At the end of June our parish had another faith-filled, fun and successful Catholic Kidz Camp (CKC) using another one of the Growing with the Saints excellent authentically Catholic programs!  Many may be more familiar with the term "VBS"(Vacation Bible School).  CKC is very similar to VBS, but CKC is....you got it...Catholic and CKC is the new VBS!   Growing with the Saints was written by Catholics for Catholics! Same concept as VBS, which is to teach our youth (and adults too) the Good News of Jesus Christ, but CKC also highlights the many specific, beautiful teachings of our Catholic Church through skits, arts and crafts, games, Bible stories, snacks and music!! 



This was our parish's 6th year using the Growing with the Saints CKC programs and they have all been excellent!  Here is a list of the programs we have used the past five years and the links take you to my blog posts about each themed CKC:

June 2012: Vatican Express featuring St. Jerome
June 2013: Assorted Saints and the Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love
June 2014: Parade Around the Our Father featuring St. Joseph of Cupertino
June 2015: Set Sail with the Holy Trinity featuring St. Patrick
June 2016: Parachute with the Angels and St. Catherine Laboure

This year's theme was Growing with the Saints newest CKC, Tracking Mary: Mysteries & Messages.




For an overview of the week be sure to visit the Camp Overview page to check out all the fun and learning that the campers did during the week!  

Ms. Anne, our wonderfully organized and hard-working children's youth ministry director, prints out a schedule for each grade level to follow through the week.  The schedule is broken into time slots where volunteer adult and youth leaders lead their age group around to each themed station.

With another adult volunteer and two wonderful teen volunteers, I lead a group of rising first graders throughout the week and we were "Bernadette's Brakemen"(to go along with the train theme) Ms. MJ and I even wore "conductor" hats and had our train whistles throughout the week.  :)




Each morning began with the sign of the cross and prayers as a group and then the youth acted out skits to go with each day's topic.  The youth worked hard and did a fantastic job!

Here are our rising 1st graders walking to their next station.

I brought in my personal Shining Light Dolls and the line leaders held the doll with our group's sign when we learned about the apparition for the day that went with the doll. Our group loved holding the Our Lady of Lourdes doll, Our Lady of Fatima doll and Our Lady of Guadalupe doll. 


Lots of fun music, crafts, Bible stories and learning more about the apparitions of Mary and the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

Like in years' past at CKC, each age group had the opportunity to visit the chapel in our church and spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament adoring our Lord.  After the leaders spoke to our first grade group about how to show reverence and talk to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, our class went into the chapel a few minutes to listen to our Lord speak to our hearts in the silence.


This week's CKC was so fun and the children, teens and adults learned so much about our Catholic faith!  Many adults weren't aware of all the details of the Marian apparition stories so it was a blessing to learn more along with the campers!

I look forward to CKC each year as a parent and a regular volunteer and I love to learn from all the children that attend!  I'm also grateful that my older children volunteer their time to help during the week and my younger children enjoy being campers!  It's beautiful to see our Catholic faith, which is full of Truth, wonder and treasures, being taught in fun and creative ways!  I am so grateful for the Growing with the Saints programs and all those that work hard to create such great programs!  I thank Ms. Anne for all her hard work and the many helping hands that help bring our Catholic parish an authentically Catholic CKC!   We look forward to next year's CKC!








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Our family has enjoyed watching the CCC of America's Saints & Heroes Collection DVDs for about 15 years now!  In fact, the first video we ever watched and still love to watch was Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa.  These short, animated, educational and high-quality DVDs have always been a great addition to our family celebrating the feast days throughout the liturgical year!

Besides the Saints & Heroes entertaining collection, CCC of America also sells short films.  Their most recent releases are titled Special Flavor, which teaches the virtue of obedience and Catch, a short film written and directed by David Henrie.  Both films are produced by a company called Project 36.

 
One evening last week our family sat down together to watch both films, which included my husband and four out of five of our children ages 2, 8, 12, and 14.

Special Flavor is just 11:20 minutes long so it was able to keep everyone's attention, no matter the age.  The target audience is for 12+, but even my 8 year old daughter enjoyed the film and was able to relate to parts of it. CCC of America site summarizes Special Flavor...

"A disobedient boy gets a special flavor ice cream that makes his parents obey whatever he says. Struggling with authority, Tom is given a chance to learn what it means to take control. After encountering an ice cream man with a special flavor, his strict father and distant mother are at his beck and call. Watch what happens 27 ice creams later!"

