Peg Doll School

The girls and their friends have really enjoyed the Peg Doll Church that we painted.  We are still working on our growing our peg doll collection, but the girls do not seem to mind playing with unfinished peg dolls. Since most parishes have schools attached, the kids wanted their peg church to have school.  Our family does a mixture of home school and Catholic schools.

After a trip to Michaels, I found this "Train Depot"  I liked it because it opened all the way like their church.  The girls like the bench in front for the dolls to wait for the bus.

Since both the girls wanted to paint the school, I took off the hinges and gave them each a side of the "train depot."  I then just let them paint.  I am not a helicopter mom.  I set them up and went to do the dishes.  At the end I did go and fix drips and filled in places that were missed.

  I have to say we have the most colorful school around.

After the school dried for several hours, I put the hinges back on and it was ready for play.  The girls got right to it and set up the school.

They opened up the church so that it looked like they were attached just like at our church.

Girls are working on painting desks and chairs today.

Unclean Spirit

The Gospel readings recently have been about unclean spirits.  These gospels begin to prepare us for Lent and cleansing our own unclean lives.  For Sunday school this week we are going to make a man whose spirits are cleansed.
The  Gospel reading from February 1st :
Mark 1:21-28-
"Then they came to Capernaum,
and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said,
“Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

The Gospel Reading from February 8th:

Mark 1:29-39

"On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

When it was evening, after sunset,
they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases,
and he drove out many demons,
not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Rising very early before dawn, he left 
and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”
So he went into their synagogues,
preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee."

How to achieve this understanding to preschoolers with out scaring them poses quite a challenge.

The research begins for crafts that have already been done.  I went to my favorite sites and blogs and could not find anything.  I did come across a coloring page that talked about unclean spirits.  This coloring page comes from Church House Collection Blog

This gave me the idea that the unclean spirit needed to fly out of the man.  How to achieve this??

I decided to use a toilet paper roll and have the unclean spirit pop out of the top.  And the construction begins.  

I now needed a man drawing that would go around the toilet paper.  After searching Pinterest, I decide to modify a drawing of Joseph from Catholic Icing.   

I then drew an unclean spirit on green felt and glued it to a stick.

Now the unclean spirit can be set out from man.

Celebrating Catholic Homeschool Week

Supporting Catholic Education at home
From 2015

This week is Catholic School weeks.  It has been fun to do new and different activities to support our Catholic Faith at home this week.     The girls and I have painted religious peg dolls, built a church, and added items to Mass kit. On Monday, we went to  Michael’s to buy our supplies for making peg dolls and church. We did some research on Pinterest and Catholic Icing for the Mass kit, stoles, peg dolls, and church.

On Tuesday, we got started painting our church and peg dolls.  We cut our vestments for the priest peg dolls.  It was a lot of fun to see how creative the girls could be.  We added a Paten, white candles, and stoles.  For the paten we spray painted a plastic plate gold.  At Dollar Tree I found 2 white candles for a dollar and a red candle (for our Sanctutary Lamp) that are battery operated.  We painted wooden circles white with gold crosses to use for the hosts. For the stoles we took wide ribbon and cut it to fit the girls and painted gold crosses on them. We already had Sacramentary, Lectionary, Chasuble, chalice, ciborium, Corporal, Pall thanks to a wonderful priest friend Father Phillip.  The boys had made a tabernacle years.

 

On Wednesday, we had a  Homeschool Preschool get together at our house.  Our theme this month was Priest.   We made invitations that look like Priest shirts that we gave to our parish priests and invited them to lunch.   Which one of them  graciously accepted the invitation to come to lunch with a house full of preschooler!  Let’s just say he had  know idea what he was getting himself into when he said “Yes.”  We decorated the house inside and out with pictures of priests taped to streamers.  We put out our pretend (although many items were real) Mass Kit for the kids to play Mass.  We set out our newly painted Church and religious peg dolls.  We asked some priest what their favorite snacks were so that the kids could enjoy a special treat.  It was fun to see how differently the priest view the word "snack".  One priest said he ate medium rare ribeyes.  Well you can imagine that would not go well for a preschool get together, but we did enjoy the humor in it.  The adults enjoy the antipasto from another priest.   The kids enjoyed the Pringles, Cheez-Its, and cashews to round off our priest favorite snacks.

