Getting Ready...

... for the Feast of St. Therese!!!

I just posted the directions for these darling Rose Cupcakes over at Catholic Cuisine!

Celebrating Michaelmas ~ 2009

Here are a few pictures that were taken yesterday around our home

on the Feast of Michaelmas!

St. Michael's Waffles (though I ended up using a mix)
with Homemade Blackberry Syrup for Breakfast

A few activities from The Great battle for Heaven, stories from The Angels, and a lovely St. Michael candle from Saintly Soaps which arrived just in time!

Coloring Pages of St. Michael while listening to

Cat Chat: Amazing Angels & Super Saints.

Michaelmas Day Cupcakes

St. Michael atop a stack of Devil's Food Cupcakes

complete with swords for stabbing the devils!

Dinner consisted of Apple Chicken, Steamed Carrots, Angel Hair Pasta, and Sparkling Blackberry Izze Drinks.

And finally, stabbing those cupcakes...

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Divine Power of God - cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

St. Michael the Archangel ~ Pray for us!

O little Thérèse of the Child Jesus...

... Please pick for me a rose from the Heavenly gardens

and send it to me as a message of love.

Today was the last day of my Novena to St. Therese. I was praying this novena for a special intention -- particularly that this coming Christmas I will have a safe (and hopefully not too painful) delivery and a physically healthy baby which I will get to bring home to love and to hold. Yes, I was a bit more specific this time! Remembering "Love's Delay, I wondered if I would receive a rose or not. I also wondered just where St. Therese would find a rose to send since I didn't have plans to leave the house today, and the roses on my blog "don't count!" ;)

Anyhow, early this morning, after finishing my novena to St. Therese, I found an email in my inbox from Gymboree. This is nothing out of the ordinary, considering most of my girls' clothing comes from this particular favorite store of mine and that I am on their email notification list. The interesting thing about this email was that it was saying I could use my Gymbucks today, ONE DAY EARLY, since I recently signed up for their rewards program. This was a first! I hadn't even started thinking about what I wanted to purchase with my Gymbucks... I had even made a "quick" trip to the Mall last night, but with less than an hour before closing, and Motherhood being my destination (on the other end of the Mall) to try and find a new outfit or two for this coming weekend, I didn't have a chance to take a peek at their new Christmas lines.

Well, imagine my surprise and smiles when I clicked over to peek at the newborn baby clothes for Christmas and found that their whole newborn Classic Holiday Line was covered in ROSES!!!! I went on to look at the older girl lines to find that it is only the newborn baby girls clothing with the rose theme!

Thank you St. Therese!!!

I did have a super hard time deciding which dress to choose for our little "Christmas Rose" but finally settled on the Roses are Red collection with a Rose Cardigan.

"With sweet rosettes and a rich color, your baby girl is looking beautiful for her first holiday. Velveteen dress is layered with a rose ruffle tight and shiny patent shoes for an elegant finish."

Won't her little Rose Hat match perfectly!?! Now she is all set for Christmas Mass, that is if she is born before Christmas. (I have yet to make it to my due date...) Now that is one more thing I can cross off my Christmas list. =)

I also had enough Gymbucks to purchase a darling Rose Footed One-Piece as well.

Well, I had better get off the computer and get our day started... I just had to share my excitement with you all!!!

Novena to Saint Thérèse ~ Day Nine

(January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897)

Novena to Saint Thérèse

O St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who during your short life on earth became a mirror of angelic purity, of love strong as death, and of wholehearted abandonment to God, now that you rejoice in the reward of your virtues, cast a glance of pity on me as I leave all things in your hands. Make my troubles your own, speak a word for me to Our Lady Immaculate, whose flower of special love you were -- to that Queen of Heaven “who smiled on you at the dawn of life” Beg her powerful intercession the grace I yearn for so ardently at this moment...and that she join with it a blessing that may strengthen me during life, defend me at the hour of death, and lead me straight on to a happy eternity. Amen.

O God, who did inflame with the Spirit of Love, the soul of your servant Thérèse of the Child Jesus, grant that we also may love you and make you much loved. Amen.

DAY NINE

O St. Thérèse, seraphic virgin, beloved spouse of our Crucified Lord, you who on earth did burn with a love so intense toward your God and my God, and now glow with a bright and purer flame in paradise, obtain for me, I beseech you, a spark of that same holy fire which shall help me to put things of the world in their proper place and live my life always conscious of the presence of God. As I conclude my novena I also beg of you to secure for me the special favor I seek at this time...

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

Highlights from "F" Week

Learning Along the Alphabet Path

~ Letter Formation ~

In addition to their Modelling Wax letter F's, the girls also worked on making the letter F using Wooden Pieces and they also really enjoyed this Coloring Page.

~ Fuchsia Fairy Coloring Pages ~

From this Coloring Book

(While looking at the Flower Fairies Alphabet book and listening to the CD!)

