Once a month our homeschool families meet at someone's home from our group and we say a Mystery of the Rosary and since we usually meet on a Sunday evening, we recite the Glorious Mysteries.  This afternoon our family hosted our homeschool group's Family Rosary night and since today, Sept. 8, is the day we celebrate our Blessed Mother's birthday, we also had our annual birthday party for our Blessed Mother.


One of the many reasons I love being Catholic is that our Church celebrates Mary throughout the entire year with lots of  Marian feast days.  Mary did have such an important role in salvation history by having the privilege to cradle Jesus in her womb for 9 months and raise our Savior and it's always nice to give her honor on more days than just at Christmas time when we celebrate Jesus' birth.

There are so many wonderful Marian Feast Days in the church throughout the year and celebrating Mary's birthday is one of our family's favorite.  My children love birthdays and celebrating our Blessed Mother's special day is definitely a birthday party our family doesn't want to miss!  

For Mary's birthday party we have always made an edible rosary.  In year's past we have made the rosary out of cupcakes and Hershey kisses, but for the past couple years we have used donuts!  Our group has found this to be the easiest, quickest, (and yummiest) way to celebrate such a special day!

Here are pictures I snapped quickly of this year's edible rosary:



Have a blessed week!

 

This post contains affiliate links.  

I'm guest posting on Lisa's "Try a New Recipe Tuesday" Link Up at her blog, Home to 4 Kiddos.

For the post I shared my Chocolate Green Smoothie recipe below that a friend of mine passed on to me.  This smoothie is what I usually eat drink for breakfast every morning.  The great thing about smoothies is that you can add or take away ingredients and come up with your own taste, but I will share the one I enjoy most in hopes it will be something you may be interested in trying.

Disclaimer:  I LOVE this smoothie, but after my husband and children (aka: cupcakes) tried it they do not like it :-(  They are missing out on a great taste and excellent nutritional benefits too.  Maybe one day they will grow to like it! And maybe your family will be brave enough to try it and like it! :)


In a blender (I love my Vitamix !) put in:

* 1 cup of unsweetened Almond milk
* 1-2 cups water, depending on how thick or runny you want the smoothie
* 1 handful of organic spinach leaves
* 1-2 cups of frozen fruit (I like to use the bag of frozen mixed fruit and the bag of wild organic blueberries from Costco for my frozen fruit.)
* 1 scoop of Whey Protein Isolate that I buy HERE from Amazon OR 2 Tablespoons plain, nonfat, gluten free Greek yogurt ( I buy my Greek yogurt at Costco and it's the Kirkland brand)
* 1 Tablespoon of Organic Golden Flax Seed that I get from Costco
* 1 Tablespoon of Chia Seeds that I get from Costco
* 1-2 scoops of Stevia Natural Sweetener that I buy HERE from Amazon.  (If you have never used Stevia before, a VERY little goes a long way!  There are over 2,000 servings in the little bottle of Stevia pictured above.) 
* 1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Hershey's Cocoa  (Use the Cocoa if you want a chocolate flavor smoothie, which I always enjoy)

Blend all ingredients together and enjoy!  If your blender mixes the ingredients well enough, you will not be able to taste the spinach leaves and the smoothie will be...well, smooth!

We eased back into our homeschool schedule this week trying to implement our 2013-2014 curriculum. It was a busy week, to say the least, as we all adjusted to the school routine and juggling a new "student" in our school who does an A+ job at sleeping, nursing, dirtying her diaper, and being oh so cute!

As in year's past, we started our first day of our 2013-2014 school year making our "Tee-rific T-shirts" .  We talked about all our fun adventures over the summer and our favorite parts of the summer.  Then my children drew and colored on their paper t-shirts about some things that represented their summer fun.  I got my t-shirt copies from the book,  The MAILBOX: Bulletin Boards For Busy Teachers book for Fall, Winter, Spring, Anytime.
Here is a link to a free t-shirt printout that is similar to The Mailbox version that I used:  Click here for the printable t-shirt.
 

Another new school year tradition that we have done for the past several years now is to make and decorate a cross cake.  Since our homeschool is called Sacred Heart Academy we usually use icing to draw Jesus' Sacred Heart in the middle of the cake with the homeschool year on the cake.  Then my kids dump decorate the cake with sprinkles of all colors, their favorite part!  Here's some pics from our cross cake fun this week:

What are some of your new school year traditions, whether you homeschool or not?

As shown in the top right corner, I have their books separated by subjects using white foam board and then I listed each subject on each board.  So my cupcakes always know where to find their textbooks and workbooks and they also use the white foam boards to keep their baskets organized.
 When I first started homeschooling in 2005, I tried using bookshelves, but things didn't stay organized then I moved into a basket system, but my cupcake's books were thrown into the baskets.  That's when I decided to organize the baskets with the subject foam boards to make books easier to find and this system was quick to set up and has been used efficiently for several years now.  

In the bottom left corner is a photo of the red basket where I keep all my teacher manuals for my cupcake's subjects. 

Then in the bottom right corner is the photo of how I organize my "Teacher Manual" red basket.  All my teacher manuals are divided by my cupcakes' names using the white foam boards and blue post it notes to label each child's manuals.  So this will help me find answer keys I need quickly and my cupcakes can also go quickly to the foam board divider with their name on it to find any manuals if I ask them to get them for me vs. looking all over for a teacher manual that may be hidden in a shelf somewhere. 

Memoria Press Kindergarten Lesson Plans

Well, our sweet Leah will be 2 weeks old this Tuesday, Aug. 13 and her siblings have enjoyed our precious gift!

Some things I regularly hear from her sisters and brother about her are:
"She's so cute!"
"She makes funny faces!"
"Mom, she's hungry, she needs you!"
 "Oh gross, ANOTHER dirty (cloth) diaper!"
"She sure does sleep a lot!"
 "I like when she's awake and I can see her eyes!"

So much has happened this past week with the birth of the newest Smith addition! 

My labor started on Tuesday morning, July 30, and I felt a little leakage (I was thinking this was the start of my water breaking) and contractions were regular, but manageable.  I was relieved my body was going to labor on its own since I had an induction scheduled the same morning due to the estimated weight of the baby (8 lbs., 14 oz) and my gestational diabetes.

To make a long day and story short, I walked the hospital halls for most of the day with my husband (my awesome labor coach) and was gradually making progress moving from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 cm. with my cervical changes.   Eventually, when I was ready to push, Baby Smith's head was sideways, instead of face down so when I was pushing, the baby was not moving. :-(  I did not have any pain meds so this was my 5th natural birth and it was the toughest due to this little "complication."  I was so ready to push, but the labor nurse and my husband kept saying breathe through the hard contractions!  Aaaaaaa!!!!!! I was so tired, not eating since breakfast, and it was getting to be 4:00 in the afternoon.
Finally, Baby Smith turned in the correct delivery position and SHE came out to meet us at 6:04 PM!  It was an unexpected long and hard labor since I thought with baby #5 my labor would be alot shorter and quicker.  But, we are so thankful she was healthy and strong and what a wonderful blessing!      

Leah Therese (pronounced "Ter-rez" in honor of St. Therese of Lisieux) a.k.a. Cupcake #5, was born on Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 6:04 PM weighing 8 lbs., 11 oz., 21 in. long.