Celebrating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit - Pentecost

 

We have celebrated all 50 days of Easter and have reached Pentecost, the birthday of the Catholic Church and the feast day in which we celebrate the Holy Spirit descending upon the 12 apostles and Mary.  It was after this occurrence that the 12 apostles being led by St. Peter were able to go about the world and spread the Gospel and truly spread the Catholic Church here on Earth.  To celebrate the tongues of fire on Pentecost we wear RED on this feast day!

 

They love the liturgical color song that they learned in Catechesis of the Good Shepard and they were thrilled to FINALLY be wearing red for Pentecost!

 

"Purple and Green, Red and White are the colors of the Year.

Purple and Green, Red and White remind us of the Light.

Purple is for Preparation, White is for Celebration,

Green is for Ordinary Time, Red is for Pentecost

Purple and Green, Red and White are the colors of the Year."

 

 

 

Here are the kids singing another Catechesis of the Good Shepard song today about Pentecost!

 

 

After we went to Mass we came home for some learning fun.  We use Catholic Mosaic and read about all of the Twelve Apostles with the books The Twelve Apostles by Marianna Mayer.  We also read the story of Pentecost in Tomie dePaola's book of Bible Stories. 

Finally, we did an activity for Seton 1 Art Book and we learned about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  As we learned about each gift of the Holy Spirit we lit a candle from our Easter Candle.  We also then lit a candle for each of the 12 apostles and Mary who were all in the upper room or cenacle on the day of Pentecost.  The lighting of the candles really helps the children appreciate the understand of this feast day.  Pentecost is also a great awakening to each of us as we go into Ordinary Time to realize our own personal need to spread the Gospel and to live out our lives in the truth of Jesus by our every day words and actions just as the apostles did thousands of years ago. 

 

 

Check out what we have done in years past to celebrate Pentecost HERE!

Our Summer Learning Plans

We truly have figured out that schooling year round works out really well for us.  Our entire family thrives on a bit of structure and with homeschooling we have really learned that we enjoy exploring and learning together!  Even still, we plan to change up our formalized lessons a bit this summer and wanted to share with you our plans!

 

I am so blessed that our children have developed a true love of learning.  In early May we had completed Seton's 1st grade Religion book with our oldest son.  Without talking to him I had just decided that we would be done with that subject until the "next school year" in the fall.  Well, we started our other lessons the next week and by Tuesday (a mere two days) he asked "What is my next religion book, I haven't done anything for TWO DAYS!"  It also took him a long time to understand why we do not do formalized school on Saturdays and Sundays!  We have a few weeks left of our formalized lessons and we will move onto some new summer fun!

 

 

 Religion

We do such a great job intentionally celebrating Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter but I think that sometimes we forget about intentionally celebrating the liturgical season of Ordinary Time!  This summer we plan to continue going to daily mass when we can, praying our daily prayers and rosary, and learning about the Saint of the Day.  We also will continue with our FAVORITE resource Catholic Mosaic which includes some of our favorite literature texts dung the summer months!

 

  

Math

This past November our oldest son (almost 6 years old at that time) finished his Seton Kindergarten Math book.  Our 4th son was just born so we decided to use Life of Fred for a few months before starting Seton's 1st grade math text.  He LOVED it!  Now that he is almost done with Seton's 1st grade math text and our 4 year old is just finishing Seton's Kindergarten math so we plan to go back to Life of Fred this summer.  It takes us about 1 month to get through one book (19 lessons in each book) and there are 2 books for each grade level.  Our 4 year old will be working on Apples and Butterflies and our 6 year old will be working on Cats and Dogs!

 

Science

 

I am so excited to start St. Thomas Aquinas for Everyone for summer fun science learning.  It has 30 quick and fun lessons, activities and outdoor adventures based on the Summa Theologica!  We will also be spending a lot of time outside doing nature walks, and basic exploration!

 

 

Reading

 

Reading is a part of our daily life all of the time, but in addition to our read aloud time I also love to incorporate other learning with great books!  We have done a lot with Before Five in a Row in the past few years and just started using Five in A Row this past year (2015-2016).  We will be continuing this summer reading these great books and complete the corresponding activities!

