Catching Up: Our Lady of Guadalupe Luncheon!

 

We have been enjoying celebrating the feasts of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe the past several years.  We have had a fun luncheon with friends for the past few years, and we did it again this year on December11, two days after Juan Diego's feast day and one day before Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day.  This year, our friends brought another Catholic homeschooling family to join in the fun!

When everyone arrived, the children colored pictures depicting the story of Our Lady appearing to Juan Diego while listening to the Juan Diego glory Stories audio CD.  Then they watched part of the St. Juan Diego CCC video.  The copy our friends own had gotten damaged, so I found a partial clip on Youtube and the kids watched it through the Roku on the TV while us moms set up the luncheon!

 

We had Aztec hot cocoa (aka Mexican hot chocolate), tortilla tilmas filled with ham roses, sombreros made from Pringles and slices of string cheese...

 

...a guacamole Tepeyac Hill with tortilla chips, a Mexican cheese dip we call "sun dip" to remind us of the "lady who appeared to be clothed with the sun," the "supporting angels" made from fruit leather using a cookie cutter...

 

...crescent moon cookies to represent the crescent Our Lady appeared to be standing on, Dora Star cereal to represent the stars that covered Mary's mantle, and candy cane bishop's croziers.

While the kids ate their meal, I read our new Our :Lady of Guadalupe pop-up book to them all, and we talked about which foods went along with each part of the story.  I didn't get any photos of that... or of them coloring or watching the video... and here, a little segue from this post to say: I used to be disappointed when we did some fun activity and I didn't manage to document the whole thing in photos.  But here is what I have come to accept and embrace: if I am going to be doing activities with my kids, I will not be able to take photos of everything while also helping the event to run smoothly.  I first noticed this at our Epiphany party last year.  If I am going to be able to enjoy talking to the other adults, reading to the children, helping replenish food, and just being able to be relaxed, I am not going to get photos of everything.  And that is okay.  That is okay, because when I look back at my own childhood photos, my parents did not capture it all.  They didn't have a photo of every part of every event.  And that actually helps to add to the mystery of the memories for me!  The photos jog my memory, and I can still wonder if my memory is perfectly accurate or not, I can still relive the childhood events as my memory allows and not as dictated by exact photos of how things really happened.  And I think I like it better that way!  My own kids will look back and see photos that give glimpses and not a more full story as it appeared visually.  Their memories can fill in the rest!

So, with my philosophizing out of the way, we continue...

 

After the meal, the adults helped the kids to follow Our lady's request to build a church in her honor!  Of course, ours was a gingerbread, er, graham cracker, church.  After the moms set up the structure of the building, the kids decorated it... a little too well, as it had to be repaired from some caving in of the roof which was heavy with candies!

 

I think they got the idea that they had to use ALL the candy that was available, ha ha!

 

The completed church... with the help of the leftover royal icing from our St. Nicholas cookies!

Our Lady's image on the tilma, a  miracle which science has not been able to explain (cactus-fiber tilmas always deteriorate after a short time whereas this one has lasted 500 years!), can still be seen in the church that now stands at this site in Mexico.  I love that this little activity can teach our children of these miracles that occur in our beautiful Catholic faith!!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, Pray for Us!

Sophia's Baptism!

This year, I became a godmother for the first time - twice!  Chris and I became godparents of my brother's daughter in January, and this fall, my best friend from high school, Karen, asked me to be their new baby's godmother!

They live in Jacksonville, Florida, and we had visited them briefly in August when we were there at the beach, but we'd not yet met Sophia, as she was just a few weeks old and still in the NICU since she'd been born about eight weeks premature.  

The baptism began in the narthex after Sunday Mass - October 21st.  An old friend of Jason's (Karen's husband) was the godfather.

Here we are at the baptismal font.

Caroline was excited that father asked her to hold the book for him!

Anointing Sophia with chrism... such a wonderful scent it has!!  I just love baptisms!

Happy mommy and baby!

We ended the ceremony by walking up to the altar, and afterwards, we took some photos... Jason, Karen, and Sophia

Godparent photo

Reception time!!!  There was lots of yummy food - dips and chips and crackers, lunch meats and cheeses and rolls, punch, and of course... 

the baptism cake from Publix!!  Yum.  If I have any more babies myself, there is *supposed* to be a Publix in town by then, ha ha!!

