Happy Valentine's Day

Did you have a nice one? We had story hour, read a little about St. Valentine, decorated cookies to try out our new cookie decorating set, but truthfully, more frosting was consumed than made it on the boys' cookies. (I did slightly better!) Oh, well. At least it was all organic, right?

Candlemas- The Presentation of the Lord

Today is The Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas.

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Luke 2:22-24

We started the day with a traditional breakfast of pancakes and reading about the Purification of the Virgin/Presentation of the Lord.

I share this picture because Sidekick really wanted to dress like a candle (he is very into the "light" part of the feast!), so he wore a red shirt with his yellow sweatshirt.

Later in the day we rolled candles. I hadn't intended on candle making this year since the boys are still so young, but Emma alerted me to this kit. Thanks to Amazon Prime and a $3.99 upgrade to one-day shipping, we were able to "make" candles after all!

We said a simple blessing ourselves and will also take them along to be belatedly blessed next weekend at Mass.

Feast of St. Brigid

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of St. Brigid, part of the February schedule for Catholic Mosaic. We read St. Brigid's Cloak: An Ancient Irish Story and listened to The Life of St. Brigid: Abbess of Kildare presented by the Readings from Under the Grapevine podcast from Ancient Faith Radio. I was very disappointed to see that St. Brigid is not mentioned in any of my lives of the Saints books for children, so I was very glad to have a copy of St. Brigid's Cloak on hand as well as the podcast!

We also baked St. Brigid's Bread from Catholic Traditions in Cooking. It was a very simple quick bread and quite tasty!

Christmas Candle

We decorated our Christmas Candle yesterday. We kept it simple this year and went with holly and stars.

St. Nicholas Day

We had a lovely St. Nicholas Day last week!

We watched the snow...

Tried to take our Christmas picture...

Opened our stockings to find (along with the always popular chocolate coins) a new doll friend...

A pair of binoculars and a balance rocker for active play on cold days...

We enjoyed the St. Nicholas Day punch, baked cookies-- and ate more than our fair share! It was a wonderful feast day in the midst of this season of preparation.

Preparing for St. Nicholas Day

December 6 we celebrate St. Nicholas Day in our home. It is a fun day in the midst of prayer, penance, and preparation for the Nativity. The past several years we've hosted family and friends for a small party featuring traditional St. Nicholas treats from around the world, crafts, "gold" coins in shoes or stockings in a wonderful afternoon of visiting.

Big Brother is old enough this year to remember a little bit about previous years' celebrations and also to understand the story of St. Nicholas a little better. He has been very excited to read our St. Nicholas books this year and cannot wait for Sunday as he knows his stocking (according to Czech tradition) will be filled with a treat or two-- especially those chocolate coins!

Our book choices were gathered from Catholic Mosaic and the St. Nicholas Center.

• Saint Nicholas by Ann Tompert
• Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend by Julie Stiegemeyer
• The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi
• The Miracle of Saint Nicholas by Gloria Whelan
  
• The Baker's Dozen by Heather Forest

We also typically make a few treats: St. Nicholas cookies and a variation on St. Nicholas Day Punch (last recipe in the list) were favorites last year.

Last year we made several St. Nicholas crafts. Last year we made this mobile and this Czech St. Nicholas window decoration. This year we're doing some coloring, puzzles, and learning this echo story.

Also check out Seasons of Joy for St. Nicholas circle time ideas and some links to St. Nicholas songs!

I'll be sure to post pictures of this year's feast!

September Recap!

We have an an unusually busy September! We've been on the go almost every day, and have found ourselves double-booked a few times! Here's a quick look at what we've been up to the last few weeks:

Nature walk at Rice Creek...

M. had the camera for most of the morning taking pictures for his nature journal...

Making playdough...

Visiting the orchard on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. We had some apple fritters, took a wagon ride, did the maze, and of course came home with apples...

Experimented with making green smoothies (our new favorite snack)...

Reading about chimpanzees...

The "baby" turned 14 months old!

We celebrated Michaelmas this week with a co-op field trip to another farm for a tour and to play (no pictures!). Later that same day we attended the Upshernish of a friend. This family has three sons very close in age to ours and it was very touching to be included.

The next day our namesday celebration continued with a playgroup featuring apples...

A namesday gift for the boys...

We played outside in our new hazmat rain suits...

There you go! Our month in a nutshell. October does not look nearly as busy and I hope we can get back on track with our school schedule. We've been working on a mural on our at-home days I'm eager to share!

I was switching our festivity stand/nature table over from Easter (spring) to summer yesterday and realized I never posted pictures of the Lent to Easter transformation. You can see what it looked like during Lent here.

Easter morning, it looked like this:

He is Risen and the vines have come to life!

Our chicken family hiding amongst the greenery:

And a rabbit or two:

The shelf with more signs of spring:

Sadly, I didn't take any picture of our other Easter decorations, but I will next year!

Michaelmas, Part Two

We made St. Michael's Day Bannock with a recipe from The Catholic Home. (A more traditional recipe can be found here.)

Served with fresh, cider from the orchard we visited!

We also decorated the Michaelmas Candle. My original plan was to use an idea fomr All Year Round and do a dragon design to represent St. Michael's casting the Devil out of Heaven, but since I wanted my older son to be involved as much as possible in the project, we switched to something simpler. The little guy chose the shapes and colors and helped me cut them out and press them on the candle.

Our design features a ladybug, turtle, several stars, hearts, a flower, and a butterfly!

Michaelmas, Part One

Blackberry Cobbler for breakfast...

"According to an old Irish folk tale, blackberries were supposed to have been harvested and used up by this date, too, since it is told to children that when Satan was kicked out of Heaven, he landed in a bramble patch -- and returns each year to curse and spit on the fruits of the plant he landed on, rendering them inedible thereafter."

http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost10.html

Apple picking...

Today we picked Jona Golds (or Jonagold) at one of our local orchards!