You can also follow us with What We've Been Reading to see some fun and exciting books that we read each month!

 

Character/Virtue Building

 

We are going to use the Devotional Stories for Little Folks books from Catholic Heritage Curricula along with the Building Good Character Series.  We have used this a bit before, but it never hurts to add more virtue building!  Plus our oldest son will be able to start reading the devotional stories to all of us, which will allow him to practice his reading skills as well!

 

Physical Activity

 

This is the best part about summer, right?!  Our kids are all taking swimming lessons and spend many afternoons at the city pool or at the lake where the kids grandparents have their boat!  The oldest two boys are playing t-ball this summer and then there are plenty of days biking, hiking and having fun!

 

 

Field Trips and Summer Fun

 

We love to enjoy the beautiful days and embrace letting the kids be kids!  We are blessed with the opportunity to have a lot of free time together as a family always, but summer is a time to really let go and have fun! We love to visit the zoo, go to the park, fly a kit, and go on new adventures!

 

 

Happy Summer!

The Young Men Who Have Made Me A Mother

 

Oh, these young men.  They steal my heart every single day. They are each so unique in the personalities that God gave them and they each stretch me to grow a little more myself each day. 

 

"Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him."

-Psalm 127:3

 

My dear Ryan teaches me to explore the world and ask questions.  He teaches me to love the wonder of God and appreciate little miracles in every day life.  Ryan teaches me how to be a mother, being our oldest, and is patient with me as we continue to explore new ages and developmental stages together!

 

My sweet Connor teaches me how to stretch myself and be patient.  He challenges me to be more selfless, and to think outside the box and out of my comfort zones. He teaches me how to love with my actions and not only my words.  Connor teaches me to laugh and to enjoy just being silly.

 

My wonderful Luke teaches me how to appreciate the little things; morning cuddles, curling up with a good book and singing songs.  His ability to love others helps me to better understand the depths of my own love for others. 

 

 

My adorable Peter teaches me about the gift of life and trusting in God's plan.  God knew that Peter was supposed to be a part of our family and he has blessed us abundantly in the past 6 months.  He teaches me how quickly time continues on and how to slow down and marvel in the day to day moments.

"Her children arise and call her blessed"

-Proverbs 31:28

 

 

 

I am very blessed this Mother's Day, and every day from these young men who have made me a Mother!  I have also been blessed by another little one who made me a mother who is now up in Heaven.  I am thinking of you today and always my little one!  To all of the mothers who have lost a child, who have lost their own mothers, who have struggled with infertility, I am praying for you today.  Happy Mothers Day, to all Mothers!

Ascension Thursday Fun!

 We celebrate the feast of Ascension Thursday 40 days after Easter Sunday.  It is on this day that we remember and celebrate Jesus ascending to Heaven after the 40 days that he spent here on Earth teaching his apostles.  We now wait 10 more days until we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples giving them the grace to preach the Gospel throughout the world! 

 

Here is what we did to celebrate Ascension Thursday and Pentecost last year!

This year we met my husband at Mass before lunch and then came home for some fun learning time.  We read about the Ascension in one of our favorite books "Tell Me About the Catholic Faith".  Our oldest son (6 years old) then read us all the story of the Ascension from the Acts of Apostles.  His reading skills have improved significantly over the past few months and it warms my heart to hear him reading on his own from the Bible.  He commonly will take the Bible and the Catechism to bed with him to read as he is going to sleep!

 

 

Next we did the craft activity from Seton's Art 1 book!  We are loving how this Art book gives us so many fun art projects that all relate to special Feast Days in the liturgical year!  We made a ribbon with the mountain on the bottom, Jesus in the middle (Ascending to Heaven) and God at the top!  It was so easy and a lot of fun to have a great visual of this feast day!

 

 

Afterwards we had a yummy snack of Marshmallows, simply because they kind of look like clouds and more importantly because the kids love them and they are a special snack!  It is adding those little things into our celebrations that really help them remember how and why we celebrate what we do! 

 

If your diocese has moved the celebration of this feast day to Sunday, you still have time to plan fun learning for your family on this important Feast Day!  Happy Ascension! 

