St Valentine's Day

"The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host." 

~ Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

How true that is!!  Where would we be without Our Lord?  How blessed we are to have the ultimate gift given to each of us in the gift of the Eucharist.  May we each center our lives around Jesus and keep our focus always on him.  

How blessed we are to have so many reasons as Catholics to celebrate and St. Valentine's Day is one of those days.  Here's some of our fun from this year's celebration....

St. Valentine's Day party...

"Somebody loves me!"  

~Yoda

(valentine made by his cousin)

Pookey won one of the candy guessing games.   

The Greatest Love of All is found within the Sacred Heart of Jesus!  

Treating his ladies right!!

(he also brought home Mexican take out for me!)

++St. Valentine, pray for us!++

Ramblings on Tuesday

Hi there!

Some thoughts on this lovely Valentine's Day....

• We've been sick.  With the stomach bug.  Ugh!  Well, at least 9 of out the 11 of us.  And if you count other sickness (colds too), then all 11 of us have had something over the last week and a half.  And to put it nicely, I'm totally SICK and tired of being sick and taking care of and cleaning up after sick people.  sigh....   It is only by grace that I survive days like this.  

++All for You, Lord!++

• Today is Day 2 of my 90 Day Nineveh Challenge that I'm taking part in.  Like I shared, I have switched things up a bit for me.  As a mom of 9, I'm stretched WAY thin in so many areas already, I wasn't going to force upon myself even more intense penances.  And, yes, I *need* some sugar every once in a while - so I'm allowing myself dessert once a day and one sweet drink too (either sweetened coffee or a pop).  My challenge probably looks a lot different than priests, older individuals, those called to the single life, and moms who don't homeschool, moms who don't have a crazy number of kids like me too.  And that's ok.  God can call us each differently to sacrifice for Him.  My schedule is planned 100% by kids.  I get to drink cold coffee daily because of the zillion distractions of parenting that don't allow me to sit and drink it hot or even warm!  We pray the Angelus at 9am and 1:30pm because "it's noon somewhere", right?  So, yeah, it's not perfect at all.  But as I found out long ago, "nothing is perfect except for God".  Are you taking part in the Nineveh 90 Challenge?  How's it going for you??  

• Valentine's Day - As a Catholic, my heart is warmed so much seeing all these people celebrating a saint's feast day today and they don't even know it!!  I'm seeing posts and pictures all over about valentines and flowers and chocolates and many more acts of love, and little do these people know, they are celebrating the life of St. Valentine with us Catholics!!!  And, speaking of valentines, here are some of my sweeties, jammies and all, with a little valentine surprise from Neil and I this morning.  No big boys though - they were still in bed getting their beauty sleep!  ;)

++St. Valentine, pray for us!++   

• And there's nothing so precious like a daddy loving a baby, gooing and gahing at her and making her coo and smile!!  I fall in love with Neil ten times over every time I find this happening....

• For some more good news, after the grumpy children Wordless Wednesday post last week - I think the ground hog was wrong!  We have had SO many days in the 50s and 60s lately and here's the upcoming forecast and a quick snap of my 5 boys running around outside today....

God bless you and love you always!!  

Thanks for reading and stopping by!! 

And please do share and comment on some of your ramblings and what God is doing in your life right now....

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!!

(you can find these funny Catholic Valentines at A Blog for my Mom)

Happy feast of Saint Valentine's Day!!  

We did most of our celebrating last week, as our homeschooling group threw a Valentine's Day party a few days before the actual feast.  It was great fun for us all!!

Fone and Mario are now "too old" to take part in the Valentine's card trading, but they still came along to hang out with their buddies.  Melody, Ariel, Max, Pookey and Rose all were thrilled to take part in both the Valentine card trading and all the games/activities.  Here's a look at them with their decorated boxes and the Valentine's they chose...

**Rose's box and Valentines**

**Pookey's box and Valentines**

**Max's box and Valentines**

**Ariel's box and Valentines**

**Melody's box and Valentines**

Our homeschooling party was great fun and had so many games/activities for the kids to play and enjoy...

• Read a story about the life of St Valentine
• Pin the kiss on the frog
• Hopscotch
• Coloring 
• Crafts
• Bean bag toss
• Throwing through the hoop game
• Valentine card trading

This was day 2 of Skirting it up for Lent...

(so far both Ariel and Rose want to take part too and wear skirts with me)

++Saint Valentine, pray for us!++