Our church throws the best parties for families. What a wonderful blessing it is, especially all the kids, to feel loved and appreciated by their church family. Well, there's no doubt, our church has this down. For Mardi Gras, not only did they feed us dinner (moms especially love this when they get the night off of cooking!), but they have a variety of games/activities for all ages to play....
BINGO - for adults and older kids (our bigger kids played this practically all night)
Showdown - for adults
Pick a duck from the pool
Coloring
Crafts
Tattoos
Fishing
Cookie decorating
Ring toss
Bean bag toss
Love my little leftie!!
My sweet sister came with her two youngest kids and carried this little guy around the whole night and helped him play the games. Wasn't that sweet?
Yoda got his first temporary tattoo but wasn't too particularly thrilled with it though....
++Thank you God for the enjoyment of the FEAST before the FAST and a church family that loves kids and families and knows how to support and encourage them!!++
Two days of Lent have came and have passed. Only 38 days left, eh? How are you doing? Holding strong to all those commitments you have made? Me? ....I'm already WAY behind. WAY behind our normal every year plans, anyways. But I'm right on schedule with what He wants us to be doing so far this year.
You see, we've been celebrating Lent in our domestic church here for many years and we've developed many traditions. We have kept almost all of them, and have added a new one every couple years. So it adds up to a lot of things that we do. A lot of things to get set up and started all at once. This year, I've just let things happen slower. Other years, I have had things all ready the weekend before Ash Wednesday, so when that day hits everything is good to go. I can't even tell you why I didn't do that this year, other than God has allowed a slower beginning. And, that's ok. I'm fine with that....
We have our Crown of Thorns on our table and many thorns have already been removed. We even had a sweet friend's daughters come over and we made one for their family. (my dear friend is on semi-bed rest because her babe-in-womb is attempting to make an early arrival, and while people sign up to bring meals to help, I"m better at providing on the "soul-food" end. Hence the Crown of Thorns for them to guide them in their Lenten path)
But here's where I am at with setting up our Lenten REPENT cross and printed calendars and handprints... (so touched though when the four big kids took the time on their own to create lists of their Lenten plan, since I didn't have the cross and hands ready to go)
Our devotions and books? Got it down and I'm two for two with the Pope Francis daily devotionaland writing our plans on our whiteboard. Haven't even started the Pope Francis Mercy bookyet though - doh! Cramming will be happening this weekend as our actual study group starts meeting next week....
Our Jesus Tree? Have it hung, but haven't even dug our beautiful felt ornaments out from the basement yet. Gosh, I sure hope I can find where I hid them from myself from last year's Lent... ++St. Anthony, please intercede!++
I am Skirting It Up for Lent again this year. Kinda last minute, might I add. I did this two years ago and really wasn't planning on it this year, but on Ash Wednesday morning a Sweet Whisper encouraged me to do so. So I gave my fiat and will act in obedience. Two of my girls also agreed to join me on this one. Here we are for our first two days...
(and just a warning, although I will be posting and sharing pics for accoutability on FB and IG, many of my outfits will be repeats, as my wardrobe is pretty limited and simple. I'm just not a fancy girl...)
Our Stations posters had to be replaced this year. And they... well... are still in the package, waiting to be hung. And prayed. (we try to pray this a couple times each week, marching around the house with flashlights in hand and with the lights off/dimmed - such a neat tradition!!)
And there are SO many awesome Lent videos out there to watch that I haven't even turned on yet for the kids, nor watched myself...
And, this is all okay! Why? Because we are not perfect. Nor expected to be perfect.
We "are dust and to dust" we "shall return"
We give our yes, our fiat, on Ash Wednesday to walk with Him throughout these forty days. With open hearts, we give to Him our imperfections, our failings, trusting He will shine forth His own Life within us even brighter and bring us to an even closer Life with Him. He can do amazing things just by our willing, obedient, and joyful openness of our heart, mind and will.
You have been a blessing to us for these past 8 years. Here are 8 (of the many) things that we love about you!
You are silly (Rose)
You are a mini-me and likes to play nerf wars with me. (Mario)
You always likes to play with me (Ariel)
Your pretty baby blue eyes and your happy, content, joy filled personality (Momma)
You let me tickle you (Melody)
You like to spend time with me and do lots of things with me (Pookey)
You like similar video games as me and you play them with me (Fone)
You always have a positive outlook at things, almost nothing can get you down. (Dad)
Here's a look at all the fun we had with you this past year, buddy!! We are so blessed to have you in our lives!!!
