"Water and the Faith" video

Our oldest son, Fone, was asked to help out at this past weekend's Confirmation retreat to be a table leader and give a speech.  Doh!  Give a speech?  He was super nervous to do that.  Get up there in front of a room of teens and give a speech?  Not quite ready yet.  Play the piano?   No problem!  But a speech - nah!  However, he LOVES making videos - this is "his thing".  Well, his and his brother's "thing" - Mario and Fone have been making videos for a while now.  So, he hopped on this video right away and covered his topic and the outline very well.  And, without further ado, presenting "Water and the Faith"....

Wordless Wednesday

Celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas

We sure had fun carrying on the tradition of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas this year!  What fun it is to live liturgically!!  :)

Here's a peek at our Twelve Days...

First day

Second day

Third day

Fourth Day

Fifth Day

Sixth Day

Seventh Day

Eighth Day

Ninth Day

Tenth Day

Eleventh Day

Twelfth Day

We'll most likely keep celebrating by listening to Christmas music and keeping up our decorations (including our tree) until February 2nd, which is Candlemas.

++Thank you, Lord, for the joy and fun and memories made by living liturgically!++

New Year, new you!

Do you have any goals for 2016?

Any family goals?

Any goals for your kids?

My goals:  
1.  Light Weigh eating - would love to drop a pants size!
2.  Exercise more - goal of 10,000 steps daily and maybe try to break a sweat a couple times a week (ugh!  busy mom syndrome = hard to make time for self)
3.  Good spiritual reading (like written by authors whose name start with Saint)
4.  Daily examination of conscience (need to measure all my goals somehow, eh?)
5.  REST more!  Seriously, this should be moved to #1.  I am such a busy-body-never-sit-down-type-of-person.  And, I need to take more time to just REST, reflect, and pray!

My kids' goals (although kinda forced, I mean, suggested):

Mean ole mom, am I!  I've already had to refer to this list multiple times and we're only 6 days in.  Oy!

Happy Epiphany!!!

Today we celebrate Epiphany!!  

We went to Epiphany Mass on Saturday night as a family, but we still celebrated Epiphany as a family and the three wise men reaching Jesus today.  We've had three sweet little wise men searching all Advent long and even after Christmas for the star that would lead them to baby Jesus.  And today, they reached their destination.  This has been a fun tradition that we have done the last couple years now - it's called Wise Men Adventures.  (a great alternative to the Elf on the Shelf).

Today we set out our favorite Epiphany books, the Wise Men's gifts, and our adorable Humphrey, whom we all just adore.  The Humphrey book captured our hearts years ago and we all just love him to pieces!!!

Our kids normally get 3 presents from us on this day as well, since Jesus himself received the three gifts from the wise men.  However, we kinda did some group gifts this year just to simplify things a tad.  The kids got a family gift called Osmo, a fun new board game to play as a family and some boats to play with and take to an upcoming trip to an indoor waterpark (squeee!).

++Lord, help us to always keep searching for and finding You throughout our lives.  Help us always keep our eyes and hearts and lives fixed on You!++

A Minion birthday party

Sweet Pookey turned 6 just a few days before Christmas last year, so very long ago, eh?  Hee hee!  ;)

He had his first real birthday party, although it was only a cousin party.  But it's still a great crowd of boys and we all know how "cousins can make the best of friends".  When our kids turn 7, that's when they get to invite friends.  So Pookey has to wait one more year for that one.

Here's a look at all the fun we had....

~~DECORATIONS~~

**Yellow and Blue streamers 

**Yellow balloons (decorated with Minion eyes and drawn in mouths)

~~FOOD~~

**Minion Corn Dogs (mini corn dogs)

**Minion Applesauce

**Agnes' caterpillars

**lemonade (any YELLOW drink will do!)

**corn (had to throw in a  YELLOW veggie, right?)

~~GAMES/ACTIVITIES~~

**Minion Treasure (egg) Hunt

 

**Pin the Banana on the Minion

**Minion tattoos

**Minion coloring pages

**Bob Says (just like Simon Says)

**Goodie bags (for each boy to take home) - filled with Minion fruit snacks, Minion pencils, Minion tatoos and stickers, coloring pages, and candy

********************************************************

And, a BIG thanks to our awesome helpers - my son, Mario, and two of my sweet nephews!!!   They ran the the party!  Aren't big kids just great?!!!

2015 Christmas Video Card

We wanted to try something new this year and put our Funny Boys' video-making skills to use and create a Christmas Video Card.  The boys (Mario especially) worked hard on all of this, with only a few suggestions/ideas from Mom and Dad.

Enjoy....

May God bless you abundantly this Christmas season and over the New Year too!!