Our Easter in Review - 2016

 

Here is a look and review of our Holy Week and Easter this year.  It was different traveling during Holy Week, but we had a great time on our family ski trip and it was much needed family time!  We did not attend all of the Easter Triduum Masses, but God met us where we are, at this phase of our life and blessed us abundantly.  We found and used those little moments to come together as a family and draw closer to Him and the true meaning of Easter.

 

Palm Sunday

 

We were enjoying our beautiful family vacation on Palm Sunday and explored a new Church to attend Palm Sunday Mass.  We stuck with our tradition of sitting in the very first row and it again did well for us for the children to all have a front and center view of what was happening.  They did great through the long readings of the Passion Story and had fun making crosses with their palms after Mass.

 

  

 

Spy Wednesday

 

We were on our ski vacation on Spy Wednesday, but we had a great time reading the Gospel for the day and also our Holy Week in Handprints book and the story of Judas handing over Jesus to the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.  We then hid 30 pieces of silver and our oldest boys had a great time searching for them.  We had a nice conversation about what we can say to people who do not believe in Jesus and how to always show our love to Him. 

 

 

Holy Thursday

 

We were packing up to drive 9 hours home the next day so on Holy Thursday we took some time in the evening to read Jesus Washes Peter's Feet and then the boys took turns washing each others feet during their evening bath to learn how to be servants to each other.

 

 

 

Good Friday

 

We spent Good Friday driving all day long from Colorado to Nebraska, but it was a good opportunity to be together as a family and pray.  We listened to the Stations of the Cross with our Holy Heroes CD, prayed the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy and listened to Tre Ore: The Seven Last Words of Christ by Bishop Barron.

 

Holy Saturday

 

We had a great vacation (more about that later), but it was also so great to be home!  We did a quick grocery run Saturday morning then came home to decorate Easter Eggs and then just RELAX!

 

 

Making Easter Cookies

Making Easter Story Cookies was a new activity for our family this year, and although they were super fun to make, they did not turn out at all!  I have no idea what we did wrong, but it was kind of funny to wake up on Easter morning to flat pancake type cookies (not the hollow cave shape like they were supposed to be)!  Either way, we enjoyed putting them together and reading the Bible verses that correlate.  We can try again next year!

 

 

 

Easter Sunday

 

Finally, Easter arrived!  Alleluia, He has Risen!  We woke up and went to morning Mass and the kids did great.  They notice everything at Mass and loved to see all of the flowers, the priest wearing white and the brand new Paschal Candle!  I love seeing our young men all dressed up.  They also loved seeing our new Resurrection Set on display!

 

 

  

 Easter Egg Hunt

We came home and had a little Easter Egg hunt and Easter Baskets for the kids.  Not believing in the Easter Bunny makes it really casual and fun for our family.  The big kids were helping to hide the eggs and everyone helped to find them all.  They loved their Easter Basket gifts and some of the favorites included:

Catholic By Number Card Game
Trinity Toyz The Last Supper
Melissa and Doug Jonah and the Whale Puzzle
Saints Memory Card Game
Saint Francis of Assisi Shining Light Doll (our 4 year old's favorite Saint!)
Priestly PJ's (they have sizes 3months - 3T)

and the hit of the day was the Mass Kit and Monstrance from Almond Rod Toys!
 

 

  

Playing Mass

 

Since starting Catechesis of the Good Shepard our boys have really loved "playing mass".  I knew that they would like a Mass Kit, but I really had NO idea how excited they would be!  We bought the Mass Kit and Monstrance from Almond Rod Toys and it could not be more perfect for our family!  They also loved lighting our new Paschal Candle from Holy Heroes and putting up our Resurrected Jesus on our Stations of the Cross from Jesse Tree Treasures!

 

 

Family Dinner

 

We ended the day with a family dinner with my side of the family.  It was great to catch up and enjoy their company! 

