Faith Folders for Catholics contest

If you have never tried lapbooking with your kids, now is your chance to receive a free lapbook kit! These are great fun! I have done them with my own children, with my Vacation Bible School kids, and with my classroom of 1st & 2nd graders. They are about my favorite project to do with kids! Enter here:
http://showerofroses.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-st-therese-little-flower-faith.html

Another Contest to Enter :o)

Win a great skirt from New Creation Apparel! Check out this blog post to find out how to enter! You can bet I am :o) Good luck!

http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/

Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Trying to help you plan ahead :o) The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is September 14. Make cross cookies with your favorite sugar cookie or gingerbread cookie recipe. If you don't have a cross cookie cutter, just make your own cross shapes.

Check out these cool ideas:

I think I'll try this one with my 1st & 2nd graders at school:
http://catholicmemories.blogspot.com/2007/09/craft-for-exaltation-of-cross.html

http://www.christiancrafters.com/colorsofchrist.html

http://catholicicing.blogspot.com/2010/09/cross-crafts-for-kids.html

Pray the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Mary (feast of Our Lady of Sorrows is Sept 15):
http://www.prayerbook.com/Chaplets/sschaple.htm

Happy Birthday Mary!

September 8th is the Blessed Mother's Birthday. Celebrate by having a birthday party for her...play birthday party games, bake & decorate a cake (with blue frosting of course!) & sing Happy Birthday to Mary, attend Mass, sing Marian hymns, pray the Rosary as a family. Try this craft while praying a decade of the Rosary with young children (you can vary the difficultly depending on the ages of your children): trace & cut out 10 flower petals, a center circle, a stem, and 2 leaves. While praying the Our Father, have your child glue the stem on to a piece of construction paper. Have your child glue on one flower petal for each Hail Mary as it is prayed. While praying the Glory Be, glue on a leaf. While praying the Fatima Decade prayer, glue on the other leaf. If your child is older, let them trace & cut the pieces as well as glue them while the prayers are being prayed. Then you have a lovely flower for Mary :o)

Fabulous Book!

I am reading a wonderful book during Adoration right now...Consoling the Heart of Jesus, A Do-It-Yourself Retreat, Inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius; by Michael E. Gaitley, MIC.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel has this to say about it, "This retreat, which is so well fitted into the busy life of the layperson, nonetheless includes all the essential parts of a genuine retreat of the Spiritual Exercises. Although focused on the Divine Mercy, it also includes the insights of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Louis de Montfort. It is also influenced by the Venerable Fr. Lanteri, who brings his own intensity and devotion to the retreat. All of this should make a devout person at home and yet push the person on to higher levels of devotion and spirituality."

Danielle Bean relates this about the book, "In Consoling the Heart of Jesus, Michael Gaitley, MIC, makes Ignatian spirituality accessible to the rest of us. He has a true gift for moving even small souls closer to Christ. This book is a flexible retreat, a conversation with Christ, and a personal call to greater holiness. The voice of Christ in these pages is one that even this hopelessly distracted wife and mother of eight could hear and respond to. Reading it has been an enormous blessing to me, one that I treasure and will return to often. If you are a small soul, too, Jesus is speaking to you right now. Read this book - all at once or in small increments as your life allows - and find out what He has to say."

Br. James Curran, LBSF says this, "Remarkable. Beautiful. Simple. May the Lord fill the hearts of those who make this inspired retreat."

High praise indeed :o) It is available from Marian Press in Stockbridge, MA.

Don't forget the FREE family fun day in Omaha this Saturday, Sept. 4 at the Qwest Center, sponsored by the Pope Paul VI Institute. They are celebrating 25 years in Omaha...and I've been going there for 22 of those years! Amazing :o) Hope to see you there! More info can be found here: http://www.popepaulvi.com/celebrate-love-life2.htm