Flowers for Mary - May Celebration

 

 

During the month of May we celebrate special devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary within the Catholic Church.  Many people will have a traditional May Crowning on May 1st, but you can do this any day during May.  We have a garden statue of Mary at our home, but we also love the statue of Mary which is at the prayer garden in our Parish Church.  This year we went to the prayer garden to bring Mary some special flowers, pray a decade of the Rosary and also sing "Immaculate Mary".

 

We then came home and read two of our favorite books about Mary and did the corresponding activities in Catholic Mosaic.  They are Mary, Mother of Jesus by Mary Joslin and Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue by Joan Andrews and Susan Brindle.

 

Finally, we made mini books about the Regina Coeli which we have been praying together at noon instead of the Angelus during the time from Easter to Pentecost.  This was a great way to focus more on this prayer (which is new to our family this Easter season) and learn more about Mary.  We are also learning the Memorare Prayer together and colored this great printable prayer card to help in our memorization and learning as well!

 

Here was our Mary May Crowning from Last Year!

Longing for Him

 

One thing that I knew that I wanted to focus on during Lent this year was to add once weekly Adoration with the Blessed Sacrament.  Although I was raised Catholic I had never gone to Eucharistic Adoration until I was in high school on a retreat.  After that, I do not think I went again until after I was married.  I would go once or twice a year, but once the kids started coming I made up every excuse in the book of why I did not have time to go.  I would work on my prayer life, focus on incorporating our Catholic Faith in our home, but I would not prioritize spending time with the Real Presence of Jesus. 

I knew I needed to make a change and stop making excuses and that is when I spoke to my husband about wanting to add weekly Adoration into my schedule.  By recommendation I bought the book Eucharistic Adoration:  Holy Hour Meditations on the Last Seven Words of Christ.  I brought my book, my rosary, my journal and my baby (3 months old at the time) and we were ready to go.  I sat there the first week and even with this new book to guide me, I still felt kind of uncomfortable.  I found myself glancing down at my watch often, wondering how I would fill up one hour.  That alone though seems so crazy when I think of how quickly I can fill up one hour of time browsing on Facebook or watching my favorite television show.  How could it be so difficult to spend one hour with my Savior?

I went the second week, and the time went by more quickly.  I was much more at peace and my prayer flowed much easier.  I wanted more.  I started longing for Jesus.  So two days later I prioritized going again, in the same week!  At that third occurrence, by the time I looked down at my watch over an hour had passed.  Then slowly, something amazing happened.  As I would be present with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament there was nothing more that I wanted than to be with Him more!  So I started making it a priority to go to daily Mass.

Again, going to daily Mass was something that I had made excuse after excuse about not prioritizing having four little children.  Six years ago with our oldest I could barely get through 10 minutes of Sunday mass, but in time God has given me graces with each of our children to attend Mass.  So we started going, finding time each day to go to Mass.  From this action, more daily graces occurred.  I found myself being more patient, yelling less, and caring more about what really mattered in the day. 

Instead of worrying about the breakfast dishes or starting laundry immediately in my day I found that if I made it the priority to go to Mass that my entire day would flow better.  I still found time to get what I wanted done, and more importantly I started realizing what was truly important in my day to day life.  Although I still need to do the daily mundane activities of cooking, laundry, and cleaning I started putting my faith and relationships first. 

Beyond that, our 4 children who are 6 years old and younger all have gained so many graces by attending daily Mass with me.  These little ones who could barely sit through Sunday Mass a mere 6 months ago now come to Mass with little to no problem.  They know the responses of the Mass, they are seeing and understanding the progression of the readings and there is a difference in their own daily behavior. 

I still fall daily, I still sin, but by I realize that by giving more to Jesus, I truly am longing for Him in a new way.  In Divine Mercy for Moms they talk about when Jesus asked of St. Faustina "How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?"  I realized that for years I had been putting Jesus off, but that he continued to put up with me!  He continues every day because He loves me, He loves us all!  If we truly long for Him, who knows what graces he will pour into our lives.

Reflection:  How are you putting Jesus off in your life today?  How can you long for Him more deeply?