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This is a busy week this week for several reasons: husband's birthday, St. Patrick and St. Joseph feast days, and my Half Marathon is almost here!

Husband's Birthday: March 16:  We will be celebrating my husband's birthday on Wednesday, March 16.  He shares his special day with his fraternal twin brother.

My husband is the cute curly head one on the right with the big black bow tie.  Aren't they adorable?



Last year we celebrated my husband's birthday and had some St. Patrick pretzel treats to go with our celebration.

St. Patrick's Feast Day: March 17:   To celebrate St. Patrick's feast day we will probably just eat our sweet pretzel treats and watch another one of our favorite CCC of America DVDs, Patrick Brave Shepherd of the Emerald Isle.


I hope to also read some books on St. Patrick from our collection to help celebrate this special Saint.
Some of our favorites are:  St. Patrick's Alphabet, The Story of Saint Patrick's Day, The Adventures of Saint Patrick (I read this book during our fun Catholic VBS week), and The Story of Saint Patrick.


And Jessica at Shower of Roses just posted this beautiful and simple Blessed Trinity Shamrock "Glory Be" Prayer Poster and free printable that maybe I'll have my kids do.

For more information about Saint Patrick be sure to visit Saintnook, where the Saints are always online!



To find out more about St. Patrick of Ireland, you can read his profile and biography. 

Be sure to view his Directory filled with links, crafts, recipes, books, DVDs! 


SaintNook also has a great selection of videos, trailers, prayers and music on St Patrick of Ireland.

St. Patrick of Ireland has his own Pinterest board!  Check out his many beautiful images/statues!

The SaintNook team spends many hours with the Saints online updating their profiles and the site is a work in progress so be sure to check back in often either at the website or the SaintNook Facebook page!  

From St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer: 
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Saint Joseph's Feast Day: March 19:  For the past several years our homeschool group has gathered to make bread for our annual St. Joseph altar, but this year neither is going to happen for many reasons.  This is always a fun tradition and maybe next year we can celebrate with breadmaking and an altar!  St. Joseph's feast day is on Saturday, March 19th this year and our parish is having a 9:00 AM mass for this special feast so we will attend the mass as a family.

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This past Sunday, March 22, our homeschool group had our annual St. Joseph feast day celebration that we have been having for about 10 years now.  Each year we gather and fellowship with family and old and new friends to celebrate wonderful St. Joseph, the husband of our Blessed Mother and foster-father of Jesus.

St. Joseph's feast day is March 19, but our homeschool group celebrates it whichever Sunday is closest to March 19 so the fathers can gather for the celebration as well!  This year was filled with a few raindrops, a beautiful St. Joseph altar, and many memories.

For a history of St. Joseph's feast day and St. Joseph altars, be sure to read my post HERE that tells all about it, including black and white photos of when my Dad was a little boy and how he celebrated St. Joseph's feast day with very elaborate and decorative altars. 

Here's this year's altar with 3 levels in the background to represent the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  The altar is decorated with the decorative breads that our homeschool group made a few weeks prior to our celebration and other delicious food.  Each year the host family (Thank you H. family for hosting such a wonderful time each year!) sets up the altar on their back screened-in porch.  There was also lots more food for the feast inside their home. 


The black and white photo above of Mary with the Child Jesus was given as a gift for my friend from her mother when she traveled to Rome.  It is a beautiful print with the holy card of St. Joseph and Jesus beside it.  This print made the St. Joseph altar extra special.   The monstrance in the lower right corner came out so beautiful.

Thanks A.J. for the beautiful, colorful, and delicious cupcakes!  They were a hit and added so much to the altar.

The carpenter's square belonged to our friend's grandfather and it always makes the perfect decoration in front of the St. Joseph statue.   Another friend made the chocolate birds' nests that were adorable and I hope to make them for this Easter!  The colorful fig cookies are a traditional Italian cookie that are a labor of love made by J.H. and family and they are called cuccidatas.

I made these very easy and delicious Cappuccino Cupcakes.  I found the recipe in the Country Italian cookbook.  If you would like the recipe, contact me and I will be glad to share it. It's basically just brownie mix and coffee mixed with a few other ingredients. Cool Whip with cinnamon on top. Mmmmm...  Chocolate and coffee...a winning combination!  They were a hit! 