Loving God, you created all the people of the world and you know each of us by name. We thank you for "Max", who is celebrating his birthday today. Bless him with your love and friendship that he may grow in wisdom, knowledge, and grace. May he love his family always and be faithful to his friends. Amen.
***We can't wait to celebrate with you for your Middle Ages birthday party, while you and your Knight friends rescue the Princess from the deadly dragon!! Stay tuned....***
This coming April will mark my 5th year blogging. So, I'm not quite there yet. But, man, to keep up with this for 4+ is a pretty good thing! I wanted to share about WHY I started blogging, where I am NOW, the trap I can fall into so easily as a blogger, and WHERE I am headed....
Back in 2011, I had 6 six kids 9 years and under. I was struggling just to feed them 3 meals a day, keep diapers changed, keep the house somewhat tidy and clean (as much as it can be with that many bodies living in it!) and school four kids at that time. Did I just say "school" them? Yes, I am one of "those" - those CrAzY moms who homeschools her kids. And I LOVE it! Love that I get to help them learn to read. And add and multiply. And write and form sentences. Learn about other lands and cultures. Learn about the beauty of life and creation and our bodies. I especially love that I get to teach the most important subject - faith! Our beautiful Catholic faith! From the moment our babies would sit in my lap, I would be reading and flipping through books with them on our faith - Bible stories and saint picture books galore! Prayers throughout the day would just become a normal part of their life. Life was as perfect as perfect could be. Except.... that it was going TOO STINKIN' FAST! I couldn't hardly remember what happened the day before, let alone the week before or the year before! My momma brain was on overload, not to mention all those brain cells lost during pregnancy times 6 (oy!). I wanted our kids to have a way to remember their lives. Look back on all the fun we had in the normalcy of our day to day lives. And, yeah the big stuff too. But just remember what it was like living and staying at home all day long with all their siblings. And their goofey mom. I read many blogs at that time, for inspiration in our faith and also for homeschooling ideas. And many of these blogs had pictures that would highlight exactly those memories I was wanting to make and keep with my own young crew. So, I gave it a shot. I went to blogger.com and started my own special corner on the internet and so began Raising Young Ones!!
Where am I today? Still blogging. Although sporadically! I try to hit birthdays and do pretty good at those. It sure is becoming easy and more familiar. I try to blog about major holidays and feast days when I get around too it. A fun craft or 7 Quick Takes on Fridays. I especially love my Wordless Wednesday because it's such an easy post - no words!! No other real consistency. No other real inspiration. Just keep on keeping on with what I started back almost 5 years now.
Where am I going? This is something I ask myself all too often. I can easily get down on myself when I see that I get barely any comments. No shares on FB. Even friends that have blogs don't even have my boring ole blog on their blog rolls. (I must be "that bad") I see all these other flashy blogs with regular posts and the conversations seem to just keep going in the comments. You can tell their blogging has became a gift to others. And that's when I get down. Does my blog even reach anyone? Does anyone even read it? Does anyone even care? I am very thankful for the sweet comments I do get from friends who say that they "love keeping in touch" with our family through our blog. And this really does touch me and mean a lot. But they don't seem to come very often. And, I keep falling into that trap of seeing all those popular or more-popular-than-I bloggers and how I am falling short....
And, then this happens....
(Ariel reading our 2014 blog book - my hubby prints our my blog every year - it's my way of "scrapbooking")
(Pookey checking out one of the latest blog posts and cackling as he watches his older brothers' newest Funny Boys videos)
And, this is that reminder I need to KEEP GOING! Keep plugging away! In my ever-so-inconsistent-whenever-I-get-to-chance-to-post kind of way! I'm not much of a writer. I don't have a superior vocabulary. I'm just a normal mom, wanting to use this gift of blogging to keep memories of the day in and day out of our lives! Finding the kids reading my blog and our blog book, makes me realize that my reason for starting and continuing blogging is and was a success!!
And when I can't blog because I'm chasing kids and grading Geometry proofs and listening to a 6 year old sound out letters to make words, I'll enjoy the quick easy posting of a picture here and there on Instagram and have my Chatbooks mailed to me regularly to add to my yearly blog book...
Thank you for reading this and supporting me here at Raising Young Ones blog!
A BIG shout out to my 9 favorite fans/readers - my 8 beautiful kids and my sweet husband!! This is all done for YOU GUYS!! Love you bunches!!