Our family was staying at a nearby hotel... we visited my grandparents on Saturday and had dinner with Karen and other out of town family on Friday and Saturday evenings.  On Sunday, Lucy and I helped get some of the food prep done before Mass.

Here's Lucy with one of Sophia's stuffed animals

Caroline with her godmother, and now her "godsister" as well!

Look at all those girls, ha ha!!

God bless you, Sophia Vivian!!!

Celebrating the Feast Day of St. Clare

Last week, the day before St. Clare's feast day, we had some friends over to do a craft and play! St. Clare of Assisi is known for starting a group of nuns called the Poor Clares after the model of St. Francis of Assisi. The monstrance is one of the symbols associated with her, because she held up a monstrance containing Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and enemies who were invading the town turned and fled. So, we had some coloring sheets of St. Clare along with a monstrance craft.

I found this craft here at Catholic Icing and bought the supplies, thinking it would be an easy one for Cecilia to do at some point, and then I had the idea to use it as a craft that is associated with St. Clare.

This was easy for the three year olds to do... they just glued a gold paper doily onto another paper and then glued a white circle of cardstock (for the Eucharist) in the middle. Then they used stick-on jewels that I found in the craft store dollar bins to decorate all around their monstrances however they wished. I made the stands for the monstrance by drawing them on gold cardstock, and then the kids cut them out and glued them on first, so the doily was on top.

After doing the craft, I turned on the St. Clare Glory Stories CD for them to listen to... although my kids ignored it since they've heard it enough that they go around reciting parts of it...

Caroline and her friends wanted to make a pattern with their jewels.

For a snack, I decided to make something Polish for the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast day was coming up that weekend. Part of the reason for wanting to do this is that I am a quarter Polish myself! These are yummy Polish cookies called Kiffel... mostly butter so of course they are yummy! They are also filled with ground walnuts, so there is some redeeming health value in them. ;) I only made a quarter of the recipe but could see making the whole batch for Christmas treat-baking!

The three year olds eating their snack outside... I just thought this was such a cute photo of them!

Here are my girls with their finished monstrances... I forgot to get a photo of everyone with their finished work! Cecilia wanted to cut hers out... probably trying to get the most mileage out of the forbidden scissors, which she hadn't used since the unfortunate alterations she made to some dress-up clothes...

St. Clare, pray for us!

A Few More from Indy

A few shots around the hotel... Chris and Cecilia relax and read a book in our room. That recliner was pretty comfy!

The girls enjoy breakfast... the food at this place was phenomenal in that they had so much of it included as part of our stay! The full breakfast buffet included eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, french toast, fruit, doughnuts, muffins, oatmeal, cold cereals, waffles, juice, coffee... and I might be forgetting something there! In addition, they offered a "5:30 Kickback" every evening from 5:30 until 7:00 in which they had snack and easy dinner-type foods out in the same area where they set up breakfast in the mornings. We made it our dinner both nights we were there! Some of the foods included were baked potatoes, hot dogs, buffalo chicken wings, chicken tenders, salad, and nachos with beef, refried beans, and cheese. Oh, and there was also a bar a which each adult could get three drinks per night! Too bad I couldn't get any myself, although I had virgin margaritas and a virgin tequila sunrise along with several Shirley Temples! Cecilia was obsessed with the Shirley Temples... she asked if she could have one with breakfast, ha ha, and just today (two weeks later!) she asked about them again! But goodness, I have never seen a regular family 2.5/3 star hotel with so much free food! There was also a popcorn cart and soft drinks available from 3:00-10:00 daily... too bad they like Pepsi up there! ;)

And when I saw the picture of the waffles in the hotel's advertising photos, I thought, "Hmm, wonder if they will really look that fancy?" Sure enough, they did! They had two waffle irons with this fancy design. Pretty cool!

So, can you tell that food is important to me? ;) Seriously, this was great for a family with kids, not having to worry about going somewhere for dinner, paying extra for it, waiting for a table, and getting back to the hotel before everyone was exhausted and cranky. And it gave us time to use the indoor pool after dinner each night, too!

The last morning after breakfast... trying to get everyone to look/smile at the same time was a challenge!

But I finally got one when they were all on the luggage cart in the elevator, on our way up to get our stuff before checking out!

We had so much fun even if we were only there a short time... two nights in Columbus and two nights in Indianapolis. We were sad to not get to spend one of the days with our friends when Matthew was sick, but glad he recovered quickly! And the four adults had a blast staying up late playing cards and board games and enjoying our adult beverages from earlier which we'd brought up and stashed in the fridge!

