Search Results

Caleb is dressed as St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence is a favorite at our house for a few reasons, but mostly because of his since of humor! During his martyrdom, while being grilled alive, he told the men who were killing him, ”Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”  Even in the face of such a cruel death, he had the ability to make a joke! Read more about him here . Our St. Lawrence is dressed in a black robe. Since Caleb is only 2 I used a larger sized black long sleeve shirt to substitute as a robe. It worked every well. Then, I tied a black strip of felt cloth around his waste.  To symbolize St. Lawrence’s martyrdom I wanted to make a grill for Caleb to carry.  Again since he is so small I was able to tie two cooling racks together so they laid (like a scapular) over his solders. I used cooling racks like these , but I bought mine at the dollar store – 2 for a $1.  I had originally planned to make this costume for my older son, but he decided to be St. Christopher instead. To make the grill on a larger scale, I had planned to use my oven shelf (learned that from a friend) or make one with strips of black cardboard.   On the back grill I placed a sign that read: ”Turn me over, I’m done on this side.”  The costume was so easy and my little guy looks so cute! (but I’m his mom so I’m going to feel that way!!) God Bless. ~JenMarie

Here is Jacob dressed in his St. Christopher Costume. There are several legends about St. Christopher including the one in which he was crossing a river when a child asked to be carried across. When Christopher put the child on his shoulders he found the child was unbelievably heavy. The child, according to the legend, was Christ carrying the weight of the whole world. This was what made Christopher patron saint of travelers. Read more here  and here . Our St. Christopher is wearing a brown robe with a fleece wrap. He has a walking stick with a travel bag tied to it. Baby Jesus is strapped to his back. We used a tan, fleece scarf with an attached hood (like this one)  to strap the doll to his back. The scarf ends were used as backpack straps and tied together in the back. Then we covered the straps with his brown robe and had baby Jesus and His pouch sticking out the back of the robe.  He wore a robe like these robes: (The robes with hoods might work to hold baby Jesus) Kids Brown Nativity Gown (lg) Child\’s Medieval Monk Robe Costume (Sz: Sm 4-6) The fleece wrap was a scrap piece of material I bought and cut irregularly. Our staff is just a long stick and the travel sack is a cloth handkerchief filled with paper napkins and tied with twine.

Our Elizabeth wanted to be Saint Catherine of Genoa for All Saints Day. St. Catherine of Genoa was a new saint to me, and when we read about her life, Elizabeth chose her as the saint she wanted to model this year.  (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, born Genoa 1447 – 15 September 1510) is an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. She was a member of the noble Fieschi family, and spent most of her life and her means serving the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in 1510. Read more here and   here Our St. Catherine costume is a fancy long dress and gold trimmed veil, because she was born of a noble family. She is also wearing a stethoscope to symbolize her years spent as a nurse and administrator at a hospital in Genoa.

Have you ever heard of the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See” by Bill Martin/ Eric Carle? It’s a cute book that my kids just love! Well, Sarah Rose at Rose’s Supposes created a Catholic version of that book for her son. She called it: “Saints, Saints, Who Do You See?”. (See her book here ) I thought the idea was so sweet and beautiful that I just had to create a book for my kids, too. Sarah Rose used images from the Nippert and Co. Artworks Faith Keepers series and these are very cute pictures. If you like these images and you want to make your own personal book with saints that are close to you and your child(ren)’s hearts drop by and see how to get these adorable images so you can create your own book. As much as I loved the images Sarah Rose used I wanted our families book to show the saints in fine art.  So I searched Wiki Commons for saint images that were more personal to our family. You are welcome to print out the book I created or feel free to make your own, too! NOTE – I have 2 versions: I was informed by a few of my followers that there are two versions of the “Brown Bear” book. In one book the child can read who’s on the next page and in the other book the child doesn’t know till they turn the page. I added the second version. Download the guessing version here: Download the NON-guessing version here: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you chose to print out ours, (I printed mine on stock/heavy paper) you can put it together easily with a stapler or a hole punch and ribbon. Simply cut the pages in half at the line. Place them in order on top of one another. You can staple them together or use a hole punch to punch holes in the left side or each page. I had to adjust my hole punch to the correct size. I used gold ribbon to tie the pages together. When you knot the ribbon, make sure you leave enough room for the pages to turn. Here are a few of the pages in our book : These little books are so much fun! Kids will love to read them again and again. (Mine do!) It’s a fun treat for All Saints Day, too! I hope you all enjoy this idea as much as I did! God Bless, ~Jen-Marie And don’t forget to stop by Sarah Rose’s blog for more great Catholic ideas!

