{this moment}

 

♥ Baking With My Babies ♥

St. Rose of Lima, Ora Pro Nobis!

"Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. The gift of grace increases as the struggle increases."

- St. Rose of Lima

Mother’s Prayer to St Rose

Saint Rose, devout Virgin, fragrant rose in the garden of God, sweetly blooming amid the thorns of distressing tribulation and severe mortification, white as snow in the immaculate innocence of your heart, glowing in the love of God that consumed you. 

Your devotedness to your parents was so great that you laboured night and day to relieve their poverty, and most tenderly cared for them in their sickness.

Most grateful, most humble daughter, have pity on me and my children. Teach me, by conduct truly Christian, to deserve the warmhearted gratitude of my children. Teach my children to appreciate my love and the numerous sacrifices that I cheerfully make for their sake; teach them to repay the same by filial love and obedience, and chiefly by fervent prayers for me. 

Bless me and my entire family. May our hearts be intimately united even in adversity. Let us not place our happiness in temporal prosperity, but rather in the hope of a future, eternal blessedness. 

Pray, likewise, O sainted patroness of America, for all Christian mothers in particular, that Christian life and sentiments may everywhere be awakened among them. May these sentiments spread far and wide, uniting all families into the one great family of God, in which Jesus Christ may live and rule with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We'll freeze the rest of the cupcakes to decorate for her traditional feast day next weekend! 

August 23rd (New) and August 30th (Traditional) 

Donut Ever Grow Up :: A 3rd Birthday Party

“Dough-y!!” 🍩  A certain little girl has really missed her donuts after Mass on Sundays, so last Monday we celebrated her 3rd birthday with a donut themed party!

 

Homemade Donut "Happy Birthday" Banner with Sprinkles

(You are welcome to download my FREE printable document to use it yourself if you'd like!) 

Donut Piñata • Donut Balloons

Krispy Kreme Donuts

Decorate Your Own Donut Bar

Milk, Cocoa and Coffee

Donut Picture Books including Curious George Learns the Alphabet

.: Donut Covered Birthday Cake :.

Cake Supplies: 

6" - Four Layer Cake (I use these awesome pans) 

Homemade Buttercream Frosting mixed with Plant-Based Dye

Rainbow Sprinkles from Nature

Decorate with Donuts

(I used 3 Kristy Kreme Donuts and 3 Krispy Kreme Mini Donuts)

.: Donut Bingo :.

Donut Shop Bingo

I didn't have a chance to make my own, 

but this printable download from an Etsy shop was perfect. 

Me: Nice hat. I can picture you working at Krispy Kreme. 

Him: Yeah. It's either that, or an engineer... 

.: Birthday Gifts:. 

Lola Dutch

Curious George The Donut Delivery

Donut Pet Carrier with Doggy

Calico Critters Yellow Labrador Family

and Mango Monkey Family

15 Rosary Blocks from Almond Rod Toys

Stockmar Color Giants with Mouse Pencil Holder

Frozen Backpack and Bow from Great Aunt Bridget

 

My Aunt Bridget flew up to send the weekend with us and flew back Monday morning. Miss her! 

.: Three Candles :. 

Happy 3rd Birthday to our sweet girl! 

Puppy Paw-ty

Twice the giggles! Double the fun!
It's time to celebrate YOU because you're turning TWO!! 

Our baby girl turned TWO a couple weeks ago and this year we celebrated with a puppy themed pawty! We have never had a dog, but one of her favorite things this past year has been "Doggies!" She will often round up all the stuffed dog animals from around the house to carry around in a basket or tuck into her bed. Her brother bought her a little plush dog house with five puppies for Christmas and it is still one of her favorite toys. The puppy theme was pawsitively perfect for her! ;)

We dressed her up in favorite hand-me-downs from her now fourteen year old sister and I was able to finish decorating her cake while she took her afternoon nap.

We have never been able to get her to sleep in a crib (or rather our pack-n-play since we never replaced our crib - plus she is so strong she can scale the sides of anything and throw herself out!) but she does love her DockATot Grand for naps. Who wouldn't?! It looks so comfy! 

.: PARTY FOOD :.

The girls and I had fun coming up with ideas for the party menu! 

You can download and print our signs here.

Paw Print Cupcakes (Gluten Free)

 

Fetch (Pretzel Sticks) • Puppy Kisses

Pretzel Bark • Bark Thins

 

Puppy Chow • Ruff-age

Hot Dogs

Pawsta Salad 

 

The Chocolate Lab was her favorite! She LOVES "Chotlit!" and berries (and dipping things!) and being able to combine it all was so much fun! ;)

.: THE BIRTHDAY GIRL :.

.: PUPPY DOG CAKE :.

I made her cake with 3 - 6" round cakes, cutting the domes off of each, and then just decorated it with various colors of frosting. It was really simple to make and turned out pretty cute! 

.: BIRTHDAY GIFTS :.

We picked out two doggies - Charlotte the Dog and Noah the Dog - from Cuddle + Kind along with a white Strolley made by Ollie Ella for the birthday girl! The hand-knit dolls came with a couple free prints that I added to the birthday banner (reused from our Sound of Music birthday) for decorations. 

I hid her gifts in my bathroom closet but she managed to find them before I had a chance to wrap them up for her. She didn't care and was so excited!  

 

 

Her eldest brother/Godfather also had a gift for her when he got back home from work. He wanted to give her one of his childhood favorite things... Blues Clues! The card he made her was so sweet too.

 

 

We decorated with our collection of stuffed dogs Ostheimer dogs, adding a few new wooden dogs to our collection. She was so cute walking her doggies around the coffee table before bedtime.   

 

In addition to the Masses she had offered for her by her uncles who are priests, she was also blessed with a double rainbow outside our home following the rain!

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow." ― G. K. Chesterton

.: TWO CANDLES :.

Father had been stuck at the airport overnight, after his second flight back was cancelled due to mechanical issues, but his flight finally arrived and Sean picked him up just in time to join us for the birthday girl to blow out her candles on his way back to the parish!

 

 

Happy 2nd Birthday!