Little Flowers Girls' Club ~ December Meeting

Well, I had our Little Flowers meeting scheduled for last week, but due to my miscarriage the week prior, I just wasn't prepared, nor was I quite up for it... Soooooo, I postponed it a week, and we met last night.

At the last minute (well, not quite the last minute, but at 1:30 in the afternoon) I found out that the room, in the back of the local bookstore where we usually meet, was filled with boxes and not available, so plans changed and the meeting was now going to be at MY HOUSE!! Yikes!! Not only did I have to finish coming up with notebook page -- I was having a hard time being creative and so I had put it off till the last minute, and when I was almost finished Microsoft Word decided to crash before I saved my document and I had to start over, which was fine cause I didn't really like it at that point anyway, but still, totally annoying! -- but now I also had to clean my house!! (picture a frantic mother running around cleaning, baking and crafting for 4 hours, while trying to take care of a five little children!) Nevertheless, everything turned out fine in the end and I actually really enjoyed hosting the meeting at my home. PLUS, hubby had the opportunity to take all his boys out to dinner! Thank you honey!! :)

Anyhow, here is an overview of our night:

As the girls arrived, I had them all start right in on their coloring. We used Waltzing Matilda's beautiful St. Jane Frances de Chantal coloring page, of course! Thank you Charlotte, you amaze me!

We had a new addition this month as well...

Well, new in that this was the first time we actually got to see Amy's new little one at the meeting... Last month he was still in her tummy! ☺ In fact, he was just born a week and a half ago, and although I have got to see him a couple times since then, last night was the first time I actually got to hold him!

Congratulations Amy!!!!!

After everyone arrived, we started the meeting with the prayer to St. Therese and the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love. We then continued with a review of last months virtue and saint. Beads went into the jar for all the completed assignments. Next I introduced the virtue we will be working on this month, Love of our Neighbor, and we read a short biography of the saint for this month, St. Jane Frances de Chantal.

Did you know that her feast day is actually December 12th, but (in the United States) it was moved to August 18th so that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe could be celebrated? I didn't until last night when we were reading about her!!

To further discuss Love of our Neighbor, I once again used the book Chat's With God's Little Ones. I highly recommend adding this book to your collections. I have used it for years with my little ones, and it has come in so handy the last couple months for Little Flowers too! It is perfect for the younger girls, and I love that it gets them thinking, and trying to answer the questions. This month I used the lesson on The Fifth Commandment: Chapter 10, Lesson 27:

The Fifth Commandment tells us to be kind. Can you say that? (Help the child to repeat the whole sentence. If necessary, break it up into phrases so that he may repeat a phase at a time. If time allows, also review what the first four Commandments tell us to do.) Do you know who God wants us to be kind to? (everyone). Do you think that includes ourselves? (yes). Do you think it is kind to ourselves or to others if we quarrel and get angry? (no). Do you think it is a sin to hit other children? (yes). If a child hits you once, you might offer it up for love of Jesus. But if someone keeps on hitting you or hurts you in some way, you should go right away and tell your parents of teacher (or babysitter). If a child does something bad to you, do you think that Jesus wants you to do something bad to them? (no). When Jesus was whipped and crowned with thorns and nailed on the cross, did He try to get even with the people who did that? (no). He showed us an example of what He wants us to do, didn't He? (yes). Jesus also wants us to be a good example to everyone. Do you know what it means to be a good example? It means that if people see you doing good things, they will want to do good things too.

If someone sees you doing something bad, do you think they might start to do bad things too? (yes). So when we do something bad in front of someone else, do you think it might hurt their soul? (yes). But if we do good things, do you think we will be kind to their soul? (yes). Does Jesus want us to be kind to everyone, even bad people? (yes). We don't have to make friends with bad people but we should pray for them and give them good example. Jesus said that whenever we do something bad to someone, we do something bad to Him. He also said that whenever we do something good to someone, we do something good to Him. Do we want to always do good things for Jesus? (yes).

I continued on with the following question to the girls: What do you think we could do this month for love of our neighbor, and for Jesus?

One of the little girls responded with "we could give food to the poor!!" Perfect!! It was just what I was hoping one of them would say, since that was going to be their extra credit project for the month. At that point I handed each girl a brown paper bag (thank you Marci for picking them up for me!!) and they glued their pictures of St. Jane to the front. Sometime during this month, each girl will fill the bag with food for the poor.