~ Picture Book Science ~

F is for Forest Fires and Firefighters

Books about Fires, Forest Fires, and Firefighters:

• Firefighters A to Z
• Fred the Firefighter (Jobs People Do)
• Curious George at the Fire Station
• Fire! Fire!
• Fire Engines
• Smokejumpers One to Ten
• Yellowstone's Cycle of Fire
• Wildfires
• Flying Firefighters
• Blaze And The Forest Fire: Billy And Blaze Spread The Alarm
• Forest Fire
• The Charcoal Forest: How Fire Helps Animals & Plants

We went on an impromptu Forest Fire Field Trip and the girls then began working on a Fire Safety Lap Book as well as a few other fire related activities, which are all linked in the bottom of the Fire Safety Lap Book Post.

After studying about Fires, we moved on to
Flowers!

• The Reason for a Flower
• Flowers (First Discovery Books)
• Planting a Rainbow
• Miss Rumphius
• The Rose in My Garden
• The Flower Alphabet Book

~ Picture Study :: Leon Bonnat's Roman Girl at the Fountain ~

By Rascal

Using Museum ABC, Museum ABC Nesting Blocks, and Elizabeth's pdf

~ F is for St. Francis ~

Our Painted Saint Francis for with

An Alphabet of Catholic Saints

St. Francis Coloring Page
Copywork from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints

From our Collection:

Saint Francis of Assisi by Father Lovasik

Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey

St Francis of Assisi Catholic Story Coloring Book

Clare and Francis

Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi (we no longer own this one)

Saint Francis by Brian Wildsmith

St. Francis of Assisi

From the Library:
Brother Francis and the Friendly Beasts
Saint Francis and the Animals
(I actually requested quite a few others, but didn't really care for them and so I didn't read them to the children. These were two that we really enjoyed!)

~ Crafts and Activities ~

F is for Forest Flower Fairy House

When the girls had finished their Forest Flower Fairy House I surprised them with a couple little Flower Fairies of their very own!

The girls also made Hand and Footprint Flowers. I wish I could have captured this project on video, you should have heard all the giggles!!

Handprint Flowers

Dip child's hand in paint and stamp near the top of a piece of construction paper. This is the bud or flower part of the flower. Now stamp the child's feet to make the leaves. Draw in a stem. Don't forget to date it!

One other activity the girls did was make a Flower Fairy house out of a Flower!! Everyone, including me, has been having SO MUCH FUN with this BEAUTIFUL Blooming Flower!!

~ Writing the ABC's on Little Hearts :: F is for Friendly ~

I was so excited when Kimberlee shared the lovely coloring pages her daughter illustrated for Writing the ABC's on Little Hearts. Thank you Kimberlee and Lydia! My girls were so excited and really enjoyed discussing and coloring the pictures.

~ Serendipi-Tea time ~

We made a number of Fun recipes for "F" week!!

First we made some Fantastic Fudge!!
(Thanks Jacinta for leaving the recipe in the combox last week!)

Fantastic Fudge

12 oz. chocolate chips

6 oz. butterscotch chips (we used peanut butter chips)

14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/4 tsp. vanilla

1 c. chopped nuts

In a saucepan, melt first 3 ingredients. Remove from heat, add vanilla and nuts. Pour into foil lined square pan. Chill. Cut into squares.

You can be very creative with different Flavors of chips and nuts and dried Fruit!

Here is another super fun snack for F week:

Frog on a Lilly Pad surrounded by Fish!

Frog on a Lilly Pad

Tint some cream cheese blue and spread on an english muffin half. Put a slice of cucumber on top for the lilly pad. Put a gummy frog on top of the cucumber.

And one last snack we made, to tie in St. Francis, was

St. Francis' Friendly Beasts Crunch!

(Barbara also recently shared another recipe for Critter Crunch that looks very yummy!)

St. Francis' Friendly Beasts Crunch

1 cup animal crackers

1 cup teddy bear-shaped chocolate or honey-flavored graham crackers

1 cup small pretzel twists

1 cup yogurt-covered raisins

1 cup M&M's

10 colorful ice-cream cones, if desired

Mix all ingredients except ice-cream cones. Serve snack in cones.

Store in covered container.

Note: This would be great to make next week for the Feast of St. Francis!

WOW!! Looking back at our week, it was no wonder I needed a nap on Sunday... Especially since we had so much other stuff going on last week including birthday parties and Little Flowers! This week, since we have a short school week, in order to incorporate a number of our Favorite Feasts, we will just be working on a Few more little projects to finish up "F" week, including starting a Flower and Plant Lap Book, which will carry over to next week's Garden theme. In fact, I think I will rename our Flower Pot Cupcakes to Garden Gumdrop Cupcakes (using Gumdrops to make the flowers) and make them next week since we will be making so many treats this week already for the feast days, including cupcakes for today's feast.