The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

Today, February 22nd we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.  This feast commemorates Jesus's choosing Peter to sit in His place as the servant of the whole Church!



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To celebrate this feast day we read today's Gospel from Matthew 16:13-16

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"  They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."  He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

We then made our own version of replica chairs to celebrate St. Peter being our first Pope and for all of the other Popes!  The kids thought this was the most amazing thing EVER and had lots of fun picking out candy that would work best!  I love their creativity and understanding because our 6 year old picked out Sour Patch Kids so that someone (the Pope) could sit on the chair and our 4 year old picked Sweedish Fish to add since Peter was a fisherman!  We used Twix and Reese's bars to make our legs and seats of the chairs and put them all together with Vanilla frosting!

 

We also celebrated today as a Saint Name Feast Day for our youngest son Peter!  St. Peter's feast day is on June 29th, but we decided that he can be extra special like St. Peter and also celebrate on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter as well!  We love to do little things on their Saint Name Feast Day so Peter got a new little Mary Rattle! 

 

It was such a fun and simple way to celebrate The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter!

 

Explore the Continents - History and Geography an Update!

We are loving the Explore the Continents History and Geography program from Catholic Heritage Curricula.  Read about what we have done so far with the program HERE and HERE! 

We continued with Exploring the Continents studying Australia.  This was such a fun continent and country to learn about!  We studied the animals, the famous places and the history.  Books that we included to deepen our learning and fun included:
 

Katy No Pocket by Emmy Payne

Possum Magic by Mem Fox

Koala Lou by Mem Fox

The Old Woman Who Loved to Read by John Winch

Introducing Australia by Anita Ganeri
 



 

It was a lot of fun to learn about St. Mary Mackillop who is Australia's first Catholic Saint! 

 

 

We love our zoo and had so much fun exploring all of the Australian animals including snakes, kookaburras, wallabies and more! 

Next, we moved on to Europe!  This continent is so rich in history and Catholicism so there is so much to learn.  Our booklist for Europe includes the following:

The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola
Madeline's Rescue by Ludwig Bemelmans
The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
Angelo by David Macaulay
Europe by Mary Lindeen
A True Book Europe by Sandra Newman
The Madonnas of Europe - Pilgrimages to the Great Marian Shrines of Europe by Janusz Rosikon

 

It has also been fun to study Saints from Europe as their feast days occur in the liturgical year including St. John Bosco from Italy, St. Brigid from Ireland and Our Lady of Lourdes from France!

 

 

We also love all of the review games included in the Curriculum and playing with our globe and using our World Map in our Homeschool Room!   

 

 

 

O Holy Spirit

Music has always been something that calms me, centers me in prayer and is also a great way for me to praise God.  Marian Grace continues to be one of my favorite music artists and lately this prayer and song "O Holy Spirit" is one that I listen to or sing many times each day.  I wanted to print it off to put it in a predominate place in my home and wanted to share it with you as well!

 

 

 

A Fresh Take on Dinner - Hello Fresh Review

Do you remember when I spoke about getting through the first month with a newborn?  We were so blessed to receive so many fantastic meals from family and friends and my husband was so sweet to hire a cleaning lady to come every few weeks to free some extra time up for me!  Our youngest is now just three months old and we finally feel like we are into a pretty good groove and routine again!  Yet, one time of day still ends up being kind of stressful and crazy sometimes; DINNER TIME!  I was looking for something to change things up a bit and my sister recommended Hello Fresh! 

 

Hello Fresh is a website that delivers healthy and delicious meals right to your door with all of the pre measured ingredients and recipes included!  They have many different choices for how many people are eating in your home, any dietary needs (vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free, etc) and how many meals you want delivered per week/month.  We tried out the Family Box (for families of 4) for one week and had a lot of fun!

 

The following is what we received for our first week, the pro's and con's and don't forget to make it all of the way to the end to get $40 off your first box to give it a try!!

 

Italian Spiced Chicken with Tomato Rice &

Roasted Green Beans

 

Pan Seared Pork Chops with Rosemary Grape Salsa,

Sweet Potatoes & Roasted Brocolini

 

Shrimp and Lemon Risotto with

Roasted Zucchini and Parmesan

 

 

• Con's:
  • We ordered the family box meant for 4 people and for our family of 5 people eating dinner there was not enough meat.  We added a few chicken breasts and pork chops to each meal to have enough for our family.  (We could have added more people to the cost but the servings of vegetables was enough for our family).  I will also add that our family does eat quite a bit of meat as even our 2 year old can finish his own chicken breast/pork chop.
  • More expensive than typical cooking/eating at home ($35/meal for a family of four getting 3 meals per week)
• Pro's:
  • Trying new recipes and going outside of the box with cooking
  • No meal planning needed
  • Convenience of delivery to our home
  • Healthy meals
  • Having fun cooking new things with the children
  • Meals are pre-packaged and conveniently all together and ready to go
  • Ability to save favorite recipes to have sent again
  • Options to have a mix of vegetarian meals during Lent (or abiding by other dietary restrictions)
  • All meals were prepared/cooked within 30 minutes
  • Flexible option to get meals weekly/monthly and even "pause" orders when they are not needed
  • Cheaper than going out to eat as a family