My husband and I have children who often struggle with disobedience (Ahem!) so I especially enjoyed seeing how this important and often difficult virtue was portrayed via a short production.  The film starts out with a young teen boy who does not appreciate his father's creative hobby of building small boats in glass bottles and the boy ignores both parents as he sits in a zombie-like stupor playing his video games.  (The son might have had a few eye rolls too! Uggh!)

The  teen's life appears to be a drab (in his young mind, at least) until he meets up with the ice cream man in front of his house who shares a special flavor of ice cream with the boy with a promise that the boy can now tell his parents what to do.  There are humorous parts as things get out of control fast for the boy and his entire family and the care-free life void of any responsibility and authority begins to take a toll on the teen's conscience.  The teen then realizes how his irresponsible behavior and actions not only affect him, but others around him.  By the end of the film that moves quickly due to the short length, the viewer sees that he has learned the importance of obedience and why parents use their authority to raise virtuous children.


My 8 year old daughter thought the ice cream man reminded her of the devil since he was constantly trying to entice the teen to just take one more ice cream cone so he could enjoy his freedom without having to obey his parents.  We all agreed with her and I was pleased that she was able to relate this short, light-hearted film to the reality of how satan tempts us and tries to make good look evil and evil look good.

This film gave my husband and I the opportunity to discuss with our children how having our own way and not obeying parents (and God) can lead to unhappiness and restlessness very quickly.  We also opened up a discussion how our children shouldn't take anything from someone we don't know without parents' permission, even if it's the friendly ice cream man offering a delicious treat. :)

Catch is another great short film.  Our family enjoyed this one especially because it was more realistic compared to Special Flavor.  CCC of America site summarizes Catch...

"... an inspirational short film about fatherhood and the value of quality family time. It delivers a strong punch to busy parents who make promises they can’t keep.
This 11 min short film focuses on family and what fatherhood really means. Just maybe, this could be the start of making everyday….Father’s Day!"

This film is definitely worth watching especially since Father's Day is just around the corner!  My children are blessed with a wonderful father who does invest alot of quality time with our children, but I even think the film gave my husband some things to think about and he took the message to heart.  Even as a mother, the film touched my heart in a special way and made me think how I spend time with my children. Our family enjoyed how the film kept us all at the edge of our seats until the end not knowing why the boy was using creative ways to save money.  That's all I'll say about that so as to not spoil the ending.  :)


Our family also enjoyed viewing the the behind the scenes commentary about Catch.  We were impressed that David Henrie, the writer/director, and many other young adults on his team committed so much of their time and talents to produce a film that encourages families and fathers to take time with their children.  In today's world, we need more positive messages that David Henrie so beautifully and successfully portrayed through digital media!

Besides the wonderful lessons taught in each film, I loved that they both could be enjoyed by all family members, no matter the age and that they gave our family the opportunity to spend special, quality time to talk about what we saw.  Special Flavor and Catch inspired our family to make positive changes in our home and we think they can be tools to encourage all families to do the same!

If you are interested in purchasing these films and/or any other DVDs in CCC of America's vast selection, now is the time with their 60% off summer sale going on from June 15-July 15.  Use discount code: SUMMER60 at checkout! Awesome deals on faith-filled and fun family entertainment!  Check it out!
(I am a CCC of America affiliate so any purchases you may make from the links in this blog post will give me a percentage back on your purchases with no extra charge for you.  I appreciate your support for purchasing through my links! :)  CCC of America is a wonderful, family-oriented company with faith-filled products and I'm blessed to work with them and share CCC of America products via my blog in hopes that all families will "grow up" with CCC of America as our family has done.)


I was provided with complimentary review copies of these DVDs by the distributor, CCC of America, in exchange for my honest review.  For more information on Special Flavor and Catch, including their trailers, visit CCC of America.  You can also visit Project 36 to see other projects the team has been working on.

This post contains affiliate links.

As a Catholic mom, I'm always wanting my children and myself to seek God daily and encourage each family member to spend daily quiet time in prayer alone.  Our family prays together often and each morning we have our "Couch Catechism" family devotion time before our homeschool day starts, but making time for individual prayer is so necessary and fruitful, but can be challenging at times!

Holy Heroes, a wonderful company that offers products to "help you bring the joy of the Faith to your Family", has created the new Holy Heroes Spiritual Diary that is an excellent tool for the entire family (yes, for children AND adults!) to make spending time with our Lord not only possible, but also reflective and fruitful. The diary is intended to be used each day for about 10-15 minutes.  Holy Heroes sent me copies of the April 4, 2016- August 14, 2016 Spiritual Diary in exchange for this review.