We had a great and very blessed Holy Week and Easter Sunday celebration!  We look forward to celebrating the Easter Octave and also all 50 days of Easter.  If you are looking for things to do to continue celebrating Easter be sure to check out my post from last year:

 

50 Ways to Celebrate the 50 Days of Easter with Your Children

 

50 Ways to Celebrate the 50 Days of Easter With Your Children

When Traveling During Holy Week - 7QT

I spoke earlier in the year of how we Homeschool when we are not at home.  One of the beauty's of homeschooling is it becomes convenient to travel with our family and just pick things up to keep going!  This coming week we will be traveling and away from our home during Holy Week.  It is a very important week for our family to learn about and celebrate the days of the liturgical calendar but it is also really special that we can have time to spend quality time as a family.  I have learned that we can still carry on special traditions as a family and continue our learning, even when away from home.  All it takes is a little extra planning ahead of time!

See what have done during Holy Week in the years past HERE and HERE:

 

We leave Friday March 18th and come back on Good Friday, March 25th and are driving from Omaha, Nebraska to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado!  I gave myself space in one tote to bring activities and books for the week and this is what I included:

 

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St. Joseph's Feast Day (March 19th)

We have learned that celebrating saint feast days can be simple or elaborate!  To celebrate St. Joseph's feast day this year we will cuddle up during story time to read some of our favorites including Good Saint Joseph and Song of the Swallows.  We also are excited to have our new St. Joseph Shining Light Doll!

 

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Palm Sunday (March 20th)

Palm Sunday is a tough one with little children because Mass is incredibly long, and Palm Branches look a LOT like swords for little boys!  Yet, thankfully we have gotten better and better at Taking our Children to Mass over this past year so we will see how it goes.  I also packed a few fun books including a new one to our family Hosanna to You, Jesus (A Palm Sunday Experience) for the day!

 

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Spy Wednesday (March 23rd):

We love the tradition of finding 30 pieces of silver to reflect the story of the betrayal of Judas for 30 pieces of silver.  Even though we will not be at home we plan to carry on this fun tradition!  We also brought our Holy Week in Handprints that we made last year and also Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories which includes the stories of Holy Week to help us throughout the week in our Holy Week learning.

 

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Holy Thursday (March 24th):

Our children always love celebrating Holy Thursday!  We usually go to Holy Thursday Mass, but we will see if that happens or not since we leave early the next morning to drive home!  We did get the book Jesus Washes Peter's Feet, which is new to our family and we love to have our own little family feet washing as we read the Bible Stories for the day!

 

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Good Friday (March 25th):

We will be driving 10 hours home on Good Friday with our four little boys (that is suffering enough, right?!)  Well, I figured we will have LOTS of time, so during those many hours we will plan on praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, Meditating on the Stations of the Cross with our Holy Heroes CD, read our Good Friday book, and my husband and I are hoping to listen to Tre Ore: The Seven Last Words of Christ by Bishop Barron while our kids hopefully take an hour or so nap during the afternoon!

 

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Divine Mercy Chaplet (Begins March 25th)

The Divine Mercy Sunday is the Sunday after Easter or April 3rd this year and the novena begins on Good Friday.  I just finished reading Divine Mercy for Moms, which has helped me take a whole new look at Mercy in my own life during this Year of Mercy.  Since we will have lots of time during our drive home I brought our Divine Mercy Novena and Chaplet along with to start praying as a family!

 

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Holy Saturday & Easter (March 26th & 27th)
 

We will get back into town late Friday night and my husband needs to work Saturday from 6am-3pm.  Thankfully though he is working the day shift at the Emergency Room so we will be able to attend the Easter Vigil Mass Saturday night (we haven't yet decided if we are going to try to brave that Mass with our little ones or not yet; usually we hire a babysitter and go ourselves).  Also, very exciting news is my brother in law will be received into the Church this Easter (he and our wonderful fiancé are our son Peter's Godparents)!!!  Please pray for him during this exciting time!

 

Our favorite Easter books are out in a special Easter Basket, supplies have been bought to make Resurrection Rolls for Easter and all Easter Gifts are bought, wrapped and ready to go!  My husband is so sweet to have hired a cleaning lady to come to our home every other week and she is coming while we are away so I am super excited to be coming home to a perfectly clean home to celebrate Easter with our family!

Lenten Learning 2016

We have been taking the time during Lent this year come together as a family and focus on prayer, fasting and almsgiving (as well with some fun learning)!  Here are a few things that we have been doing.