The homeschool family that hosts the St. Joseph celebration told a little bit of history of St. Joseph's Feast Day by displaying this map to show where Sicily is located.  Our friend's great grandparents (their wedding photo is in the above picture) were from Sicily and when they moved to Louisiana they started the St. Joseph altar tradition in the state of Louisiana.

 Here is J.H. talking about the history of the St. Joseph altars.  In the background you can see posters filled with a collage of pictures that my Dad had made from several past St. Joseph feast day celebrations.  Thank you Dad! 

Here is my father on the far left (and the "official" photographer) and HERE is my Dad as a little boy standing in front of his family's very elaborate St. Joseph's altar.
My Dad is holding the Litany of St. Joseph which is a beautiful prayer that we say as a group each year.  A litany is a list of names that refer to a particular Saint.

J.H. filled the tiny white cloth bags for each family to take home with them: Each bag was filled St. Joseph holy card, St. Joseph medal, and a fava bean because during the famine in Sicily, families lived off of these types of beans until the famine ended.  Attached to each bag is a ziplock bag filled with samples of the traditional Italian cookies she made with her family.

Here are some of the kids and teens and everyone was able to hang out outside for most of the afternoon even in the drizzling rain that was off and on.  Good St. Joseph looked out for us and must have sent a special request to God to keep the predicted rainfall to a minimum. :) 

Here is this year's family and friends. Our kids are scattered throughout the group with my husband and me on the far right corner squatting down with our 19 mo. old dressed in red.  :)

May the Passiontide, these last 2 weeks of Lent, be a blessed time for you and your family and friends!   Wait..... after doing some research about Passiontide I just learned some new things about this time period in Lent through Nicole's blog post Celebrating Passion Sunday and from this site that she refers to in her post. Passiontide is one OR two weeks prior to Easter depending on which liturgical calendar you look at and follow.  Hmmm...that's interesting!

I just love our Catholic faith because it's like a bottomless treasure chest with gems and rich traditions that always has something new to learn and love!

St. Joseph, pray for us!

Last Friday on February 27, some of our homeschool families met for our annual breadmaking afternooon in preparation for our annual St. Joseph feast day celebration that we have each year on or around St. Joseph's feast day (March 19).

We've been making the bread for many years now and have celebrated St. Joseph's feast day with an altar, food and fellowship for over 10 years now with our homeschool group! 

Each family brings homemade bread dough and then the kids shape the bread into various creations.  Some popular shapes are fish, crosses, ferns, a staff to represent St. Joseph's staff, pretzel shapes, monstrance, braids, crowns, and the spelling of "St. Joseph." We then bake it and freeze the bread to then set out the decorative breads on the St. Joseph altar that we have a few weeks following our breadmaking afternoon.

The annual St. Joseph feast day celebration is usually on a Sunday afternoon closest to March 19 so all the Dads in our homeschool group can attend this special and joyous celebration.


I blogged about our breadmaking tradition in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

For a history of St. Joseph's feast day and St. Joseph altars, be sure to read my post HERE that tells all about it, including black and white photos of when my Dad was a little boy and how he celebrated St. Joseph's feast day with very elaborate and decorative altars.


Here are some pictures of this year's fun and tradition...

This past Sunday, March 16, was my husband's birthday (and his twin brother's).  My husband's twin is on the left (straight hair) while my husband (curly top) is on the right in this picture.  Aren't they adorable along with their outfits?  :)

To celebrate my husband's birthday our family went out in the evening for an ice cream treat.  Here's my crew enjoying their sweet treats!

Sunday was also the day our homeschool group celebrated our annual St. Joseph feast day celebration complete with a St. Joseph Altar. We usually have the celebration on a Sunday around St. Joseph's actual feast day (March 19), so the Dads can attend also.

My post HERE from 2011 tells all about the history of the St. Joseph altars, traditional foods, and black and white photos of the St. Joseph altars my Dad used to have when he was a child!   Our homeschool group has celebrated St. Joseph's Feast Day for 10 years now!  Wow! How time flies!








We decorate the altars each year with the homemade breads that our homeschool group gathers to make a few weeks prior to St. Joseph's feast day.

Then we recited a Litany of St. Joseph that my Dad led for everyone. (My Dad is the bald, Italian guy in the green shirt with the camera around his neck :) )   Our family is blessed each year to celebrate this special feast day with my parents.   After grace we all had a delicious meal.