Shrove Tuesday :: Happy Mardi Gras

Now even though our fair city spent much of Tuesday watching parades flow through the streets, and even though we did venture downtown to visit with an Aunt visiting from Ohio, our family spent much of Mardi Gras day at home celebrating the day as Shrove Tuesday.

It is customary on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, for all of the eggs, butter and milk to be used up in preparation of the abstaining and fasting that occurs during the Lenten season. For this reason, recipes including these ingredients have become popular dishes, (most notably pancakes), causing it often to be referred to as Panckae Tuesday as well as Shrove Tuesday.

In keeping with tradition, our family had our very own Mardi Gras colored pancakes for breakfast! Purple, gold and green food coloring additions to pancake batter helped to make our morning just a bit more festive!

After breakfast, the children then dove into the reading of Mardi Gras: A Cajun Country Celebration. I personally love this little gem!  The book explains the origins of Mardi Gras as it was first brought to the Americas by the Acadian French, my ancestors. You see, Eunice, LA,  the setting of this little book, is where my father and mother are both from originally. In fact my grandparents and several aunts, uncles and cousins still reside there today.

I love being able to share my heritage with my children through this lovely book– they are able to see the Cajun Mardi Gras I grew up with, all the while celebrating the feast day within the church. They were even able to learn a bit about the Liberty Center in which their late Great-Grandfather often played!

Once the book was finished, we then proceeded to make the traditional king cake that graces our dinner table every year on this day.

Let’s just say a certain little someone was rather eager for a taste!

While the king cake baked, we headed outside with our frying pans.

Tradition holds that a housewife in England was busy preparing her family’s Panckae Tuesday breakfast when she suddenly heard the church bells ring for the morning’s service. Having lost track of time, she hurried out the door carrying her frying pan and pancake with her!  Today, her incident is still remembered across the world with pancake races being held on Shrove Tuesday.

Remembering this, the children each took a leftover pancake along with the frying pans to race across the front yard. During the race, the participants are supposed to run while flipping their pancake as often as possible without dropping it all the way to the finish line.

It was harder than it looks! The children ended up having more fun trying to toss their pancakes than run against each other. In the end, we decided to leave the pancakes for the birds since they had been dropped so many times!

(And let’s just say that our  neighbors who were just arriving home for lunch now think us rather odd!)

…:::::::::…

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Share how you celebrated with all of us in the comments!

Keeping a Holy Lent :: 40 Bags in 40 Days (Printable)

During Lent we take care to ensure that we are making notable sacrifices for our own betterment and to draw us in closer to Christ. We prune and weed out bad habits in the hopes of becoming more disciplined.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we also did this throughout our own homes– going from room to room, pruning and weeding out all the unnecessary clutter?

A couple of years ago, Jennifer shared a lovely handout she received:

“Every day during Lent this year, empty one bag of ‘stuff’ that is no longer needed from your house, totaling a loss of forty bags of stuff!

1.) Taking a look at the size of your family and household, with an acknowledgement of how much ‘stuff’ is present, make a prudential choice on the size of bag to be employed during this challenge. Bag size should be small enough that the goal of 40 bags during the season of Lent is able to be accomplished, while not being too big that you are left with nothing. We must still live in the world, after all!

2.) If smaller children are a part of your family, a ‘gauge’ may be helpful to keep them engaged and help them keep track of progress. As part of your preparations, make a ‘paper chain’ of forty numbered links. As each new bag is started, place a new link in the bottom of the bag. This way, as the chain gets smaller, there is a greater sense of accomplishment.

3.) This challenge necessarily involves sacrifice. Each member of the family should be encouraged to give something to each bag, or there could be designated bags for each member of the family.

4.) Instead of just throwing things away, recycling is a great way to encourage good stewardship of the gifts we have been given, as it symbolizes that we are passing along our gifts to others. Families with children are encouraged to pass along clothes that no longer fit or toys that sit dormant in a closet to families in need instead of just throwing them away.

5.) Units of count need not necessarily be trash bags, either; however they should be equivalent. For example, a box of gently used toys or clothes could equate one bag off the chain. A stack of books donated to the parish library is another easy equivalent.

As the family accepts this challenge together, bonds will be created that will last a lifetime. Lessons are also learned not just by saying, but by putting it into practice. Here, the simple lesson will last throughout life that having fewer things can lead to a greater contentment in life.

(Credit due to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for this handout on vocations and family faith formation)”

This year, during the 40 days of Lent, I plan on accepting this challenge by tackling each room of my home and plan on taking out 40 bags– while both tossing out the junk and passing along gently used items to friends and family. (I’ve already armed myself with a 45 count box of trash bags!)

To help keep track of it all, instead of a paper chain as suggested, I’ve created a log to keep track of the areas that have been decluttered throughout my home.

