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This past weekend, I participated in my first Saint peg doll exchange!  What a blessed adventure it was to paint depictions of Saints on 3.5 inch wooden dolls!



So what's a Saint peg doll exchange you may ask?

For our group's exchange, we each picked 2 letters of the alphabet and painted 2 different Saints that  began with the chosen letters.  So I chose the letters "K" and "L" and decided to paint Saint Kateri Tekakwitha and Saint Luke. I painted 13 of Saint Kateri and 13 of St. Luke ( I actually painted 15 St. Luke dolls to give the extras as gifts for friends).  Then all the ladies in the group exchange met this past Sunday night and we swapped Saints so that each of us went home with 24 different, beautiful Saint dolls and then I kept 1 Saint Kateri doll and 1 St. Luke doll that I painted.

I received an email from my friend Trish back in late July and she asked me if I wanted to take part in this exchange.  I'd heard of Saint peg doll exchanges for some time now from fellow bloggers and I thought I'd love to try out this type of creative outlet someday.  I'm so glad I did it! 

After I decided which Saints I would paint, I then searched the internet for Saint Kateri and Saint Luke so that I could get an idea of even where to begin.  I knew I couldn't design the dolls myself so I was relieved to find a Saint Kateri doll and Saint Luke doll in Etsy shops to use their designs as a much needed guide.

Here are the dolls I painted into the wee hours of the morning for several nights. Introducing St. Luke and St. Kateri!

Before we ate and had the exchange we opened the evening in prayer and then took a group shot with everyone holding the dolls they painted. I was blessed to have my mother (not pictured) make the out of town trip with me to meet up with these wonderful and creative ladies.

I look forward to displaying these dolls for feast day celebrations like at our annual All Saints Day party next year.  Here's the line up of Saints.

The hostess had 3 different tables set up where we put our group of Saints. It was fun to walk around to the tables and see how each artist depicted their Saints. Such beauty, details and creativity with each doll!  There were a few Saints that I had never heard of so it will be fun to learn more about them:


After I painted my dolls I used Liquitex Satin Professional Spray Varnish to protect them from chipping and to make them more durable.  My husband did most of the spraying since I was a little nervous to mess things up after working soooo long on the dolls.  If you ever try painting Saint peg dolls make sure you use pens that say "paint pens" vs. another type of pen.  I had to redo all of St. Luke's faces because the pen I used for his facial features began to run down his face when we sprayed the varnish on the dolls.  That was not a good feeling :/ 

Today some of my children were playing with the dolls and my 7 year old daughter exclaimed, "I love these dolls Mom! They are fun to play with!" :)  And I couldn't agree with her more!  I hope these Saint dolls will be another wonderful reminder for my children of how blessed we are to know, love, and serve God through the beautiful witness of the communion of Saints!

Have a blessed week and all the Saints, pray for us!
 

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The past 2 days have been a whirlwind as so many can relate I'm sure.   I'll give a recap of it all, but first I wanted to point out that celebrating All Hallows Eve (aka: Halloween) on October 31 is to celebrating Christmas Eve as celebrating All Saints Day on Nov. 1 is to celebrating Christmas Day! I love learning about and celebrating all the holy men and women who are true role models for our faith and family!

Growing up in a Catholic home and attending Catholic school, I never really made the sacred connection between All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day.  Now as a mother, I do, and I want to pass this bit of Church history down to my children.

Here are some great posts I've collected this past week or so about All Hallows Eve and its Catholic origins:
Halloween: Don't Be Spooked, It's Catholic by Birgit Jones 
The Catholic Origins of Halloween by Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.
Who's Afraid of Halloween? by Danielle Bean
Halloween is Catholic? Yup by Melanie Jean Juneau
It's Time for Catholics to Embrace Halloween by Fr. Steve Grunow
Explaining Halloween to Catholic Kids-How it Goes With All Saints' Day, or "All Hallows Eve" by Lacy at Catholic Icing
Soul Cakes: The Holy Inspiration for Trick-or-Treating by Ryan Scheel
Little Teaching: All Saints Day! (And All Souls Day...oh, and Halloween) by Leila Miller

All Hallow Eve 2015 Festivities: 
Our oldest dressed as a Captain America fan girl and she went out trick or treating with some friends.  Our 7 year old was a cute cop :)   On Halloween morning I made spooky pancakes for breakfast and a friend of mine pointed out that they could be soul cakes!  I thought so too!
For this year's All Saints Day party we only had a few families who could attend due to scheduling conflicts and sickness so my son dressed as Saint Maximilian Kolbe and then he and his siblings and friends acted out the story of St. Maxmilian's life while I read his story from the Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Volume 2: July-December (my FAVORITE Saint books for kids!)  The evening was not only eventful because of the fun that was had, but also one of our moms in our group had to be taken to the ER for chest pains prior to her arriving at our home.  She is feeling better (praise God!) and we were able to ask for all the Saints intercession when we prayed the Litany of the Saints.

