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Today, November 22, is the feast day of Saint Cecilia and my oldest daughter's Confirmation Saint.

St. Cecilia was born in Rome, Italy and lived around 100 A.D. It is said that she heard heavenly music whenever she prayed to God. She is the patron saint of composers, music, musicians, organ builders and singers. She was persecuted for her Christian beliefs and her story of great faith through her suffering is amazing!  I found out today with a Google search that "Cecilia is one of the most popular of Roman saints. The year of her birth is unknown, but it is believed she died about 177 A.D. in Rome. Her body was discovered incorrupt in 1599, is known to be the first Saint to be incorrupt."

This was the first year we "celebrated" this feast day with a very simple sweet snack and we read a little about her life in our Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 2, July-December and Saints and Angels books during our Couch Catechism prayer time.



I got the idea of the KitKat keyboard from Catholic Cuisine.  I didn't know they had white KitKats until I saw the Catholic Cuisine post!   I found my white KitKats at a gas station store (because the grocery store I went to didn't have them.) 



In the morning, I set out the Saints and Angels book opened to the page about Saint Cecilia's life, a Saint Cecilia holy card and the Saint Cecilia peg doll. I received at the Saint peg doll exchange last year.  My children were very excited to eat the sweet treats after lunch today! 

Today, Sunday, November 27, 2016 marks the final Sunday of the liturgical year with the Feast of Christ the King.  This feast day was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 though Christians have celebrated Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords from the time Christ entered the world.  Be sure to read Deacon Marty McIndoe's post Our Lord Jesus Christ-King of the Universe that elaborates on what this feast day is all about. 

Last Sunday the newly formed Young Families Group at my parish met for the first time for a morning snack after Mass and did a craft that focused on the liturgical church calendar.  In anticipation of today's feast day, we did a craft to teach the children that in adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance we worship Christ the King.   

The family that organized the meeting had all the supplies prepared and so the children could put the pieces together for their monstrance. The supplies were: 

* styrofoam block painted gold
* gold stick to place in the block
* gold cardstock that was cut to be the stand on the monstrance and glued to the gold stick
*  gold doily
*  host with an image of Jesus inside
*  jewel stickers to decorate the monstrance

Here is the craft when it was completed: 

Monstrances don't all look the same, but all of them are beautiful and unique and hold the sacred consecrated Host.  Here is a photo of one: 



Here is a great short 3 minute video titled Christ the King by Christopher Stefanick.  It explains what it means that Jesus is King.  "Jesus Christ is the King. Is He your King?" 


Next Sunday, Nov. 27, 2016 is the beginning of the Advent season!  We plan on doing several of our Advent traditions that I blogged about last year in my post Advent 2015 is here! A Roundup of Advent Tradtions to Prepare our Hearts and Home.  I hope some of our Advent traditions will inspire you to prepare your hearts and home for the Christmas season. (Because the Christmas season actually starts at sundown on Christmas Eve, despite what our secular world tells us.)

Have a blessed week and Thanksgiving!

It has been fun to watch you grow strong and grow to love gymnastics these past few years!


You are special everyday, especially on your "Name Day" since your middle name is Rose after Saint Rose of Lima. 

We had a blast celebrating your 9th birthday with an Adventure Time theme with the fun pinata cake this past Saturday!


You bring so much joy, laughter (and energy) to our family and your Dad and I are blessed to be your parents!  It is our prayer that you will always continue to fall in love with Jesus Christ with your whole heart, soul and mind and grow closer to Him and our Blessed Mother!

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Last weekend we celebrated my daughter's 9th birthday. (Her birthday is Nov. 19, but we had to celebrate early due to our family's schedule).

My daughter wanted an "Adventure Time" theme, but since I've never seen this cartoon that is on Cartoon Network, she helped out a lot in planning for the party!   We don't have Cartoon Network at home, but she saw the show at a hotel.

My daughter found a Pinata cake on Pinterest and she said that was what she wanted for her cake.  It was the first I've heard of this rather easy, but fun and festive cake.  So I went for it and it was a smashing success!

I used an easy homemade funfetti cake recipe that I've used before for other birthday cakes.  I found the delicious funfetti recipe HERE. (It tastes so much better than the box kind, but the box version would work and save time)  I quadrupled the recipe because one recipe makes one 9 in. round pan cake.
After making the 4 round cakes, I cut holes out of the middle of 2 of them.

Then you stack the layers, putting the 2 layers with holes in them in the middle between the bottom and top layer. Fill your cake with your favorite treats before stacking on the top layer.  I filled our pinata cake with colorful Sixlets candies and some mini M&Ms.