So what is the Spiritual Diary?  Briefly, I like to think of the diary as a daily "date" with God as I use the diary to think, reflect, pray and write about what is on my heart, mind and soul.



Here is the description from the Holy Heroes website:

The ultimate diary to help children focus and reflect every day on what God is doing in their lives, and what He wants them to do tomorrow!

* Covers April 4, 2016 to August 14, 2016 (end of the Easter Season from the Annunciation through Ordinary Time to the Vigil of the Assumption)
* TWO pages for every day's memories, with questions to prompt spiritual reflection for children aged 7 and up.
* A step-by-step guide for Confession, plus removable pages to carry into the Confessional, with directions for confessing and space for a child to write down sins committed.
* Inspiring quotes from the Mass Readings and Saints for Sundays and Feast Days 
*The Prayer Intentions of the Pope for each month
* Daily prayers and an evening Examen for children based on the method of St Ignatius
* Pages for listing prayer intentions and people to pray for
* Much more to make this a daily resource and a keepsake for the future!

Here is a photo of the inside of the diary that I took to give you an idea of what each day looks like.  Each day doesn't have the exact same questions, but many questions are the same from one day to the next.  For more inside views, you can watch the video on the Holy Heroes website.   I love that the diary records feast days. (For example, Pentecost Sunday is noted in the photo for May 15, 2016)  I enjoy living liturgically with my family with food, fun and activities and being able to use the diary as a quick reference for upcoming feast days is a definite plus! 



I asked my children what they enjoyed about their diaries and here are their comments: 

Daughter, age 16:  "I enjoyed how the diary keeps a record of mass attendance and the last time I went to confession." 

Son, age 14: "I really like how the diary notes feast days which is a quick way to look up various feast days through the year." Side note: One day our family was wondering when a particular feast day was on and my son immediately got his diary out to look for the feast day date. :)

Daughter, age 11: "I like recording what I thought about and did during the day."

Daughter, age 8: "I love listing my prayer intentions in my diary to help me remember who and what I'm praying for each day." 

Daughter, age 2.5: She enjoys getting a hold of her siblings' diaries and a pen and scribbling in them. :) 

As a parent, I have enjoyed sitting down each evening with my diary to write in another entry.  It has helped me reflect on the day's events and I like that some of the questions focus on what I have been grateful for during the day.   Too often, I lay my head down each night and only remember the day's big challenges and headaches rather than all that I should be grateful for.  The Spiritual Diary has helped me redirect my thoughts to what went right with the day and be grateful for my many blessings.   I'm also more aware of what I want to work on spiritually for the next day since I'm recording my thoughts along my spiritual journey.  The Spiritual Diary is full of great prayers and information, but I think it could be an even better tool if the daily Mass readings were listed on each day to encourage users to look up scripture and pray with the Word of God while filling out the entries.
 
The Spiritual Diary takes self-discipline to fill out each day, which is always a challenge for me personally and with our busy family schedule.  We have skipped several days lately because of our hectic evening schedules, but I'm hoping to get back on track soon with our less hectic summer schedule!  Summer time is a great time to start using the Spiritual Diaries to form a consistent habit! 

I have found that when our entire family fills out their diaries at the same time together each evening we are more consistent so I always try to make this a goal. 


After you finish filling out the Spiritual Diary through August 14, 2016, Holy Heroes has the next diary for August 15, 2016 - December 24, 2016 for sale and you can order both as a set and save money!  Be sure to visit the Holy Heroes store for more details!  

For more reviews of the Holy Heroes Spiritual Diaries, you can visit the Holy Heroes website and Holy Heroes Facebook page to see what others are saying about this wonderful product that helps children and adults become more prayerful daily! 

Have a blessed week! 

This post contains affiliate links. 

On December 9th, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Juan Diego, who was the first indigenous saint of the Western Hemisphere.   St. Juan Diego was a lay person who lived a simple life in what is now Mexico City.  On December 9, 1531, as he was walking to Mass one morning he passed Tepeyac Hill and heard music and a woman's voice.  What followed was the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is celebrated on December 12th.  This apparition 5 centuries ago has changed the course of history!

For several years now my children have grown up watching CCC of America's animated DVD titled Juan Diego: Messenger of Guadalupe which is a great DVD for children about St. Juan Diego's life and Our Lady of Guadalupe and I highly recommend it for all families.