I wanted to share a picture of the cupcakes we had at our All Saints Day Party.  The toppers I created are from the same PDF I used to create our ”God’s Fruitful Harvest” craft. I just printed off the page, cut out the images, and taped the top of a toothpick to each picture. Like this: They make great toppers and the kids loved them!! All the kids had to make sure they had one to take home with them! Download the saint images here: Happy All Saints Day! ~JenMarie

Autumn is the time when plants die and farmers gather their harvest.  It’s a time to remember that we are going to die. Our death is the time when God, like the farmer, gathers His harvest. Those who were His “good and faithful servants” will be gathered by God and enter into heaven. God’s harvest is the saints!! So whenever you see references to harvests at this time of year, remember that we are meant to strive (work really, really hard) to be part of God’s harvest. We should STRIVE to be saints!! And that is what November is all about – the saints! Someday I hope I will be good enough to be part of God’s fruitful harvest! Strive to be Part of Gods Fruitful Harvest Craft I had this craft available for the kids to make at our All Saints Day celebration. Most of the kids took it along home to create. They were having too much fun doing other things! This craft is a simple coloring page. The kids add a picture of a saint to each pumpkin – symbolizing that the saints are God’s fruitful harvest. You will need: Pumpkin Coloring page (download below) Pictures of saints (in download) Crayons, coloring pencils, markers, OR watercolors (you choose) scissors glue Download the coloring page and saint images: This is super easy! Just have the kids color/paint the pumpkins and leaves. Then have them pick three saints to paste on the pumpkins. You may like to cut out the saint pictures before the kids create this project. Don’t forget to have them add their name! Bulletin Board Idea You may like to create a large bulletin board with this idea! Here is ours: Our pumpkin and leaf PDF patterns can be downloaded below. I had each of the kids color and cut out a pumpkin. Then they added a picture of their favorite saint to the pumpkin. You could use a holy card for this.  If you prefer – use our saint pictures found in the download below. Download the Bulletin Board Pieces Here: Then I printed out a few pages of leaves onto green paper. I cut a few spirals from green paper, too. I used these to create the vines. The board had a variety of colored and painted pumpkins: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May all the Angels and Saints in Heaven, pray for us! ~Jen-Marie

My kids love to help the poor! They have tried to come up with many ”schemes” to help the needy. For example, several years ago they got together with their cousins and created a ”stage production” to raise money. It was just a simple little production, which they preformed for our extended-family at our Easter dinner. They passed around a hat for donations and they sent all the money to a charity for the poor. They also sold tickets for prizes (all handmade prizes), and gave that money to the poor, too! A few years ago my kids created some handmade crafts to sell to raise money for the less fortunate. One summer, on a Sunday afternoon, they held a "fair” in our back yard to help raise money. So, yes, my kids have HUGE hearts for the poor. And they have found some very child-friendly ways to raise money to donate to various charities.  Well this year we are attempting to try a new way to help raise awareness and donations for the less fortunate. Here at Catholic Inspired, with the help of Cross Catholic Outreach and a few other bloggers (listed below) we are hosting an on-line Art Show for kids to help raise money for the needy. All the donations will be given directly to Cross Catholic Outreach and used to feed impoverished children and families in El Progreso, Honduras at the Prince of Peace Nutrition Center.  If you missed our first post about this event please click here to read more . Today I wanted to share the art work that several of my children created for this event! My oldest daughter, Rachel E.L. (age 15), has been trying her hand at watercolor painting and has been doing a wonderful job!   The Miracle of the Sun was created by my son, Jacob K.L. (age 12). He used colored paper and crayons to create this bright image! Incidentally, this young man was the guy who came up with the name ”The ART of Giving” for this event! Clever fellow! Joshua J.L. (age 10) is not fond of art or drawing, but he did a wonderful job on his picture of the Blessed Sacrament! Miss. Abby A.L. is only 6 but she has an artist’s hand! I was shocked at her drawing of ”Queen Mary”! Hannah M.L. (age 7) loves birds, so she wanted to create a drawing of the Holy Spirit! Elizabeth G.L. (age 9) has had a life-long love our St. Therese! So she just has to draw her favorite saint! My kids have been asking family and friends to make donations on behalf of their art work. They have sent out this letter , too! On behalf of my young artists I humbly ask that you donate to Cross Catholic Outreach . Please consider supporting them and donating here in their name. (write their name(s) in the comment box when donating.) All donations go directly to Cross Catholic Outreach for the poor in Honduras. Thank you for any help you can give! You can see all the art work that all the kids have created on Flickr ~ Click here . (New art is added every few ”work” days.) Do you have kids, students, or grandkids? Do your kids want to help the poor and needy? Would your kids like to draw a picture and ask grown-ups for donations?  Please click here to read more about ”The ART of Giving” We will be having a parade of posts this week to help build awareness for this fun child-friendly project!  Please join us for all the upcoming posts and visit the other blogs as they post about the art that their children have created!! A Parade of  Posts  for the Poor: Sunday, Dec. 1 –  Catholic Inspire d  Monday, Dec. 2 –  Enter Under My Roof Tuesday, Dec. 3 – Designs By Birgit Wednesday, Dec.4 – Happy Little Homemaker Thursday, Dec. 5  – Equipping Catholic Families Friday, Dec. 6  –  Campfires and Cleats Saturday, Dec. 7  –  Do Small Things with Love Sunday, Dec. 8 –  The Catholic Book Blogger After our parade join us for our Link-up: The link-up will start Monday, Dec. 9 and continue through Tuesday, Dec. 31. If you are a blogger and have posted (or plan to post) about your child’s art work please join in our ART of Giving Link-up! Thank you for any help you can give during this Christmas season! God Bless!~JenMarie