 

Our Lenten Plans - 2016

 

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The Giving Tree

 

We LOVE Catholic Mosaic and The Giving Tree was such a great book to read during Lent.  Although the book is not a Catholic book the lesson plan with Catholic Mosaic brought about a fantastic conversation about Giving and our own relationships with God.

 

 

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Lenten Lunch

 

 I was so excited to finally take the time to do a Lenten Lunch this year!  We are going to be out of town during Holy Week, but we decided we could do this at any time during Lent to increase our learning and fun.  Thank you to Lacy at Catholic Icing for doing the tough part of putting it all together and making it easy to execute! 

 

It was really great to read the Bible Stories together and to have foods that related to each part of the story.  Our boys especially loved having chocolate with lunch with the Hershey's Kisses and Peppermint Patties since that is not typical for our family.  It was a real treat!

 

 

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The Tale of Three Trees

 

The Tale of Three Trees is another great book that is included in Catholic Mosaic!  We also read this book when we celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in September, but the story also goes along great with the Passion story as well! We just love our read aloud time during our days and finding great books to add to our collection.

 

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Lenten Rosary

 

One of the things that we wanted to focus on this Lent was praying a daily rosary.  It has not been "perfect", but overall we are doing pretty well!  Sometimes we listen to the Holy Heroes CD in the car, sometimes get to daily mass early to pray with our church community, sometimes we pray together at the lunch table, sometimes we pray the rosary before bedtime; we definitely have learned that we need to be flexible to fit it in!  There are moments of wiggling, but we are all definitely learning and growing as a family!

 

Also, if you are looking for a beautiful Easter gift or something special for yourself or loved ones definitely check out Butterfly Blue Rosaries!  A fellow homeschooling mother creates beautiful custom rosaries and sells them on Etsy!  She made me a rosary with the beads of the 5 decades as the birthstones of our 4 children here on Earth and 1 in Heaven!  It is beautiful and something that I will always treasure.

 

 

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Little Rose of Sharon

 

Another great Catholic Mosaic selection for Lent is the Little Rose of Sharon.  It is all about Self Sacrifice and the most beautiful little story to teach our children about what is really important to God, and that is for us to give of ourselves to others.  It is a very important topic to discuss at all times, but especially during this liturgical season where we remember Jesus giving His life for us.

 

 

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Starting St. Joseph Novena

We started the St. Joseph Novena March 10th, and love using Catholic Icing's  St. Joseph Novena printable!  Check out what we did last year to celebrate St. Joseph's Feast Day HERE!!

Also, this year we got the new St. Joseph Shining Light Doll!  We LOVE Shining Light Dolls so our kids were really excited to add St. Joseph to our collection!
 

 

 

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Stations of the Cross

 

We are continuing each week to pray and meditate on the Stations of the Cross each Friday.  We have used the Holy Heroes CD's in our Little Oratory within our home, prayed at the Holy Family Shrine near our home, at our local parish and this week we are going to go to our local cemetery.  Our boys also love to use their Passion Week Peg Dolls to tell the story that they are learning to know so well. 

 

 

That's what we have been up to the past few weeks of Lent!  We are linking up with This Ain't The Lyceum this week as well!

The Holy Family Shrine

 

 

We love this place.  It sits up on top of the hill, in the middle of Nebraska, along side of the highway and we cannot help but take the time to stop by as we drive by.  It is stunning, simply beautify and we love to go there to pray, reflect and explore!

When we arrived the first thing that the boys wanted to do was light a candle for their brother Samuel.  They always want to stop, pray and light a candle whenever they can!

Since it is hard to go to our Parish Stations of the Cross during Lent because of nap time and dinner/bedtime we like to take the time during Lent to either pray the Stations of the Cross at home or somewhere in the community.  We loved taking time to pray the Stations of the Cross together at the Holy Family Shrine and our 6 year old led us through all of the stations all by himself!

Next we went to visit the Marian shrine.  Even though the flowers are not in bloom the boys still love to go say "hi" to Mary!

 

Thank you God, for this beautiful place to worship you!