Father Nick arrives: The kids talked Father Nick into saying a pretend Mass with them.  He first explained all the vestments that priests wear  before dressing for the his part as Priest of course.   Elisha dressed as the deacon.  The pretend Mass include a procession with an opening song, prayers, readings and even a homily.  The Mass continued with pretend consecration and distribution of the Eucharist by the kids.   Father Nick concluded with a blessing.   We than ate lunch that was blessed to be highly nutritious by one of the kids.  Father Nick than assisted in the battle against the monsters in basement.  (He  graciously blessed the mess down there)  We were sad see Father Nick  leave but understood he had to get to a meeting.  The kids than made priest peg dolls and played Pin the Collar on the Priest.     We concluded with Bible cookies, P-Reece-hood  blessings,  heart shape cookies.  

The kids than enjoyed pretending Mass, playing church and just hanging out in the basement.  I do have to say the kids left at our house did an amazing job cleaning the basement and thanks to Fr. Nick blessing the basement is cleaner today than it was yesterday.

On Thursday, the girls and I went to Rose Garden Home Mission in Covington to serve Christ.   To serve Christ at Rose Garden is one of our favorite activities to do.  Unfortunately our schedule does not always allow us to serve weekly.

We have not settled on what to do on Friday we went another homeschool family house for lunch to  celebrate  Catholic Education at home!

Mathew 25:35

Season of Blessings
Thanksgiving and Christmas 2014

This week our family has been so blessed to have a true Gospel experience in Mathew 25:35.  Earlier in week Greg and Blake were blessed with being able to speak with a 22 year old man that was homeless.  His car had broken down and gotten towed by police before he got back to it.  He went to get it and was going to cost $150. It took him several weeks to save up $150, when he went back to get to his car they said it had been so long that it would now cost him $400.  He simply stated that he did not even pay that much for his car and walked away.  He was now faced with no car to get work, which lead to him loosing his job.  This is a young man who wants more out of life but now finds himself homeless.

The girls and I also were blessed by God this week to feed a homeless lady. She even choose to eat us with us at Penn Station. She was trying to buy something to eat with $1.50. After I told her I would pay for her lunch, she was so excited jumping up and down that she forgot to order sandwich. While eating with us, she shared how she lives outside but she was worried about her home not being locked and her belongings would be gone. I can only imagine that this means someplace in the alleys of downtown Cincinnati this women calls home. 
She asked me why I choose to get her something to eat as she had not eaten in 3 days. I told her simply Christ said feed the hungry and Christ loves her and does not want her to be hungry. We said our blessing and ate. She had much to say and some of it was just rambling but it was truly a blessing to spend a few minutes with one of Christ hungry children. I do not post this to be prideful but to remind everyone that homeless are Christ people and the next time you see one invite them to eat with you!

Then tonight Mother Seraphinia asked me how I would describe the experience of Rose Garden Mission at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is what I sent her:

Thanksgiving and Christmas experience at Rose Garden is to experience the love of Christ.  You can see the face of Christ in our friends that visit the mission.  Whether it is an elderly man who just wants his wife to be able to have a turkey to fix on Thanksgiving or a mother at Christmas who wants her children to have something under the tree.   Thanksgiving and Christmas at the mission is a time of year like no other where people truly get to experience what these celebrations really mean.   At the mission on these days we live out the Gospel of Matthew 25:35 " 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’  We not only send them home with food, but we have a wonderful hospitality area where they can get shelter from the weather and feed their bodies with drinks and snacks.  This is a place where they can visit with friends and just hang out to experience the Love of Christ.  The helpers who come to assist at the mission on these days are blessed to be able to give to others whether in service, gifts or prayers.  The helpers are able to experience the mission in a different way then they usually do.  They may be working one on one with our mission friends, or sorting food, making food bags, giving out hats, glove, scarves.  They may be working behind the scenes in the back rooms directing giveaway of boxes, or in the kitchen washing dishes.  These days are where we are able to give ourselves to Christ to serve his people.  These are my two favorite days of the whole year.  I find great joy and happiness in serving others for Christ.  For these are his people that need to feel and know his love, we are Christ people to do this for him.

Tonight at Church we had Unbound visiting our church.  Elisha and I picked out a little girl name Jacqueline  from El Salvador.  She was born six days after Elisha.  It is exciting for Elisha to have  a little girl that is same age and interest as her.  Elisha has been looking at her picture and talking about her all night. 

Here we go again...

Here we go Again.... August 2014

As we finished up homeschooling the boys for 8 years, it is exciting to start a new with the girls.  The girls have been busy setting up their classroom with lots of new activities and books.  The boys had named their school St. Thomas, however, the girls have decided to call their school St. Catherine.  It is only fitting that we start a new school year, we call upon another wonderful saint to pray for us.  I believe they chose the name because their favorite cousin is named Catherine. :)  

It has been a lot fun planning out the preschool year for the girls.  We are going to focus on prayers, Saints,going to Mass,letters, and numbers.  We have scheduled lots of play dates around feast days for our friends to come over and celebrate with us.