wavy strips of light blue paper to make “watery-waves”.  I glued these onto the blue box. Then I added half-circles and  half-ovals of brown paper to the bottom to make the “ground”. I printed out the fish and seaweed patterns and colored them with markers. Download Patterns above ↑ After cutting out the fish and seaweed I glued them onto the box. Wide Lines for Easy Coloring and Cutting All of the fish and seaweed patterns have extra wide black lines for easy cutting. Just freely cut anywhere in the middle of the black area.  The wide lines help give it a clean look! Then, print and cut out a few sets of fish to catch.  These are best printed on stock paper, but will work with regular paper. (We used colored stock paper) I have two sets of patterns for these fish. One set has virtuous actions and virtues written on them: Share, Be kind, Go to Mass, Pray, etc. The other pattern has plain fish, so you can write your own ideas on the fish. You can add anything you want the kids to learn. Download these fish in the PDF above.↑ After you have written on the fish (if needed). Tape a paper clip to the back. Then create a fishing rod. We made ours with a piece of bamboo, a string, and a magnet. The magnet on the end of the string will “catch” the fish! Make sure it’s a strong enough magnet to attract the paper clip. How to play: The younger kids can simply “catch” a fish and someone older can read aloud what the fish has written on it. For older kids: Add two or more sets of fish -so each fish has at least one match. The kids should fish till they found a match to the first fish they caught. Fishy Art Work (Use these patterns to make an under water scene.) When learning the letter “F” with my young kids we also used the fish and seaweed pattern to create a fishy scene! My other art-love’n kids enjoyed making these scenes, too! Here are a few of the pictures that they made: Hannah  (Water Colors) Hope you all enjoy this fun game and art project! God Bless! ~JenMarie

Here are the cards my girls received in the mail from the Marian A.T.C. Swap: ___________________ Rachel received: Top Left: By Grace B. Age 12 Top Middle: Raya Age 12 From England Top Right: Emily N. Age 12 From VA Bottom Left: Grace Marie Age 12 From WI Bottom Right: Laurel Age 12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here are the cards Rachel made and sent: ___________________ Rebekah received these: Top Left: By Arianna Age 11 Top Middle: Jacqueline H. Age 12 From GA Top Right: Megan Age 12 Bottom Left: Kylie Age 11 From OK Bottom Right: Mary Kathryn Age 12 From OR ~~~~~~~~~~~ Here are the cards Rebekah made and sent: ___________________ Elizabeth received these: Top Left: By Jamie Age7 From TX Top Middle: Lisa Jane Age7 Top Right: Elise Age 7 Bottom Left: Eliza Age 7 Bottom Right: Saxon M. Age 7 ~~~~~~~ Here are the cards Elizabeth made and sent: __________________ _ Hannah received these: Top Left: By Ella Age5 From KY Top Middle: John Paul Age5 Top Right: Eamon Age 5 Bottom Left: Mariela Age 5 From SC Bottom Right: Noah Age 5 ___________________ Here are the cards Hannah made and sent: ___________________ Thanks to Kimberlee at Pondered in my Heart for hosting this card swap!!