This costume was inspired by Jessica at Shower of Roses when her son also dressed as this inspiring and wonderful Saint. 


We videoed the great acting skills of everyone and didn't take still shots, but here is St. Maximilian Kolbe with his supporting actors and actresses.  From left to right we have 2 prisoners, then St. Maximilian Kolbe, then the father who was chosen as a prisoner and who begged the Nazis not to be taken away from his family (St. Maximilian who had not been picked, felt deeply moved and asked the commander if he could take the place of the father and the guard accepted), then 2 more prisoners and my daughter and her friend were the Nazis in the cop costumes from last night.  So our "costumes" are on the very simple side, but I'm going to guess the kids will remember St. Maximilian's story and the great love he had to lay down his own life for another.  

Then we prayed the Litany of the Saints lead by one of the fathers and then I played the YouTube video "Litany of the Saints" so everyone could hear the beautiful prayers being sung. 

And then I played the "Saint Song" which is a fun one where over 100 Saints are song in 2 minutes.  Take a listen!

After we said the Litany and said grace we enjoyed a potluck meal which included soups and chili recipes. 

I made my "Communion of Saints" cupcakes again this year with the help of my daughters and inspired by Jennifer at Catholic Inspired.

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.

Top from Left to Right: St. Francis animal crackers, St. Patrick of Ireland gummy snakes, Our Lady of Mount Carmel roll-o caramels, St. Lucy eyeball candy, St. Peter goldfish crackers

Bottom from Left to Right:  St. Nicholas peppermints, St. Kateri candy corn, St. Thomas Aquinas (known in his childhood as the "dumb ox) dum dum lollipops, Saints Mary and Martha M&Ms, Doctors of the Church Smarties, St. Bernadette of Lourdes pretzel sticks

After the guesses were in and the winners announced each winner then acted like a saint and shared their winnings because who needs 509 M & Ms?   I counted them, I should have won a few myself :)   And on the table I put one of the St. Luke and St. Kateri peg dolls that I painted for the Saint peg doll swap I'm in next Sunday. I'm almost done with this fun, but time-consuming project! 

I prepared a few games that a few of the kids played.

There was Saint Bingo that I printed and laminated from Jessica at Shower of Roses. 

Monica at Equipping Catholic Families has a Super Saints card game that I downloaded and printed off and laminated 2 sets of the 54 cards for a memory matching game.   She sells the decks now and I definitely want to put them on my wish list for future gifts for family, friends and Godchildren. I loved how I could hear the girls chatting about their favorite Saint and sharing information about them!

I also printed and laminated Monica at Equipping Catholic Families Saint Script Series THREE and cut the picture of the Saint from the Saint information so the kids could match up the Saint picture with their information.  The Super Saints and the Saint Scripts are beautifully drawn and watercolored by Monica and her daughter. So talented and the Saints do come alive through their artwork!   These games will be used again and again, especially at future All Saints Day parties!

It was a blessed All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day! 

November 2 is All Souls day where we remember family and friends who have left their earthly home and pray on this day especially for the holy souls in purgatory. 

Have a blessed week!

This past week, we went to a Corn Maze over an hour away from our house.  We went with a few of our homeschool families for the second year in a row.  We enjoyed the beautiful day playing and doing the "finger" corn maze for younger kids (but all my kids enjoyed it).  In a finger maze you find 5 different stations with different colored chalk.  You put one finger from your right hand in the chalk until all 5 fingers have a different colored chalk.  When you exit the maze you find the color pattern of your hand on a big board and it will tell you to do something silly like "Act like a chicken" or "Jump up and down".  It's a cute maze.  We saw some neat animals too! 
Our little pumpkin turned 15 months on October 30!  Where does the time go?  She was happy to sit on our pumpkin porch and take her photos while 2 of my other daughters encouraged her to smile big!
Speaking of All Saints' Day, this is the banner I made for our party, which says "HAPPY FEAST OF ALL SAINTS".  Jessica over at Shower of Roses has a tutorial and printout of the letters with Saints on them HERE.  I printed them and laminated the banner letters to be used for future All Saints' Day parties.  Thank you Jessica!