Advent Update and O Antiphons {Free printable!}

Enjoying "Holiday on Main Street" despite the frigid temperature!

As Advent flies by (doesn't it always?!), I haven't had much time for blogging, but I wanted to squeeze in a quick post!  I've been trying to fit as much fun as we can into this short Advent season, while being careful to maintain balance and avoid over-commitment (always a challenge, that one little word--balance).  A head-cold the kids had last week forced us all to slow down and do the simple at-home stuff we love best.  We read lots of Christmas stories, drank hot cocoa, watched Christmas movies and made simple crafts.  Every year I seem to need the reminder that it's not about how much we do, but the quality of what we do that matters most.  (I guess I have a short memory!)  Fun no longer feels very...well, fun when it's jam-packed into teeny tiny time slots, like sardines in a can.

But we have managed to fit in some activities we love to do each year.  We trimmed the tree.  We've prayed around the Advent wreath each night (ok...well most nights!).  We saw some amazing gingerbread houses on display.  We celebrated St. Nicholas Day and St. Lucia.  We did some RACKing--taping quarters to parking meters and popcorn to Red Box machines.  The kids have been placing "Sneaky Art" around stores whenever we shop!  Life is good.

Megan all dressed up for St. Lucia Day

Our St. Lucia Feast :)

As Advent nears its final days, I wanted to share these free printable O antiphon ornaments I made.  You can print, color and mount them to cardstock to make ornaments, glue them to wooden blocks...or whatever else you feel inspired to do!  My kids love coloring them and hanging them on our paper Jesse tree.  We also incorporate them into our evening prayer time, starting on December 17th, by praying the corresponding prayer each day and singing the appropriate verse of O Come of Come Emmanuel.  It's simple to do, and a fun way to build the excitement as we celebrate the final days of Advent.  They also blend beautifully with the Jesse Tree stories, which is a neat bonus.

This is what your print-outs should look like.  Just color and cut.

O Antiphons Page 1 of 2 

O Antiphons Page 2 of 2

Click on the links above, and you should be able to print the ornament pages from Google Docs.  They are Microsoft Word documents.  If you're looking for O Antiphon prayers, these are great to say together as a family.  In that same link, you can also read about how the Benedictine monks arranged the O antiphons to spell "Ero Cras"--tomorrow I will come.  Amazing.  And here you can find the corresponding verses of O Come O Come Emmanuel to sing.

Our simple paper Jesse Tree

Some of our favorite Christmas read-alouds

I hope you're having a blessed Advent.  If you use the printables I'd love to see what you create!  Please feel free to share!

Celebrate St. Martin of Tours {Free Martinmas Lantern Printable!}

Today is Martinmas (the feast day of St. Martin of Tours)!  St. Martin was a Roman soldier (and later became a Bishop) born in 316 A.D. He was forced into the military when he was quite young.  He is most well known for the famous story in which he encountered a beggar on a cold wintery day.  Filled with compassion for this shivering man, Martin cut his cloak in half, giving part of it to the beggar.  Later that night he dreamed that the beggar was Jesus himself.

In many countries, Martinmas is celebrated by children processing with paper lanterns at night. They sing songs, receive candy and build bonfires as well.  To honor this tradition, I thought it would be fun to make a paper lantern printable for children to cut, color and light (using an artificial candle, that is!). Today, the feast of St. Martin coincides with Veterans Day, which is nice since he is the patron saint of soldiers.  There is a prayer for soldiers included on one of the panels of the lantern, which would be nice to pray this evening.

Below is the printable.  Simply click on the link and you will be directed to Google Docs:

St. Martin of Tours Printable Lantern

 (The printable is a microsoft word document)

Here is how to assemble your lantern:

1.  After printing (and coloring!) your lantern, cut and discard top section of page along thick black "scalloped" lines.   

2. Fold lantern into 4 vertical sections along dotted lines.  Cut along folded lines from the bottom up to the solid line.  This will create 4 flaps that will become the bottom of your lantern.

3. Fold bottom flaps along solid lines, placing glue on the inner bottom of each flap (I used glue stick).  Place one flap on top of the other, holding in place for a few second to let glue dry.

4. Place tape along the opening of the lantern walls to close remaining gap.  Your lantern is now complete and ready to illuminate!

5.  If you want your lantern to have a handle (nice for children to process with!), simply cut a thin strip of paper, cardstock or ribbon, and tape across any 2 opposite walls of the lantern.

6.  Place a battery-operated artificial tea light candle inside and enjoy the pretty luminary you made!

And remember to say the pray in honor of our soldiers this Veterans Day! 

Happy Martinmas!

Easter with the Family {with Divine Mercy Printable!}

We had a lovely Easter weekend, albeit very busy! It was all baskets, lilies, egg hunts, ham with potato salad and family fun! We didn't get to do everything we had planned (e.g. resurrection rolls and coloring eggs will have to happen sometime over the next few weeks! Ooops!) but what we did fit in was wonderful. Here are some of the highlights of our weekend:

Easter baskets!

Luke goin' straight for the chocolate! :) (Smart kid!)

This picture cracks me up. It's totally blurry but I just love Adam's sheer joy over the prospect of chocolate for breakfast!

Megan about to dive into her bunny as well!

The kids had memorized this poem over the past couple of weeks, so they were reciting it and laughing as they devoured their hollow bunnies:

Patience

Chocolate Easter bunny
In a jelly bean nest,
I'm saving you for very last
Because I love you best.
I'll only take a nibble
From the tip of your ear
And one bite from the other side
So that you won't look queer.
Yum, your'e so delicious!
I didn't mean to eat
Your chocolate tail till Tuesday.
Ooops! There go your feet!
I wonder how your back tastes
With all that chocolate hair.
I never thought your tummy
Was only filled with air!
Chocolate Easter bunny
In a jelly bean nest,
I'm saving you for very last
Because I love you best.

