In the above photo, my older three children are dressed in typical clothes that children wore in Roman times.   My daughters are wearing stolas, which is the kind of tunic that Roman women and girls wore.  The Roman stola was made of a straight piece of linen or woolen cloth, pinned at the shoulders, with a big collar hanging down nearly to the waist.   Our stolas are far from looking authentic as they are made with sheets, but I just grabbed things I had from the dress up box :)   My son is wearing a tunica exterior, a knee-length tunic, under his armor.  This was the usual dress of children and men in Rome.  Tunics were sleeveless or short-sleeved and made of wool or linen, and usually white.  My kids had fun dressing up like the Romans!


My kids also made mosaic designs with cardboard and dried beans.  As stated in Spend the Day in Ancient Rome,  "Many Roman floors were covered with hundreds of small tiles, called tesserae.  The tesserae were made from cubes of stone, so their colors were natural stone colors: gray, brown, green, brick red, white, or tan.  A mosaic is a design or picture made by arranging the tesserae in a pattern." 


And here are my kid's mosaics when they were done:

I am linking up this artwork to Kimberly's  Art Showcase where you can link up your child's artwork each Friday!  Kimberly's children did some beautiful artwork yesterday for St. Patrick's Day so be sure to check out Happy Hearts Academy and link up!
Also, this Saturday, March 19, is the Feast Day of St. Joseph.  Those delicious and beautiful breads that our homeschool children made will be displayed for our St. Joseph celebration which will be this Sunday.  We are looking forward to celebrating this special feast day with family and friends!  I can't wait to do a post on this beautiful day sometime next week!

Please join Lynda, Anna-Marie and myself for March's No Ordinary Blog Hop (NOBH). You can link up any or all your posts for the entire month of March. The blogger with the most posts will be awarded a Star Blogger Award and each post will be an entry to a great giveaway!  Click below for details!

My daughter is in pink and her friend is in blue. How sweet as she is in pink while the little boy is in blue! I snapped these pictures while I was watching one of my other children's soccer game this past weekend.  These 2 cuties were in their own little world while sitting on this log with their backs to the soccer game ! :)

My husband's birthday is today!  We have a busy day, including 2 soccer practices in the evening! But, we plan on going out to a restaurant this evening to celebrate a special day for the best husband and Dad in the world!  We love you!

Please join Lynda, Anna-Marie and myself for March's No Ordinary Blog Hop (NOBH). We are having a giveaway this month so join the fun! Click button below for details!

It is a Lenten tradition in the Catholic Church to meditate on the Passion and death of our Lord by participating in the Stations of the Cross.  What are the Stations of the Cross?  You can go HERE for more information and read the history behind the devotion.

"For Roman Catholics throughout the world, the Stations of the Cross are synonymous with Lent, Holy Week and, especially, Good Friday. This devotion is also known as the "Way of the Cross", the "Via Crucis", and the "Via Dolorosa." It commemorates 14 key events on day of Christ's crucifixion. The majority concern His final walk through the streets of Jerusalem, carrying the Cross." (quote credit) 
 
Many Catholic Churches say the stations of the cross each Friday during Lent (this devotion is on Friday since this is the day Jesus died on the cross).  With our young family and our schedule it is sometimes difficult to head out the door and visit the Stations at our local church.
When we don't go to a local church on Fridays to say the stations, we take time out on Friday evenings in Lent to pray through the Stations as a family in our own home.  We use the stations that my children colored in my Lenten post here and we use a children's version of the stations of the cross.  HERE is a link to Stations of the Cross for children that can be printed out and read for each station.

While we are reading through each station we use this wall cross that is hanging year round in our home.

On the cross are 14 magnetic Stations of the Cross.  I gave this cross as a gift to my husband's cousin who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church with my husband on Easter 2006.  When she passed away, our family inherited this beautiful cross.

It is magnetic so before we start reading through the prayers for each station, we take all the magnets off the cross:

Then each child takes a turn putting the next numbered station on the cross to fill the cross back in. They place the magnet, the we take turns reading the prayers associated with that numbered station. (Each magnet is numbered with a Roman numeral in the corner, it's just hard to see this in the photos.)

Here is our 3 year old placing a magnet on the cross:
I cannot remember which company I bought the magnetic stations of the cross from since it has been so long and I have searched awhile on the internet to try to find it and place a link.  Let me know if anyone out in blog land can find where to purchase it as I would love to give these as gifts for our Godchildren and special occasions.
I JUST FOUND SOMEPLACE THAT SELLS THIS CROSS. I'M SO EXCITED SINCE I HAVE SEARCHED AND SEARCHED FOREVER FOR A PLACE THAT SELLS IT.  THE LINK IS HERE !!!!

So by saying a children's version of the Stations of the Cross and using this magnetic wall cross, our children's attention span is able to last long enough for our family to set time out of our busy schedule each Friday in Lent to pray and remember all that this holy season of Lent is all about.

For many other Lenten ideas be sure to visit Lacy's blog at Catholic Icing and Monica at Arma Dei, Equipping Catholic families  (Scroll to bottom of Monica's blog to see all the link up ideas) where others have linked up what they are doing for Lent.

What are some ways you make the season of Lent special for your family, especially with young children?


Please join Lynda, Anna-Marie and myself for March's No Ordinary Blog Hop (NOBH). We are having a giveaway this month so join the fun! Click button below for details!

My oldest daughter's creation: 
"There is a spoon on the right, a plate of mashed potatoes in the middle, and in the back of the photo is a cake with white icing, colored sprinkles and a candle in the middle."

My son's creation:  "This birthday cake reminds me of my first birthday." 



I'm also linking this LEGO post to: