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I think gingerbread houses are fun, so I bought a pre-made kit that included the house parts and the icing. I thought it would be fun for the kids to help make a gingerbread house! But then I read this post at Mrs.Domestic Bliss about creating a Gingerbread Nativity and I thought that was the best idea! So we made a gingerbread stable and added a small plastic nativity!  It was our Christmas table display and it looked so cute –that is until we ate it! 🙂(No, we didn’t eat the plastic Nativity figures – although, my 2 year old would have!) The kit made this easy! All we had to do was cut out half an oval into one of the peeked ends of the house. Yes, this was a delicate job which I did while the kids watched with wide eyes. My 4 youngest daughters took turns saying, ”Carefully, mom, carefully!”, as they watched me saw into the gingerbread with a knife. Then I assembled the house as instructed in the box. We did add the Nativity pieces and hay to the inside of the stable before we added the roof.  Our hay was actually yellow coconut. You can create the yellow coconut by placing a few handfuls of coconut into a seal-able bag along with a few drops of yellow food coloring. Then shake it until all the coconut is yellow.  The little Nativity which I used was one that my grandmother gave me when I was young. I saw one on Amazon that looked like it might work for this… here . But any small set would work. Or you could used printed and laminated pictures of the Nativity figures and stand them with glops of icing. I bought the gingerbread kit at AC Moore (with a coupon). It looks similar to this one on Amazon (but AC Moore was MUCH cheaper).   Here is another one, too. We loved this and we hope to make one again next Christmas!! Although I think we might get a little more creative with the design! Christmas blessings to you all! Please, pray for me! ~JenMarie

The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord is an extra special day at our house. Not only is it the feast of Our Lord’s Baptism, it is also the anniversary of our son Joshua’s baptism. He shares this special day with Our Lord. Eleven years ago, we told my husband’s uncle, who is a deacon, that we wanted to have our newborn baby boy baptized on the first available Sunday. And the first available Sunday happened to be Jan. 12 the feast of Our Lord’s Baptism. We thought that was wonderful, especially since Joshua was one day shy of celebrating the same birthday as Jesus! 🙂 Here at our house we celebrate baptism anniversaries like birthdays – but without the gifts. After all, the day we were “born” into God’s family is a VERY important day! So we had a party to celebrate Jesus’ baptism, as well as, Joshua’s. When we celebrate the kids’ Baptism Anniversaries, we don’t have lit candles on a cake like you would on a birthday cake. Instead we have the kids light a votive candle at Church. So this morning, Joshua lit his own little candle after Mass.  It’s a simple family tradition, but if our children’s Baptism Anniversaries don’t fall on a Sunday, we just have the child light the candle on the Sunday closest to the Baptism Anniversary. I’d prefer to go to daily  Mass on that special day so they can light the candle, but sadly life is often too crazy and we can’t get to weekday Mass. Later, at home, we had a small party. My oldest daughter made cupcakes and I made the decorations. Elizabeth and Rebekah helped to decorate. And it all looked so sweet! Download the Holy Spirit Drops Here: For best results I recommend printing these onto photo paper. The images made very nice cupcake toppers and party decorations! Just print the PDF out, cut out the images, and tape them to strips of ribbon to make decorations. Or you can tape them to the top half of toothpicks to create cupcake toppers. They can be stuck in the tops of cheese cubes or sandwiches, too.  It’s so easy and yummy! Here at our house, cupcakes are a special treat! All the kids love them! Now if only my 2 year old, Caleb, could figure out the difference between cupcakes and muffins! He just can’t seem to figure out what the difference is between them.  So after having mom correct him time after time he invented his own word: “Cupkins”!!  (That’s a mix between the words “cupcake” and “muffin”.) Now that was smart, I can’t correct him anymore! And  why would I want to stop him from saying such a cute made-up word!? 🙂 Everyone thinks Caleb’s creativity is sooo cute, but my older kids sure don’t like my cupcake-creativity! They think I’m crazy for eating my cupcake like this: I think it’s the best way to eat a cupcake! First, I rip off the bottom of the cupcake and I place the bottom (up-side-down) on top the icing. That creates a cake sandwich with the icing in the middle. It’s less messy that way. Otherwise, I might look more like Caleb does in the picture above! 🙂 But my teens seem to think that I’m a lunatic for eating cupcakes that way! Oh, well, I guess I might grow out of it someday! But I didn’t today! 🙂 God bless you all and I hope you have a wonderful week! ~JenMarie

I was about to share this on my family blog, but then I thought you all might like to see it here, since it is a Catholic inspired idea…Over the past few days, we were blessed with over 18 inches of snow. My oldest daughter, Rachel, and a few of my younger daughters, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Abby, made this amazing Mary and grotto out of snow! The grotto stands about 5 feet high! I think Mary looks cuter in real life than she does in this photo. It can be so hard to get a good picture of snow. The girls also made snow-flowers and put them at Mary’s feet along with a few evergreen branches. I was shocked when I looked out my window and saw this huge grotto in the yard! They did an amazing job! I asked Rachel if they could make it again with concrete, because I’ll be so sad to see this melt. Although I sure am looking forward to spring! Personal Update: I really don’t have an update. But since some of you were asking if everything is okay, I thought I’d let you know that I was unable to get to the doctor’s yesterday (Friday) due to the snow. The doctor was going to tell me the results of the test, but the appointment was postponed till Monday. Hopefully we won’t get any snow on Monday, too! Yup, I’m soooo ready for spring! Have a blessed day! ~JenMarie

I wanted to share a child’s responsibility chart that I made for my younger kids. It’s not exactly “Catholic” except for the prayer section, but since I feel prayer is the most important part of this chart I thought some of my fellow Catholic moms might like to see and maybe even use it. Yes, I called it a responsibility chart, but you could also call it a chore chart. Personally, I think the word “chore” sounds so unfriendly compared to “responsibility”, but you are welcome to call it a “chore chart” if you want! 😉 If you think that name change was bad, you should hear some of the titles we say to replace the word “school”!! My kids grumbled at me one day when I said “Time for school.” So to make them laugh I started trying to make up titles to use instead of “school”. It made them laugh for a day, not so much anymore. What do you think of these new titles for school? – “Learning Love”, “Brain Juice”, “Mental Enhancement”, “Educational Play” and my personal favorite, “Anti-Starvation Preparation” (That one is referring to getting a job when they are older so they can buy food.). Sorry for the tangent, back to the chart … I tried to make this chart usable for kids who are not able to read. So I have a picture for each section to help remind the kids what they should do. That way they don’t need to ask me to read it each time they look at it. The chart includes: combing hair, making bed, brushing teeth, praying, general clean-up and much more! I also have listed “Read with reading buddy.” which is just a reminder to have my older kids read with the younger kids. My kids each have a “reading buddy” – that makes things a little easier on me. But if you only have young kids then mom, dad, and/or grandma can be the child’s “reading buddy”.As for the school section on the chart, (Yes, I titled it “school” not “Educational Play”) I have extra charts just for school subjects that the kids refer to. The younger kids’ school chart includes simple concepts like colors and letters, while the older kids’ charts have more advanced topics like reading and math. I laminated these for my kids, one for each -except my older kids. Yes, of course, I expect my older kids to comb their hair, pick up their toys, etc. – I just didn’t make them a chart for it! Although some days I think I need to! 😉 After the chart was laminated I added magnets to the back so we could hang them on the fridge! That works really well for us! We use a dry erase marker to check off what they have completed each day.  Download the Chore Chart Here: Dry erase marker typically wipes off easily, but if your laminated sheets begin to get messy looking from the dry erase markers, just use a napkin and a few drops of rubbing alcohol to wipe the sheet off. That will normally make it look almost like new! Personal Update: SHOCKING NEWS! I did get to the doctor to get the test results about the lump/cyst which they removed last week. I’m not sure if the news is good or bad, but it was NOT something I wanted to hear. I have endometreosis ! I was truly shocked! Well, it could be a lot worse, but sadly, my pain is not going away anytime soon. It looks like I’ll just need to figure out a how to live with it. Thank you, everyone, for your prayers, comments, emails, and support! It has been so nice knowing I have such a great group of people praying for me and supporting me on this journey. Thank you, again. ~JenMarie

Hi Everyone! I LOVE May! It’s so beautiful! The flowers, the trees, the sunshine and NO snow to shovel!! It’s just so nice! Aside from being a beautiful month it’s also the month that God placed me into the arms of my mother, and it’s the month that God adopted me as His daughter! Yes, I love May! One of the best parts of May are all the Marian events, because May is Mary’s month! A few years ago, my daughters (all 6 of them) and I decided Mother’s Day was a perfect day to have a fun little tea party in honor of our special mother, Mary. We called it, “Tea with the Blessed Mother”. While we like to do a few small things for most of the Liturgical Year’s Feast days, we often like to make our “Tea with the Blessed Mother” an extra special party!  We have tea (or hot chocolate for the non-tea-lovers), Marian themed treats, Marian crafts, we make a BIG Mary altar, and we have lots and lots of decorations!  We also invite the Grandmothers, too. My girls LOVE it! It’s a fun Mother’s Day event! If you are planning to have a nice party for Our Lady, here are a few of the things we do. – These are older photos — I wanted to post this two years ago, but as much as I love May, it’s also the busies month for me. I’m wrapping up the school year and getting portfolios ready to send to our evaluator and school district.  So, these ideas and files are ones we have used for several years now, and my girls seem to think of them as family traditions…. The Invitations: I “send” my girls invitations, they think it’s so neat! The excitement they show is more fun than the actual party! These are the invitations I “sent” to my daughters the past two years…. They are made with a card that I created, an 8 inch paper doily, and some curling ribbon. I recommend printing these onto stock paper or photo, but regular paper is okay. Download Tea Party Invitations and Tea Pot and Cup Décor: Decorations: A Mary Altar is a MUST! You can’t have a Mothers Day Tea Party without our Most Holy Mother!! This is our altar from two years ago. It was made using a mosquito canopy, fancy ribbons, strings of pearls, white roses, and large drop gem beads. Read more and see more pictures HERE . We also have a little Crowning for Our Lady. Learn to make a floral crown for Our Lady HERE . Here are a few “mini altars” that we had sitting around the dining tables and serving tables: I drew a few teapot and teacup pictures to use as decorations around the dinning room. They looked cute along the streamers and ribbons! The teapot has a small Immaculate Heart on the design! Download above. Here are a few pictures: The pot and cups are taped on a oblong paper doily and “fun-tacked” to the wall. The bow is made from purple paper and the teapot and cups were printed onto purple paper. The decoration in the picture above was created with the teapot/cup download, some tape and curing ribbon. I taped about 6 to 8 strands of ribbon to the teapot spout (on the back) and taped the cups to some of the ribbon strands. My girls added the “tea” color to the cups with a colored pencil. The colored teapots and cups above were simply printed on to colored paper. These cups may make great place-cards, too! I took all these pictures from the leftovers we had from last year. I hope to have nicer pictures after our party next Sunday. But I wanted to get this out so those who wanted to use them would have the chance to use them this May. Marian Crafts: Check out all the post about Our Lady HERE My girls and I are looking forward to our Mother’s Day tea party with Our Mother Mary! I hope all these ideas help you to share the love of Our Lady! Have a blessed May! ~JenMarie

Add a little Catholic flare to your St. Patrick’s day treats! Yes, I know it’s Lent, but how can you not celebrate such a great saint!! Actually, since St. Patrick’s Day falls so close to Sunday this year we are holding our celebration on Sunday – just so we can still stick with our Lenten sacrifices. Here are two different cupcake toppers to help decorate at your celebration, too!! Notice the cute little rainbows? They are just a few mini candy canes that we had leftover from Christmas. I stuck them into the cupcake to form the rainbow! The kids thought it was hilarious! The paper cupcake toppers are easy to make. Just cut out the images from the printable and tape the top half of a toothpick to the back. Then stick the bottom half of the toothpick into the cupcake! Easy fun! Download this style here: Download the rainbow Style Here: Hope you all a have a blessed Week! ~Jen-Marie

For almost 10 years my kids have been enjoying a CD called ”Kids Sing for Jesus” by the Renna’s. This adorable Catholic CD is full of fun and learning for Catholic kids. My teen girls, who were only about 5 when I bought this CD, still sing these songs! And their younger siblings are enjoying these cute songs today! I sure got my money’s worth out of that CD! 🙂 The Renna’s, who sing the songs on this CD, are a beautiful Catholic family!  Mary Ann the mother of this talented family, started creating these songs to help a teacher teach a group of Catholic kids about the faith, and the idea just grew from there! The music is not only sung by the mother of the family but also the kids of the family (who are now much older). I found the story behind this family to be cute and worth reading, click here to read more (scroll to the bottom of the page -look for the music note on the left-side). The Renna’s also have a web page here .  Today I wanted to share my thoughts on this CD, because I thought some of you would enjoy this as much as our family has! Perhaps you’d like to purchase one for an Easter basket! It would also be great a CD for a CCD/RE/religion class, Bible camp, homeschool family, Christmas, or any occasion!  You can visit their site to hear a short clip from the songs on this CD { Click Here } Click on the little symbols beside the song titles. Then you can decide for yourself if you think you and your kids would like these songs. -My kids sure do enjoy them! 🙂  Click Here I hope your kids enjoy them, too!