Have you seen all the BEAUTIFUL works of art in our Cross Catholic Outreach Art show!! Click here to see all the art work on Cross Catholic’s web page  or see it on Flickr These kids are giving it their all! So PLEASE support them and donate to Cross Catholic Outreach !  If you want to make a general donation on behalf of all the young artist please type ”all the young artists” in the comment box. ~*Please Donate Now*~ If you don’t you might forget later! I know I would! 😉 All donations go directly to Cross Catholic Outreach to help feed the poor in Honduras. Today I\’m hosting a link-up along with a group of other wonderful bloggers! This link-up is to show your child\’s artwork which was sent to Cross Catholic to be added to the Art Show. Haven\’t heard about this event yet? Well, this year Cross Catholic and a few Catholic Bloggers are attempting to try a new way to help raise awareness and donations for the less fortunate. We are hosting an on-line Art Show for kids to help raise money for the needy. In a nutshell:  Kids draw and grown-ups donate to Cross Catholic to show their support to the young artists. All the donations will be given directly to Cross Catholic Outreach and used to feed impoverished children and families in El Progreso, Honduras at the Prince of Peace Nutrition Center. To learn more about this event –  Click here . This link-up is to show your child\’s artwork which was sent to Cross Catholic to be added to the Art Show. This link-up is open to ALL, not just bloggers. ANYONE can link-up. You only need a URL address to a photo of your child’s art. For example, the image can be uploaded onto Pinterest and the pin’s URL can be added to the link-up.  A Flickr image and URL will work, too! So bloggers and non-bloggers are welcome!! ******************** Ready to donate to the hungry in Cross Catholic on behalf of these young artist? ~*Donate Now*~ A special thanks to my army of Catholic Bloggers who have been fighting to help get the word out about this event! Pete from  The Catholic Book Blogger Jen from  Enter Under My Roof Chris from  Campfires and Cleats Monica from  Equipping Catholic Families Birgit from  Designs By Birgit Jen from  Happy Little Homemaker Nancy from  Do Small Things with Love Thanks ladies and gentleman! 😉  Also, a BIG thank you to anyone who has helped get their kids motivated to help raise money for the poor and another special thanks to those who donate to Cross Catholic Outreach! You are all in my prayers. ~JenMarie

This past December, Cross Catholic Outreach , Catholic Inspired, and a group of Catholic Bloggers (listed below) joined together to host an opportunity for kids to raise money for the poor in Honduras.  This campaign  was   was  meant  to help empower kids to raise money for the poor while using their artistic talent!  Children were able to enter a work of art in an on-line slide show and ask family and friends to donate in behalf of their art work. Today, I’m listing the amounts which were donated on behalf of each of the children who entered a work of art into the ART of Giving.{ Click here to read more about The ART of Giving} Here is the total amount that each individual child raised: Addison D. $50.00 Kevin V. $3.15 Xotchil F. $50.00 Samual R. $12.50 Rosemary A. $50.00 Mary Catherine H. $20.50 Maria P. $6.67 Estrella F. $50.00 Ellie P $26.67 Ava F. $50.00 Anna P. $31.66 Owen J. $3.15 Mary J. $3.15 Luke C. $3.15 Kelly M. $24.82 Evelyn J. $3.15 Cole J. $3.15 Annaleigh J. $3.15 Simon $5.00 Rachel $5.00 Sarah J. $5.00 Kelly $24.82 D. Steed $3.15 Bridget $24.82 Abby J. $5.00 Moira $3.15 Gus $10.00 Seth $3.15 Jacqueline G. $3.15 Leah M. $3.15 James. M. $3.15 Molly S. $3.15 AF $3.15 Katie S. $3.15 Elizabeth GL $10.00 Rachel EL $10.00 Joshua JL $10.00 Jacob KL $10.00 Hannah ML $10.00 Abby AL $10.00 Total amount raised for the poor in Honduras was:$562.84*  THANK YOU  to all the young artists for your support and for taking the time to create such wonderful works of art to help the poor! AND THANK YOU to all those who donated to support the wonderful, young artists and the poor! AND Another THANK YOU to all the bloggers who helped to support this drive! Pete from  The Catholic Book Blogger Jen from  Enter Under My Roof Chris from  Campfires and Cleats Monica from  Equipping Catholic Families Birgit from  Designs By Birgit Jen from  Happy Little Homemaker Nancy from  Do Small Things with Love They worked hard to spread  awareness  of this meaningful opportunity! Thank you, again, to you all!! Cross Catholic Outreach is a wonderful organization that helps the poor every day of the year. Please, consider donating the them in the future. Click here to visit their web site. Thank you again and God bless! ~JenMarie