We then moved on to the craft, another page for our notebooks. I printed out an image of St. Jane, and typed up a few quotes for the girls to use, including the invocation to St. Jane, the memory verse of the month, a quote out of the Catholic Girl's Guide, and a quote on the two great commandments. They also got a sheet of red card stock, some green construction paper, and a couple Martha Stewart dimensional rose stickers. (Here is the link to my document.)

Here is the page that I put together as a sample (which I finished minutes before the girls arrived... Whew!!) :

As usual, the girls all did such an amazing job!

This month I decided to add an extra craft. Since Saturday is the feast of St. Lucy, I thought it would be fun for all the girls to make Santa Lucia Crowns! I was hesitant though, about cutting out all the leaves and berries, until Marci offered to use her totally cool new machine to take care of that for me! What an amazing time saver, it is awesome! And the leaves turned out SOOO cute! What would I do without Marci?!? All I had to do was print out the candles onto cardstock and cut the bands. The girls colored the candles and put the crowns together themselves.

It was my month for snacks... Yes, I gave myself this month when I saw that the flower was the rose. ;) And how perfect that the meeting ended up being on the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe -- another perfect feast for tying in Rosy treats! (and I had lots of leftovers!!) I served Rose Cupcakes with Rosy Punch. There was also a pot of coffee and brownies for us moms! I wish I would have had a chance to make the Santa Lucia's Braided Bread, but we will be making it tonight, for tomorrow morning anyways!

While the girls had their cupcakes and punch, I read them a couple books. First we read Hanna's Christmas (which I borrowed from the library) since they had just finished making their crowns, and then we read Good King Wenceslas since, in this book, "The king makes his way through the snow, loaded with gifts, to share his wealth with the poor man." I had hoped to read Shoemaker Martin and The Christmas Candle as well, since they are both great Christmas Picture books about sharing with the poor, but we ran out of time.

Wow!! This post sure got long!! I'll end now with the group photo.

We sure missed all of you girls that weren't able to make it this month!! I hope you all have a very Blessed Christmas and hopefully we will see you in January!

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us,
As in the visitation, help us to love our neighbor.

Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!

Little Flowers

The girls had a great time at Little Flowers tonight... I will post more about our meeting soon!

Little Flowers Girls' Club ~ November Meeting

With Thanksgiving later this month, I decided to hold our November Little Flowers' meeting at the beginning of the month, and so we had it last night! With the recent time change, it was dark before we even left home, and I noticed that the girls were much more mellow than last month. Even though it was late, I think they all still had a great time, just the same!

As the girls arrived, I had them all start right in on their coloring. Since, the girls all have their member's guides now (and since I couldn't find an extra picture of St. Agnes), I decided to print out Waltzing Matilda's beautiful St. Therese coloring page for them to add to their notebooks.

Chiquita cracks me up, her St. Therese is on the bottom right??

Once all the girls arrived, we started the meeting with a few prayers, a review of last months virtue and saint. Beads went into the jar for all the completed assignments. Then I introduced the virtue we will be working on this month, Love of God, and read a biography of the saint for this month, St. Agnes.

The girls learned that the name Agnes means Lamb, and we also discussed how Jesus is called the "Lamb of God" and how "Holy Mass is, indeed, the love of Jesus on the altar."

To further discuss Love of God, I used the Chapter 11, Lesson 34 (On Virtue) in Chat's With God's Little Ones. I love this book since it guides the teacher through a discussion with the child asking them questions. Here is a little except from that section (after we talked about sin and how to avoid sin):

Do you think that the best way to keep from doing sins is to do everything for the love of Jesus? (yes). Can you think of some things that you can do for love of Jesus? (play, pray, work, study). Is Jesus always with you when you do these things? (yes). Would it be good to often remind ourselves that Jesus is with us? (yes). Do you think Jesus likes it if we say many times, "I love You"? (yes). Do you think He likes it if we say, "I am doing this for love of Thee"? (yes). If we do everything for love of Jesus, do you think that we will try to do what pleases Him? (yes).

This month's flower was the peony and so we discussed how we can see the beauty of God's creation in flowers. The girls (and I!) learned from one of the other moms that peony's are HUGE flowers and they can remind us just HOW MUCH God loves us!

We then moved on to the craft, another page for our notebooks. I printed out an image of St. Agnes, and typed up a few quotes for the girls to use, including the invocation to St. Agnes, the memory verse of the month, another quote out of the Catholic Girl's Guide. They also got a sheet of purple card stock, some pink construction paper, white and pink hearts, and a Martha Stewart flower "peony" embellishment (they are actually gardenia stickers, but they similar enough! sshhhh!)