-Bobbie Katz

The kids really enjoyed the "family basket" as well. This butterfly finger puppet is really fun to use! The wings look very realistic as they flap!

Egg hunt #1 of 2!

Adam and Megan completely exhausted from not enough sleep but loving every minute of Easter fun! :)

ready for more partying!

More Easter egg hunting...

The boys had a blast making this HUGE block tower with the family!


That about wraps up our weekend! We've also been enjoying our Garden of the Good Shepherd calendar this week. We've been reading lots of stories about sheep, shepards and wolves including:

We also plan to make "popsicle stick sheepfold gates" later this week (no photo since we haven't made them yet! Sorry!) and hopefully wolf paw cookies, thanks to this wonderful idea from Catholic Cuisine:

photo source

We're planning a trip to Old Sturbridge Village next week to visit the newly born lambs! Can't wait for that!


Since Divine Mercy Sunday is fast approaching, I also wanted to share a coloring sheet I made:

Divine Mercy Chaplet Coloring Sheet

I designed this so little ones can color one bead at a time throughout the entire chaplet. It's a nice way to involve kids and keep them focused during prayer time! Maybe they could alternate decades using red and blue? I wanted to post this before holy week so you could start using it on Good Friday if you've been praying the novena, but it just didn't happen. Sorry! But at least I posted it before Divine Mercy Sunday! :) Feel free to print and use as many as you like.

I hope your family has been enjoying the Easter season so far!

shared with:

Catholic Icing

Make an Easter Story Wreath {free printables!}

Inspired by the Easter Story Wreath I saw at Oriental Trading (pictured below), I thought it'd be fun to draw my own version for kids to color, cut and assemble!




I wanted to include Pentecost in my wreath (it's not included in the one above) and also add scripture verses to make it tell the Easter story in better detail. (And by-the-way, I really didn't care for the "happy hippy" Jesus in their wreath--I mean, he's SMILING during the agony in the garden? Really?) So anyway, here is my own version of an Easter Story Wreath. Please feel free to print as many as you like! There are three documents to print (2 image docs and one scripture egg doc).




To assemble the wreath simply print, color and cut out the images. For a wreath base I used a large circle (approx. 11 1/2 " in diameter) cut from a 12" x 12" piece of cardstock:




I arranged the pictures to "tell" the story from Palm Sunday (starting on the top right) through Pentecost (placed in the top center). If you're interested in making this wreath I'm sure you're already very familiar with the order of the events, but I will go ahead and list them just in case:

1. Jesus enters Jerusalem (palm branch and donkey pictures)

2. The Last Supper (bread and wine pictures)

3. Jesus Prays in Gethsemane (praying hands picture)

4. Jesus is Crucified (cross picture)

5. Resurrection (empty tomb picture)

6. Ascension (Jesus in clouds picture)

7. Holy Spirit Comes Down (dove and flames pictures)




Here is an example of an assembled wreath will look like:


I overlapped some of the pictures on top of each other to make them fit nicely--feel free to arrange them however you like! Glue stick or Glue Dots work well to affix the pictures to the wreath base.

 You can print the wreath images by clicking on the links below:


Easter Wreath Pictures Page 1 of 3 (Microsoft doc)

Easter Wreath Pictures page 2 of 3 (Microsoft doc)

Easter Wreath Pictures page 3 of 3 (Microsoft doc)


NOTE: Some people have mentioned that their scripture eggs are printing out blank.  If you experience this, you can try editing the document to re-arrange the order of the "egg shape" to send it to the back.  This has fixed the issue for most people.  I hope that helps.

If you are still unable to print the eggs with scripture in them, you can also print the text separately and simply cut and paste it onto the blank eggs.  Below is the document with the scripture verses by themselves:

 Scripture Verses TEXT ONLY (microsoft doc)


I hope this wreath helps make the Easter season more meaningful for your family!

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Catholic Icing

Works for Me Wednesday

Family Prayer Jar for Easter {free printables!}

One of the ways our family enjoys celebrating the different liturgical seasons is by using a family prayer jar. I've been putting together sets of prayers to be used for each season, so I thought I'd share our set of 50 Easter prayers with you:

Click link below to print the word document from Google Docs:

50 Family Prayer Jar Prayers for the Easter Season

These prayers can be used in several different ways. You can use one prayer each day as a family so the jar will be empty by Pentecost, or you can read several a day dropping them back in to be used all throughout the Easter season. Another way to use these is to print them out on pretty scrapbook paper linking them together to form a paper chain, taking one down each day (much like and Advent wreath paper chain). The chain makes a nice visual aid to see how many days of the Easter season remain. If you go the jar route you can either use one all-season jar or you can decorate several jars for each liturgical season, for an extra festive look. (For a set of Lenten prayers, you can click here.)

Our Easter family prayer jar

Easter Prayer Chain

These prayers are a fun way to involve kids and make each liturgical season feel festive and unique. My kids really look forward to using our jar each night! The prayers also would work well used in conjunction with my printable Easter calendar.

free printable Easter calendar

I'm putting the finishing touches on a set of jar prayers for Ordinary Time, so come back to print your completed set!

I hope these prayers help make your Easter season special! Many blessing to you and your family this Easter!

Sharing With:

Catholic Icing

Works for Me Wednesday