Our wise men have been keeping busy this past week! Never a dull day! My kids are having a blast! (If you don’t know about our Wise Men ADVENTures  click here  to learn more about our family tradition! )My teenagers have been helping to come up with some thoughts on where our men should search, but my husband and I have put them in place while the kids are all in bed. If my teens are up late I\’ll let them move the three amigos. I try to remember to move them each night, but I have to admit that I had to get back out of bed last night! Nothing like those fun thoughts that pop into your head when you are about to drift off to sleep!! 🙂 Had I not remembered to move them, I fear what may have happened in the morning!! Well, on with the search….. Day 3 They found the cookie cutters ! Melchior is thinking that the star might help them! I\’m not sure that\’ll work. Caspar is more interested in testing out a new staff! Well, the candy cane cookie cutter could look like a staff! Is the camel wearing a gingerbread man?!?!?  Day 4 On day 4 our wise men were going door to door at the little village that sits high on our window shelf!  Melchior is taking the search very seriously and checking out all the residents!  Caspar is taking a high position to look out over the \”town\”  and that school\’s bell tower is a perfect perch!  I guess Balthazar is taking a break. That front porch looks like a great place to sit! I sure hope he cleans up those cobwebs when he gets up! Yuck!! 😉  Day 5 After seeing the manger hanging at the top of the Advent prayer chain , the three wise men decide to scale the chain to get a closer look!  Wow! What skill!   That looks like a lot of work!  And all to find nothing!!! How sad is that!  Day 6 (St. Nicholas Feast Day) On day 6 the kids woke-up to find treats in their socks and the wise men meeting and greeting Saint Nicholas ! Melchior is asking St. Nick for directions, while Caspar is showing the camel the differences in the St. Nicholas\’ Crosier and his less fancy staff. Is Balthazar trying out our little saint\’s miter!?! He kinda looks like St. Nicholas now!!  We bought our cute little St. Nicholas here .  Day 7 A game of UNO ! Oh my, I guess we all need a day of rest and it is the 7th day!! Gotta love Caspar’s house of cards!  Day 8 Back to the search! That had to be quit a climb. How did that camel get up there!?!?! Wow! Super Camel!   Day 9 Maybe the infant King is in the mint plant!? That’s quite a jungle to search through!  That has to smell strong!  That\’ll clear the sinuses if they have a cold!! Caspar seems to have been distracted by the sight of the freshly falling snow.  To a little guy his size I image that is an awesome sight! Now where will they search tonight? Let me think….