You can keep your own log throughout Lent this year, too. Just click and print.

Won’t you join me on this challenge? Together we can encourage each other to spring clean our homes while spring cleaning  our hearts this Lent.

Happy Feast of Saint Valentine!

While the secular world claims this day as their own, being a Catholic homeschooling family, we strive to uphold the tradition of the Saints in our home. In trying to achieve this we often blend and borrow traditions from the two worlds and today the Feast of Saint Valentine was not exempt!

With  love filling the air, the children awoke this morning to discover that their bedroom doors were suffering from a Heart Attack!  Little love notes were scribbled by myself and my husband onto cut out paper hearts and plastered onto their bedroom doors. They were so delighted when they found what awaited them this morning!

After reading their love notes, the children then trickled their way into the kitchen. There they found the book Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda along with some beautiful coloring pages atop the dinning table.

They also each had their own box of store bought valentine chocolates.

The familiar red heart shaped boxes were transformed into Feast of St. Valentine Candies with the simple addition of scrapbook paper and the rearranging of the St. Valentine printable valentine cards and cupcake toppers.

I ran out of steam last night, so they are not as attractive as in years past, but  nonetheless, they were still enjoyed immensely by the children! My son could hardly wait to devour his treats– they were all gone before breakfast was ready to be served!

In an attempt to help make  breakfast a bit more festive, our strawberry banana smoothies were revved up a bit. Leftover frosting from yesterday’s cupcakes was used to rim the tops of “sword cups” before being rolled in sugar and then filled.

Though a bit messy, they were a hit! My daughter shared that they tasted a lot like a chocolate dipped strawberry! Yum!

  

To help round out our breakfast, my daughter made heart shaped pancakes all by herself.  She was a little disappointed that the hearts weren’t as pronounced as she would have liked, but I still think she did a fabulous job for her age. (And just for good measure, we also enjoyed a little heart shaped bacon on the side.)

After reading Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda, the children then moved on to coloring these wonderful pages from Illuminated Ink.

Although we missed out on the coloring contest this year,  they still had a wonderful time completing their pages and learning about all of the symbolism hidden in the picture.

My daughter also enjoyed completing the crossword and St. Valentine fill in the blank pages from Pflaum’s printable family pages. They were a perfect tie in to the reading from Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda.

 

Yesterday afternoon, while waiting for the cupcakes to bake, the children crafted their own St. Valentine mailboxes from scavenged cardboard boxes and craft paint to use for our homeschool groups valentine card exchange.

After a few school lessons were completed this morning, they toted them along to the local park,(after filling with them their signed  St. Valentine printable valentine cards ) to exchange with their sweet friends.

We also brought along our cupcakes topped with the Saint Valentine cupcake toppers that we baked yesterday.

As you can see, a few eager hands found their way into the icing before the treats were served!

After the Valentine mailboxes were overflowing with exchanged cards and goodies from all of their lovely friends,

the children enjoyed a nice sunny afternoon of playtime!

Happy Feast of Saint Valentine!

…:::::::::…

Did you share the life and love of St. Valentine with your family today? Share with us how you made the day special!

Feast of St. Valentine Cupcake Toppers (Printbale)

With the Feast of Saint Valentine just a day away, the children and I spent part of our afternoon baking some delicious cupcakes. (And yes, of course, they were chocolate!)

At the market this weekend, my daughter saw lots of cupcake toppers for purchase, but was dismayed to discover there weren’t any that depicted the Saint or mentioned that it was his feast day. So when we returned home,together we decided to create our own for the occasion.

I let my daughter have the reins for these— didn’t they turn out nicely?

And you can adorn your cupcakes, too.

As an early St. Valentine gift to all of you,(and because I love ya!), the St. Valentine Cupcake Toppers are yours and free to print–just click on the image above to print without the copyright watermark!

We plan on bringing them along to a local park tomorrow afternoon where we will celebrate with special friends. We will also share the love and life of St. Valentine by exchanging our St. Valentine printable valentine cards!

…:::::::::…
What chocolate goodies will you celebrate with on the Feast of St. Valentine? Please share!
(Recipes involving chocolate are especially welcome!)

Letters from St. Nicholas (Printable)

I see you all poking around, checking out links, and making plans for tomorrow’s Feast of St. Nicholas.

It has become a tradition in our family for St. Nicholas to leave behind a letter to each of our children, praising them for their many good deeds and attributes, but also gently reminding them of areas that they could improve upon. This year, just like last, will not be an exception.

And since a lot of you have been searching for postcards to create your  own letters from St. Nicholas for your children, well, here you go–four vintage St. Nicholas cards for you to use to help praise and remind your children. Just print, cut, fold and fill in with your own hand.

Just don’t forget to place it in their shoes or stockings before tomorrow’s dawn!