Caroline was so sad to leave Matthew in the morning... they were best friends until he moved to Iowa when they were both almost four years old. She really wanted to hug him goodbye, and he wouldn't come out from hiding beside the bed, like if he didn't say goodbye it wouldn't happen! Caroline was distraught; I almost cried along with her! But then she got a hug downstairs as we walked out to the cars, and even gave him a big kiss on the cheek! She loves to hug and kiss friends goodbye - I imagine she would have been quite miserable if she didn't get to say goodbye the way that meant the most to her!

Trip to Conner Prairie

After we arrived in Indianapolis from Columbus, we met up with our friends at our hotel and surprised Caroline and Cecilia - again - that their friends were there! We all headed over to Conner Prairie to have lunch and stay for the rest of the afternoon.

After having lunch at the picnic tables, we began walking around. They have tons of old buildings and homes, and everything is hands-on, unlike in most places where rooms are roped off so you can only look at how they are set up. Our first stop was to pet a horse...

We watched this cow being milked for a few minutes... all the kids declined a chance to milk her themselves!

I don't know what was so interesting in this doorway for the hens, but at one point all four kids were looking in it together!

Cecilia took some time to play a piano is one of the houses. There was also a basket full of ribbons that she enjoyed in this house.

And in this one-room cabin, there was a bed, fireplace, table, sewing books, clothing, and... a few toys. There were wooden blocks along with this horse and wagon toy. Cecilia would have stayed here and played with this the entire afternoon...

The others quickly moved on to the path outside the cabin taking some wooden hoops with them to try their hands at hoop-rolling.

Caroline trying to get hers going...

...while Cecilia begins building a house inside the cabin. At this point, I lost the rest of the group while Cecilia spent awhile playing!

We managed to catch the tail end of a blacksmith demonstration. Along the way, we stopped at a backyard party where they had just finished up some outdoor games and were having sugar cookies and lemonade, and we stopped in a schoolhouse to talk to the "teacher." Cecilia insisted on sitting down close to the teacher but didn't have any questions to ask her! She didn't want to leave the schoolhouse for some reason!

The girls look into a pasture

This is the petting barn... lots of baby animals were here to pet. This little one hid under this platform... maybe that is what the platform is there for, so overwhelmed animals can get a break! ;)

Cecilia brushes a calf...

...and a mother sheep.

The kids had fun posing on this wooden horse! Here's Matthew and Caroline...

...and Cecilia and Ryan.

The girls pet the baby lamb.

This is a view out the back of the barn.

Cecilia liked the baby lamb...

...really, really liked it!

She paused awhile to watch the animals through the fence outside of the barn. Everyone else was so fast and ahead of me, so most of these pictures are of Cecilia, who I had to hang back with so she wouldn't be left behind!

We stopped briefly on a playground by the main entrance building... but not for too long, because it was almost closing time! We really could have stayed much, much longer!

Our last stop was in the Lenape Indian Camp. These furs were laid out ona table for us to try to identify. We got most of them: you can see the telltale skunk skin and raccoon skin, and the one closest to you is a beaver skin.

Caroline made a discovery as she picked up the raccoon skin: "Look, they're puppets!"

"That's disturbing," said Chris, while Kevin's comment at the same moment was, "Hey, that's cool!" Ha ha! Behind the girls, you can see both a buffalo and deer skin.

Cecilia looks like she is in the midst of making an important decision...

Caroline worked with this drill - with no bit in it at the end, for safety's sake, I suppose!

I think they said this was a wigwam...

The kids all took turns grinding corn. Manual labor was seen as one of their favorite things to do!

I could never get everyone to look at the camera at once...

Cecilia takes a rest inside the wigwam, tired out from following baby animals around and grinding corn!

We got to hear some Lenape music inside one of the buildings. The girls helped by playing these rattles...

...and Caroline got to help teach a few words in Lenape! Here they learn the word for "thank you," which is wanishi (taught by holding up one finger - one - then pointing at the knee - nee - and then by pointing at Caroline - she... one knee she = wanishi!).

It is too bad we didn't get to the prairie until mid-afternoon, because we certainly could have stayed a lot longer! there was a whole interactive inside area as well as all the outdoor homesteads and buildings. I'd recommend spending most of the day, or at least a full afternoon!