Here is the link to my document and the page that I put together as a sample:

They all did such a great job!

Don't you agree?!?



Amy was in charge of snacks this month, and I was so excited that she was willing to bring Lamb (of God) Cupcakes.

The girls each got a frosted cupcake, and got to decorate it with the marshmallows and chocolate chips themselves.


They LOVED it!

Two of the girls just got home from a trip to France and Germany! They were able to visit Lourdes, as well as see the incorrupt body of St. Catherine of Laboure at the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in France! They brought back, and passed out, Miraculous Medals from the shrine to each of the girls!!! We will have to have them tell us more about this visit, when we study St. Catherine in March!

I passed out an extra credit activity that I found online, Four Ways I can Grown in God's Love, that the girls could do at home this month and earn bonus beads to add to the jar. (When the jar is full the girls earn a surprise!)

Here is the group photo. Four of the girls were unable to come this month, and were missed. I'm looking forward to seeing you all next month! :)

Saint Agnes, pray for us, that we may love God as your life has taught us, Love of God's a theological virtue.

Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!

Little Flowers Girls' Club ~ October Meeting

Last night we had our second Little Flowers meeting for the year. The girls had SO MUCH fun! You know, this summer as I was trying to decided whether or not to start it, I thought I would be happy with three to four girls, I never expected to end up with a total of ELEVEN (although so far at each meeting we have been missing a few)!

Everything, well almost everything, has fallen into place so nicely.

This month, I ran the meeting slightly different... As the girls arrived, I had them all start right in on their coloring. I figured this would leave us a little more time for the actual craft later on, and give the girls something to do while we waited for everyone.

Since, unfortunately, their books have still not arrived, we were able to use Waltzing Matilda's lovely coloring page of St. Monica! (Thank you so much Charlotte! Your coloring pages have been such a HUGE blessing!)

Once all the girls arrived, we started the meeting with a few prayers, a review of last months virtue and saint, and then the introduction to the virtue (Hope), and a biography of the saint for this month (St. Monica).

We also went over the assignments from last month, and for each one that the girls finished, a bead went into a jar. Once the jar is full the girls will be awarded a surprise party of some sort.


Next was the lesson. One of the moms taught the lesson for the month on the virtue of hope. I had run across an idea for explaining hope to children on the Little Flowers Yahoo Group:

I wrote the definition of Hope from the Catechism of the Catholic Church at the top of the marker board (mostly for myself, also for the moms). We talked about hope as "wishes" like "hoping for rain." Then, I drew a big cloud on the right side of the board. I asked each girl to name a special place/outing she would like to go to. Wrote each one with the girl's name next to it inside the cloud. Then, I drew a line from the left side of the board to the cloud with a little stick person at the left. I asked each girl to tell something she might need to do before going that might be hard to do. Wrote these slanted under the line progressing from left toward the cloud. Then, with each one of those tasks, I asked the girl "So, Sarah, is it easier or harder to pick up all the toys in the house knowing that you are going to go to Disneyland?" Put a little stick person on top of each one's idea as we talked. I did that for each girl with her task. (They all said it was easier except my daughter who had said "no fighting with brothers!") Then, I erased their special places and wrote Heaven in the cloud and we talked about how when we have to do something hard we can think about how it is just something we have to do on our way to Heaven.

We then moved on to the craft. This month I actually combined a suggestion from the Wreath 1 Craft Companion for a "Heart with Climbing Ivy" with our notebook page.

I printed out an image of St. Monica, and typed up the quotes for the girls to use or copy. They each got a sheet of cardstock, some yellow construction paper, some cardstock letter punchouts, a red heart, some leaves, and a piece of green chenille.  (Here is the link to my notebook page printout.)

Here is the sample page that I put together as a sample:

The girls all did such a great job, and I just love seeing their own creativity shine through!



Jamie bought juice and brownies for the girls (she was trying to find some Leaf shaped cookies at the store -- but there were none to be found) and Marci brought some heart shaped ice cream.

"Hope must encircle and cling to your heart like the climbing ivy." ~ The Catholic Girl's Guide

After snack time, us moms were still visiting, and the girls were starting to get quite wild, so I pulled out the Wreath One Memory Cards and got them all calmed down with a game of Saint Concentration! I love that game! ;)

Before ending with a few more prayers, we did manage to get a group shot of the girls that were able to make it this month. I look forward to seeing you all again in a few weeks!

Saint Monica, pray for us, that we may have hope in the Lord,
as you did with your son St. Augustine.

Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!