Overall, we had a fantastic time trying out Hello Fresh and I can see times when it might be really great to use for our family.  When we are really busy with kids activities, etc it would be fantastic to have everything planned and put together for us.  Also, I could see using it while on vacation if we were staying somewhere with a kitchen where we could cook dinner as a family.  This would be a much cheaper option to mail the box to the location rather than eating out.  I also really loved to expand my cooking from my typical meals that I make and have everyone try a few new things!

 

Click HERE to get $40 off your first box!!!

Celebrating Presidents' Day

On the third Monday in February we celebrate Presidents' Day in the United States.  It started as celebrating George Washington's birthday (which is actually February 22nd), and President Nixon started calling the holiday "Presidents' Day to honor all past presidents!

 

Our children LOVE to learn about United States history and with that comes the love of our Presidents.  Even our two year old can recognize presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and a few more.  To celebrate President's Day this year we plan to do a few fun things for learning and enjoyment!

 

First, as always is reading fun books about Presidents!

 

The Big Book of US Presidents by Todd Davis

Our Countries Presidents by Ann Bausum

A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin by David A. Alder

Let's Split Logs, Abe Lincoln by Peter and Connie Roop

Let's Play Soldier, George Washington by Peter and Connie Roop

 

 

Being in a year when we are electing a new President all of our children have been following along to some degree with some of the Candidates.  You can tell when marketing and commercials is good when our two year old will say "These Hands" while holding up his hands after seeing the commercial for Ben Carson!  We found this great resource on Kids.USA.Gov on with a poster and lesson plans of How to Become President of the United States!  There is also lots of additional information on this website all about U.S. Presidents!

 

 

For some learning fun we got and put together a 3D puzzle of the White House from Kids Authority!  This was a lot of fun to work on and really cool to see when it was completed! 

 

 

If you are looking for games to play, here is a fun game called Presidential Portraits!

 

We also LOVE to watch this song about all of the U.S. Presidents.  Our 6 year old is trying to learn it to memorize all of the U.S. Presidents in order!

 

 

One of my items on our homeschooling Wishlist for quite some time has been the US President Blocks from Uncle Goose.   These would be perfect for celebrating President's Day and to help learning about the U.S. Presidents!  They look like such an awesome learning toy and also a really special statement piece for any home! 

US President Blocks

Humbled by my Little Valentines

 

I am so humbled today by my little valentines.  We went to mass this morning to celebrate the first Sunday of Lent.  Each week after mass our little ones love to go to the Adoration Chapel to say a quick prayer to Jesus.  After that we picked up some fun Valentine's Day donuts, went home and opened fun Valentine's Day presents from their grandparents!

 

 

 

Later in the day we read Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda and did the activities in Catholic Mosaic.  We were learning about how Saints like Saint Valentine were imprisoned and sometimes even killed just because they believed in God.  Our six year old has certainly heard of this before, but he was just so shocked by this today.  He said "Mommy, that just does not make any sense!  Why doesn't EVERYONE love God?  Jesus is MY favorite Valentine!" 

 

My husband was working today, and after I had dinner with my little men I could tell our six year old was still deep in thought.  "Mommy, can we go to the prayer chapel at church?  I just really want Jesus to know how much I love Him.  I want Him to be my Valentine"  Be still my heart! 

So we all piled up in the van and drove to church.  This morning he had asked if we could light a candle for our little Saint Samuel, but I had not brought any money with me, so I told him we would light a candle later.  Well tonight on his own doing he brought $5 of his own birthday money to light a candle for our little baby!  We then about 10 minutes in the adoration chapel tell Jesus how much we love him.  After that we walked around church for a while.  There is something about being there at night that is so peaceful. 

 

The thing is, as I have been having my prayer and devotion time during Lent I have been praying for God to help me dedicate more of myself to Him.  I have praying to help me set aside the hustle and bustle of life and to focus on Him.  To love Him.  To give myself to Him.  And then, here is my six year old wanting for Jesus to be his Valentine.  Here is his little heart so freely and willingly giving his love to Jesus. 

 

We came home and prayed our daily Rosary with our Holy Hero CD.  We were all cuddled up in our kids bed together mediating with the Sorrowful Mysteries.  With two little ones under my arms I looked over and saw our 4 year old sound asleep.  He is usually our child who has energy right to the very last second of his day.  Yet here, with the gentle flow of prayers he drifted softly to sleep.  God's love truly carried us through this day and our children continue to teach me that putting God's love first is really the most important thing. I am truly humbled by my Little Valentines.