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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!

I'm taking a break from planning an All Saints' Day party that I'm hosting this Sunday, Nov. 1 with some of our homeschool families to update the blog on some of the Fall fun we've had in the past few weeks.

On Thursday, October 22, (St. John Paul II's feast day) some of our homeschool families met at Hubb's Corn Maze, which is about an hour and a half away from where we live.  This has become an annual tradition and it was so nice that my husband could join in on the fun.  It was a beautiful, fun day!


On Friday, October 23, we celebrated my son's 14th birthday with a camp out in our backyard with a few of his friends.  After playing football and soccer in the backyard, they roasted hot dogs, grilled cheeseburgers and made S'mores in our firepit. And here's the cake my son insisted I make.  I didn't complain about the simplicity of his request compared to the other cakes I've made in the past and  this gets the easiest cake I've "made" award.  :)

Since our backyard campsite was already set up for my son's Friday night camp out, my husband and 2 of my daughters camped out in our backyard on Saturday night.  They enjoyed this special time with their Dad.

If celebrating a birthday and camping out wasn't festive enough, we also celebrated and enjoyed meeting the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia from Nashville, TN that came to visit our parish from Friday, Oct. 23-25.  My family met the two visiting nuns on Friday morning after morning Mass and then my oldest daughter and I were able to chat with them again on Saturday and Sunday as they chatted with the youth and their families about their life and vocation.  It was so wonderful to meet them and be in their presence.  They are so joyful and peaceful and I was really drawn to them.  I could have chatted with them for hours! :)


One of the many questions they answered was about their habit and the significance and beautiful symbolism of each part of the their habit.  Here's a video I took of Sister Peter Marie explaining the Dominican habit:  (I'm having trouble uploading the video to this blog post, but click on the link below to my blog's Facebook page where I have the video)

https://www.facebook.com/tracy.b.smith.14/videos/10206637346630398/

Recently at TAN Homeschool, I was a guest blogger where I wrote a post about some ways our family lives our Catholic faith during our homeschool days.

"I hesitate to write posts regarding our family’s prayer life.  It’s not that I’m ashamed of our Catholic faith or that I don’t want to share the richness and beauty of our faith with others.  Rather, I would not want to make the impression that my family’s prayer life (and my personal prayer life) is as consistent and steadfast as my blog post may portray.
However, I thought I would share 5 ways our family strives to live our faith during our homeschool days in hopes to encourage, support and inspire other families in their faith journeys."..... Read more on my post titled 5 Ways We Live Our Faith.

 Hoping your week is a blessed one!

  

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October 22 is the feast day of our beloved Saint John Paul II !

Last year on October 22, 2014 we celebrated his first feast day and we had fun making Canonization Lapbooks back in the Spring of 2014 when both Pope John Paul II and Pope John Paul XXIII were canonized on April 27, 2014.


Here are just a few ways to celebrate this special feast day of Saint John Paul II:


1.  We love reading Lolek: The Boy Who Became Pope John Paul II.  For a list of some other great children's books about Saint John Paul II follow this link: Saint John Paul II Children's Books .
In the picture of our feast day tray that sits on our dining room table, I also have Heroes: Pope John Paul II, Champion of Life by Ralph Ranieri which is a short pamphlet published by Liguori.  Unfortunately, I don't have a link to it since I can't find a link to the pamphlet when I searched for it. 


2. Another way to celebrate Saint JPII's feast day is to admire this pencil drawing (Yes! A PENCIL drawing) of Saint JPII that Cameron Smith drew {did I mention drew with a PENCIL!?!}  (no relation to me, but he and his wife are our 5th child's Godparents)  This "Portrait of a Saint", pencil on paper, was completed in 2001 by Cameron Smith.   Be sure to visit Smith Catholic Art!  What talent!


4. And here is another video of Karol Wojtyla (now Saint JPII) singing "Ave Maria" in 1976.  It's so beautiful it gave me chills! Enjoy!

 

5.  How about this yummy Polish dinner from Catholic Cuisine?
And for dessert?  a Pope Cake from Melody at Melodies Harmonies

6. And while you are eating the yummy cake you can listen to Glory Stories CD Vol 11: Pope Saint John Paul II.  

7.  If your children enjoy coloring pages here is a list of coloring pages I found: 
Pope Saint John Paul II Coloring and Activity Book by Catholic Playground 
Pope Saint John Paul II 15-Page Coloring Download by Holy Heroes
Pope John Paul II Crafts, Lesson Plans, Printables and More ( Lacy at Catholic Icing did this post in 2011 prior to Pope JPII getting canonized, but still a great list of crafts and activites!)   

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!