But, as an adult I have been wanting to find a DVD  that explained in greater detail the story and miracles surrounding this apparition since I have heard so many fascinating details about it through the years.  I was pleased to find there is such a DVD and I received a copy of Guadalupe: The Miracle and the Message in exchange for this review.  I must say this is a must-see for children to adults! 

Last year my oldest daughter took an online Latin course through Memoria Press Online Academy and this year she continued with Latin, but for various reasons we decided to forego the online option and use the instructional DVDs with its corresponding texts instead during our homeschool day.  

I thought I would give some of the pros and cons of each option in case someone was wondering which route to go when deciding about homeschool curriculum.


Like I mentioned, last year my daughter took an online Latin course.  We decided to invest in the online course because I knew with having 4 other younger children, I would not have been able to focus on teaching her one on one.  We thought having an online teacher would help keep my daughter motivated to do her assignments and quizzes and it would free me up with one less subject I would need to teach with her.  The class she took, First Form Latin, met once a week for about 1.5 hours.  The class was set up so students could see and hear the teacher and students could hear one another answer questions and recite vocabulary when the teacher called on them.  The teacher then gave assignments from the workbook  and students submitted online quizzes that the teacher graded and returned through an online grading system.

Pros of the Online Latin Course
- no planning for the parent
- your child is taught by someone else
- structured
- your child interacts with other students through audio learning and "talking" with students through chat box
- even if you miss the scheduled live class time, your child can listen to the recorded class some other time during the week. 

Cons of the Online Latin Course
- the course was pricey (~$450 for the entire school year)
- your child meets at a specific time each week, which could cause scheduling conflicts with other activities and family outings during your homeschool day (however, as mentioned in the Pros list, if you aren't able to attend the live class, your child can make up the class by listening to the class recording at a different time.)
- your child is expected to keep up with the class schedule and assignments and the pace could be challenging and overwhelming for a child.

This year we decided not to register my daughter for another online Latin course and instead we thought it would be best if she learned the next Latin course, Second Form Latin, on her own with instructional DVDs and books that go with the DVDs. There are several reasons we did not register her for the online course option again: price, class availability didn't work with our schedule, and we thought our daughter had a good understanding of Latin to venture off on her own with the Second Form Latin course that included instructional DVDs provided by Rainbow Resource Center.



From Rainbow Resource Center, I received the Second Form Latin Complete Set in exchange for this review.  The Set includes: Second Form Latin Workbook & Test Key, Teacher Manual, Flash Cards, Quizzes & Tests, Lesson Plans, Student Workbook, Instructional DVDs, Pronunciation CD and Student Text (not pictured).

Pros of Using the Instructional Latin DVDs (with its corresponding text) from Rainbow Resource Center
- the price of the complete Second Form Latin Complete Set is about $30 less than other companies and considerably less than the online class option
- I am able to plan the Latin lessons around our family's weekly schedule
- my daughter can learn the Latin course at her pace, taking time to review any material she may not understand.
- the instructional DVDs are very helpful as my daughter watches them at the beginning of each new lesson before she does her workbook pages for that lesson

Cons of Using the Instructional Latin DVDs (with its corresponding text) from Rainbow Resource Center
- Some planning required by the parent for each week's lessons
- If my daughter doesn't understand something, she doesn't have an online teacher to ask so she has to rely on me, her mom and teacher.  Sometimes I can't answer the question so I have to view the DVD with my daughter
- child has to be motivated and self-disciplined to pace herself and learn the Latin as best as she can with the help of the DVD.
-child can't learn from other students' questions and conversations like on the online course.

So far using the Second Form Latin Complete Set from Rainbow Resource Center has been going well for my daughter and our family.  I think my daughter enjoys being able to set her own schedule and pace the most which makes learning Latin a bit more engaging for her.


Besides Rainbow Resource Center's great prices on the Second Form Latin Complete Set and a wide selection of other products whether a family homeschools or not, they also have free shipping on orders over $50! If you have seen their online catalog or printed catalog, then you know how easy it is to spend at least $50 in no time!


And don't just think about purchasing from Rainbow Resource Center for just your educational needs.  They also have a terrific holiday catalog just in time for the Christmas/Gift giving season!  Request a copy of their Holiday Catalog and they will mail you out one now so you can easily shop for all those on your gift list this year!

Rainbow Resource Center is definitely your one stop shop for curriculum, games, puzzles, toys, and gifts!