My daughter, Rachel, created a set of coloring pages that focused on the Sorrowful Mysteries.  I shrank them all down and added them to one page. I felt that having 5 coloring pages for the kids might be a bit much for them to handle. It seemed like it could be time-consuming and potentially boring for my kids to color one page for each mystery. Having all 5 on one page seemed to be more interesting and less mundane. One of my other daughters, Elizabeth, colored the sample I have shown here. (She used colored pencils.) Download This Sorrowful Mysteries Coloring Page: Thanks again to my daughter Rachel for sharing your artwork with us! And thanks to Elizabeth, too! Enjoy! God Bless. ~Jen-Marie

In the hopes of preparing my kids for Ash Wednesday Mass, we discussed what Ash Wednesday is and what it means. If you are looking for a good article to read about the topic, I recommend this article from LifeTeen . It’s funny and informative!  🙂 After talking about Ash Wednesday we completed a simple activity: This printable activity allows the kids to draw a picture of themselves and then add an ash cross to their forehead. First, the kids drew a picture of themselves.  Then they rubbed some charcoal on a piece of scrap paper and pressed their thumb into it. You could just use lead from a pencil, but charcoal is darker. Next, they used their dirty thumb to make a cross shape on the picture’s forehead. The kids had a blast adding the crosses! This was fun for many age levels. My younger kids enjoyed it and so did Rachel, my 16-year-old. She’s always looking for a way to satisfy her artistic cravings! Here is the face my 3 year old, Caleb, drew: He told me, “I can make beautiful, smiley, cross faces, too!” Yes, he sure can! 🙂 Download this Ash Wednesday Page Here: Have a blessed Lent! ~JenMarie

Today my 16 year old daughter, Rachel, asked me if there was any up coming feast days that we planned to celebrate. She knows I’ve had a rather unorganized month and that I’ve been missing a lot of feast days. She offered to make a dessert for the next feast day. I thought that was very sweet of her to ask, so after checking the calendar we discovered Jan. 20 is St. Sebastian’s feast day.  With a gleam in her eye and a fun little smile she offered to make cupcakes for the occasion. Cupcakes! Ya, that sounds cute and harmless! Honestly, I should have known I was in for a shock, because Rachel has an interesting since of humor. Well, here is her creation: I’m just not sure how to feel about these!! Is this too much! Over the top ?– as the saying goes?! I’m just not sure what to think!  What do you think? Well, I believe this is meant to show me that I need to get myself back on track and get a handle on the feast day celebrating at our house again! 😉 Till later, ~JenMarie

I know I said I wasn’t going to post any Easter activities, but I forgot that I had already promised my 10 year old that I would post a coloring page which she created. A promise is a promise, so I’m posting Elizabeth’s wonderful Easter coloring page! And she is very excited to share it with you today! 🙂 Elizabeth modeled her Jesus figure after Playmobil and Lego people. The tomb behind him, was made to look like Legos. Download This Coloring Page Here: I hope you like her cute coloring page!  Personally, I think she did an awesome job! – But I’m her mother! Have a blessed Holy Week! ~JenMarie (and Elizabeth)

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity’s feast day is March 7th. These two saints were unlikely friends, one wealthy and the other a slave, but both were strong in their faith! They were martyred together around the year 203. St. Perpetua wrote a diary of their stay in prison and so we have a fair amount to information on them. Read about them HERE . There is also a wonderful video available called: “Catholic Heroes of the Faith: The Story of Saint Perpetua”. This cartoon video is a fairly true story of these amazing women, so some parents might consider it to be a bit graphic – for a cartoon. But all in all it’s a great video! In honor of this special day my oldest daughter Rachel, has created a coloring page, which she wanted to share with all of you. The above picture is her drawing and she used watercolor paints to add all the beautiful colors to the drawing. Download This Coloring Page Here: Enjoy! Have a blessed day! ~Jen-Marie