For years I have bought Catholic calendar/planners and I have been rather upset each time. Everyone of them was incomplete. They have only a few of the major feast day listed and they each focused on the feast days of ether the traditional or the new Catholic calendar.    I’ve been looking for a calendar that lists all the feast days for both the new and old calendars. I also wanted it to have a complete list of the saints’ feast days for each and every day.   After buying a number of calendar/planners I started to give up hope of finding that planner that gave me all that I was looking for.  A few months ago, I found a Catholic planner on Amazon . This planner was published by Tan Books. I was very leery of trying it. I thought it would be just like the other planners I had bought. But since I needed a planner, I thought I would go ahead and try it.  When the planner came in the mail, I was thrilled!! To my surprise it was just what I wanted!!  Not only does it have both the old and the new calendar saints listed, it also has the Historical Saints Feast days! Plus, the saints’ feast days are listed for every day! The pages that list the saints feast days are nice to jot down any ideas I have for the day – like meal plans and other holy day plans, as well as, my appointments and activities.  It also has month-at-a-glace pages. These are always a help when I need to schedule a doctor appointment!   In addition to that, it has pages with saints and their feast days listed in alphabetical order. Plus, lists of patron saints, the 35 Doctors of the Church and the 14 Holy Helpers! There are also a number of pages that explain what the abbreviations in the calendar mean. They also explain about fasting, abstinence, Ember days and more!! It’s a great little resource! Then, there are the 70 saint illustration and short biographies! These are short easy-to-read stories that I have been reading to my kids as the feast day comes.  It’s a great size, too. It measures about 8 inches by 5 inches and it fits in my purse. It easy to take along to appointments and meetings! Really, I’m thrilled with this calendar/planner! It’s great! Plus, it was way cheaper than the other planners I’ve tried! If you are looking for a new planner for this coming year I highly recommend this calendar/planner! The calendar has 16 months – it started in September, 2013 and goes till December, 2014. So if you buy it now you can start to use it right away! Feel free to take a look and see what you think! Hope this calendar can help you as much as it did me! God bless! ~JenMarie

Last year I posted about our ”Elf on the Shelf” alternative. If you don’t know about ”Elf on the Shelf”, he’s a long lanky toy elf who always finds mischievous things to do each night while the kids are in bed. Well, our family has a bit of a crazy side and that family tradition just seems sooo fun! But my Catholic side never wanted to make an elf the center of Christmas fun. Sure elves are cute, but I try to not make Santa or his elves a focus at Christmas time. While I loved the idea of a cute character getting into a bit of innocent fun each night, I didn’t like using an elf toy for this fun family tradition!   So,  yes I ”Baptized” the Elf on the Shelf idea!  At our house we have the three kings who are searching for baby Jesus each night! This tradition has turned into the talk of our Holiday conversations. The kids are thrilled! They ask about the Wisemen before they ask about a Christmas tree or gifts!  So of course we have to do this again this year!!  I want to explain this tradition better for those who weren’t following our blog last year: Our three Kings: Balthazar, Melchior, Caspar, and their camel (who my kids have named, but I’m embarrassed to tell you what it is) are a handful! They are on the search for Jesus!  Sometimes they can get into a bit of trouble as they struggle to find the Infant King.  Each night, during Advent till the Epiphany, my husband and I move the three wisemen to a new hiding spot and create a ”situation” for them to get into or out of. Then, after our kids wake up each morning, they try to find the three Wise Men. Most days it’s easy, but some days the kids have to search for awhile!  The only rule we made was that the three wise men have to find the Infant Jesus that belongs to their Nativity set. That’s just to make it more interesting, since we have many nativity sets around the house. Their special nativity set remains hidden in my bedroom until Christmas. Then, Christmas Eve we pull out the nativity and set it up in a special spot. The wise men continue searching for Jesus until the feast of the Epiphany!  These  three wise men  and the  Nativity set  are from Playmobil. (sold separately – I sound like a commercial)  I liked these Wisemen because they are poseable.  I do wish they were more poseable (like an action figure) but these work fine. Because they are poseable, it allows us to make them appear to be doing certain actions like, hold things, climb, slide, reach, etc. This makes them so much more fun!! Typically, we would think that the wisemen should be following a star, so you may be asking, ”Where’s the star?” That is a fair question. When we first started this tradition, we tried having the Wisemen follow a star, but it was hard to have them stay in a path and come up with places (on that path) for them to search.  Plus, the kids knew where the Three Kings were going to be and the journey seemed to be kind of boring. So we changed our idea a bit: Now the Wisemen jump around the house and the kids enjoyed searching for them each morning.  I was upset to lose the star, but we decided to play on the Bible quote: ”Where is the newborn king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to adore him.”  After reading that I figured the Wisemen were a little lost at some point even with the star to guide them. We told our kids that our house is like the city of Bethlehem and the Wisemen are searching Bethlehem for Jesus. We explained to the kids that it’s not 100% like the Bible, but we all found it more interesting and fun this way. Another change we have made since we started our tradition is the time our kings search. We originally were only going to do this from Christmas to the Epiphany, but the kids, my husband, and I were having so much fun with our new tradition that we started hiding the wisemen during Advent, too. Our family has been enjoying this new tradition and we are ALL excited to see our three little amigos start the search again! So prepare yourself for some upcoming posts as we share photos of our Wisemen’s Adventures!  I’m posting this a few weeks before Advent so you have a chance to buy a set for yourself. Our family has just loved this awesome family tradition! I encourage you to try it! The cheapest place I found this set was on Amazon. I hope you can join us! ~JenMarie