Monica at Arma Dei Equipping Catholic Families has designed a wonderful and meaningful last minute Christmas gift idea for family, Godparents, and friends.  It is a Communion of Saints Family Calendar that can be used over and over again each year as you write in birthdays, baptism anniversaries, wedding anniversaries, and with my calendar I'm writing in my Godchildren's baptism anniversaries, as well as all my husband's side of the family's birthdays.  The artwork for the calendar is beautiful and I love that so many wonderful feast days of the saints are highlighted each month, along with popular devotions.   In the back of the calendar there are saint's feast days listed for everyday in each month.  Such a wonderful resource to deepen the faith life!  To find out more about how to purchase and download this product, go HERE.


Downloading and printing my calendars was quick and easy and I plan on giving a few family members and friends this perpetual calendar that can be treasured year after year.

I printed each copy of my calendars using heavy photo paper that is similar to card stock paper.  Here's a picture I took of the photo paper I used and the cover of the calendar.

I then found magnetic clips at the grocery store.  Although they are magnetic, the card stock paper is too heavy so the magnets were not strong enough to hold the calendar onto my magnetic dry erase board.  So since the clips have holes in them, I plan on using nails to hang my calender with the clips.
I look forward to giving this unique and special calendar as gifts this week and I look forward to never forgetting birthdays, anniversaries, feast days, and baptism anniversaries.  I also love the fact I don't have to write in all my family's special dates over and over again each year.  So this is definitely a gift that keeps giving.

Have a blessed Christmas week!
 

I just came across another Catholic Blogs Link Up and I wanted to put it on my blog for my personal reference and to help readers of my blog find other Catholic blogs.

If you aren't familiar with Blog Link Ups it's just a page where others can link up their blog titles so alot of blogs can be easily found in one spot in blog land. But besides the fact that it is convenient to find blogs of similar interest in one place, it also makes the (blog) world a smaller place and can build a "virtual community."  There are millions of blogs in the blogoshere covering a wide range of topics  so it's nice to "meet" others with "About" pages like your own.  So go HERE to find other Catholic blogs you may want to visit. Just click on their blog title under their blog's button. My blog is linked up in the 49th spot.  Enjoy your visits!



Catholic Blogs Link Up was started by Jennifer, a Catholic homeschool mom with 9 children.  Jennifer is quite crafty with Catholic crafts!  (Say that over and over again!) :) She posts "the God-inspired faith-centered crafts and activities that she creates with her kids" over at Crafolic.  Her products are amazing! She is so talented and very busy too!  You can see the products she sells at her Crafolic Store HERE.  



Another great Catholic blog community in blog/Facebook land that I have been a part of for a little while now is Catholic Bloggers Network. With almost 300 Catholic blogs already linked up (my blog is in the 4th spot at the top), there is something for everyone on this page as readers visit and comment on the many blogs listed.  On the About Us page it states this about the network: 

"Saint Padre Pio Catholic Bloggers Network" is a Facebook group for bloggers to communicate and join in on unified initiatives. After the First International Meeting of Bloggers in August, 2011, with Pope Benedict XVI, this unified front was inspired. This group was created for better communication among bloggers and also to create a webpage directory of Catholic bloggers or a web portal of those interested in networking.

With the New Evangelization, "The Church has the duty to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ always and everywhere." Our motto is: "The greatest charity is to take away souls from Satan and to bring them back to God!" ~ Saint Padre Pio

Together we can make a difference on the world wide web! Let's remind the world, via our presence in Catholic Social Media, that God exists and to educate them about the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church!





One of the founders of Catholic Bloggers Network is Monica over at Arma Dei: Equipping Catholic Families.   Monica has so many great and creative resources that she designed to teach our Catholic faith to our children and families.   I'm always impressed by her creativity and products and I enjoyed reviewing one of them called Color Me Catholic: New Roman Missal Edition craft kit.

You can find my review HERE.  You can also find all Monica's products at her Arma Dei Shoppe HERE.   

I close this post with some of Pope John Paul II's wisdom and insights as he highlighted the need for evangelization through the media when he stated...

"For the new evangelization to be effective, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the culture of our time in which the social communications media are most influential. Therefore, knowledge and use of the media, whether the more traditional forms or those which technology has produced in recent times, is indispensable. Contemporary reality demands a capacity to learn the language, nature and characteristics of mass media. Using the media correctly and competently can lead to a genuine inculturation of the Gospel. At the same time, the media also help to shape the culture and mentality of people today, which is why there must be special pastoral activity aimed at those working in the media (EA 72)."  Source: Apothegm Blog