The birthday girl and one of her older sisters enjoyed icing the cake and decorating it.  I found the "Adventure Time" cake decorations on Amazon.

After everyone grabbed some treats on the ground we went inside for cake and opened gifts.


My daughter was so excited to show her friends the surprise in the cake! 

Everyone had fun watching the candies fall out of the cake after it was cut!

Each guest received a goodie bag filled with an plastic Emoji cup and marshmallows on a decorative paper straw.  I used an edible ink marker to try to draw "Finn" on the marshmallows. 


It was a fun party and many special memories were made.  My daughter and friends loved all the activities and the best part was seeing the big smile on her face during the party and when she told me "Thanks Mom, that was fun, especially the scavenger hunt!"

 

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I'm a little behind with posting our annual All Saints' Day celebration because life is full and staying up to 3 in the morning watching the election results this week doesn't exactly help with staying on top of anything, especially blogging.   But, I'm slowly catching up on things so here's a recap of our November 1, Feast of All Saints, celebration... 


Our family attended Mass in the morning then I hosted our annual All Saints Day party at my house for our homeschool group.

We had decorations like this banner that I made a few years ago from Jessica's blog at Shower of Roses.

We did the ever popular Saint guessing jars and as each child came to the party they put in their guesses of how many treats were in each jar.  Thank you Jennifer at Catholic Inspired and Jessica at Shower of Roses for the ideas and printables to put on the jars.  I did make my own St. Lucy and Saints Mary and Martha labels :)  I bought my plastic 1 pint mason jars at Oriental Trading. Another parent brought the plastic jars with blue lids and several parents filled a few each so it was definitely a group effort.   Here's a photo I took of the jars before the rest of the guests brought theirs.


The big and little kids had fun guessing the amount in each jar.

When everyone finished guessing we announced the winners, but then we divided the treats among the 15 children present and put the treats into individual bags so each child had a bag to take home with candy to remind them of several different Saints.

Here are the 18 themed Saint jars we used. The candies in the jar relate to the life of the Saint or what he/she is the Patron Saint of: 
St. Peter: goldfish crackers
St. Kateri Tekakwitha: candy corn

Our Lady of Mount Carmel: Rolo caramel
St. Patrick of Ireland: gummy worms
St. Thomas Aquinas (known in his youth as "The Dumb Ox"): Dum-Dum lollipops

St. Lucy: chocolates wrapped in eyeball foil paper
Doctors of the Church: Smarties
St. Nicholas: peppermint candy

St. Bernadette of Lourdes: pretzel sticks (St. Bernadette was collecting sticks when Our Lady appeared to her)
St. Francis: animal crackers
Holy Trinity: 3 Musketeers

St. Adjuctor: Life-Savers (Patron of swimmers, boaters, and drowning victims)
Saints Mary and Martha: M&Ms
Virgin Mary, Untier of Knots: root beer flavored Twists

St. Gertrude of Nivelles: KitKats (Patron of cats and gardeners)
St. William of York: York patties (Patron of York, England)
St. Isidore: candy pumpkins (Patron of farmers)
St. Dominic: mini Milky Way bars (Patron of Astronomers)

Each family brought a snack to share.  I provided some "pious popcorn" and "All Saints are 'grape'" :)

We had our annual "Communion of Saints Cupcakes"


And my friend, K.C., made this Rice-Krispies cross cake as a way to remember the Year of Mercy with the red/blue coloring for Jesus' Divine Mercy and Baby Jesus in the middle and a little Eucharistic Host in the center.

Some of the adults and kids played Saint Bingo that I printed and laminated from Jessica's blog at Shower of Roses.

My friend, T.D., brought other games to play, as well.
*Our Lady of Guadalupe Flower Toss
*The Brothers' Fishing Hole: St. Peter and St. Andrew, fishermen of fish and of men
*Knocking Down the 7 Deadly Sins bowling game: Envy, Pride, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed

The Corporal Works of Mercy and Spiritual Works of Mercy ring toss

At the beginning of our celebration, we prayed the Litany of the Saints and we also watched this wonderful video titled How Does the Catholic Church Declare Official Saints.



I forgot to also share this fun video called The Saint Song that I shared last year.  I'll have to remember to play it at next year's All Saints Day party.



After we prayed and I played the Saint videos, each child dressed as a Saint stood up and told a little bit about their Saint's life and everyone had to guess who they were.  Some were more obvious than others.

My 2 youngest children dressed up as St. Rafqa (a new to us and everyone Saint) and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

     
 Saint Rafqa