Our Lenten Journey (2015)

Lent has started! It's almost the second Sunday of Lent and I praise and thank God for the wisdom and grace He has given me and my family to continue our Lenten family traditions and to start new ones.

I consider this is a miracle because I have a newborn baby whom I breastfeed on demand. I thank God for sustaining me and giving me energy to lead our devotions and activities. I thank God also that it seems that my two older boys are enjoying our activities.

Let me share what we have started so far. 

Ash Wednesday was a full day in our home.

We changed the curtains and throw pillow cases changed into lavender. We also changed the cover of our altar into the same color.

  

My eldest son made Lenten banners.

My two older kids made the Alleluia banner and hid it.

I asked my eldest son to write "From: Jesus" in the gift tag
and on the opposite side of it, "salvation" and "eternal life."

We started using the Lenten calendar I printed the day before. For alternative Lenten Calendar ideas, click here.

Lenten Calendar from Catholic Icing blog.

The kids dropped coins on our alms box (a cereal box turned into a coin box covered with purple paper and with the word ALMS written on it).

I declared that for the entire season of Lent, our family will fast on our favorite dessert: ice cream and chocolates. So on the night before Ash Wednesday, my husband and I had a brief Valentine date at a nearby ice cream store. ;)

We've started observing the abstinence of meat on prescribed days like Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent. I put to use the 4-week Cycle Menu Plan for Lent that I made . Click here to go to my post about meatless Fridays of Lent.

And since we love music, we started reviewing and singing songs usually sang during Lent. Last week, my eldest son who can play the piano oido and who is starting to learn how to read notes learned how to play the song Hosea.

We went to Mass on Ash Wednesday and had ashes on our foreheads.



It's our baby's first Ash Wednesday!

As part of our new Lenten tradition, I have started reading the Bible or Bible stories from the kids' Children's Bible over breakfast. Then, I reinforce with a bit of storytelling as well when I read from my Bible.

After our storytelling and Bible reading, I sometimes ask the kids to make a drawing based on the story that they just heard. Sometimes, I ask them to color coloring pages about the stories that I told them. I also ask my eldest son to answer some worksheets related to our topics. Sometimes, he answers word searches, mazes, questions or fill in the blanks worksheets. I search the internet for ideas. I also get some help from the Holy Heroes site for inspiration and activities. I choose only what I think my kids are ready to do at this time/age.

Just like in the past, I reinforce these lessons and stories by letting them watch some videos on our topics/Bible heroes/characters. One of the recent videos I let them watch is about the 10 Commandments.

The kids so far are enjoying these activities. I hear them a lot talking about the Bible characters and stories we have discussed so far. Sometimes, these stories become the theme of their pretend plays. 

We have also resumed our night prayers as a family. For a while we just listen to the kids say their night prayers in the past months after I gave birth then we send them to bed to sleep. This Lent, we started praying again with them after they say their night prayers.

Lent is indeed a season of grace and I thank God for His grace that is new every morning. His grace is what enables us to keep on keeping on in our faith walk. It's what enables us to be faithful even after we fall and make mistakes along the way. It's His grace that reminds us of His unconditional and steadfast love. It's His grace that gives me encouragement to continuously strive to be more like Him in all things, especially in parenting my kids.

This year, I do not have a new verse to guide me throughout my Lenten journey. I have decided to stick to the verse that I adapted years ago. I believe that I need to be reminded of this verse a lot so I can grow closer to living it out. My verse for Lent again this year is: "Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

I pray that God would continue to bless the rest of our Lenten journey.

7 Valentine Activities You Can Do with Your Kids

Less than a week to go before Valentine's Day! Are you still thinking of activities that you can do with your kids?

Let me share 7 simple but meaningful activities that you can do even with small children. 

 

 

1. Valentine's Day Countdown - I got this inspiration from Catholic Icing but I modified it. We started our Valentine countdown last February 1. I chose 14 Bible verses about love (with the help of Google and my own Bible) that I want our family to focus on this month of love. Then, I printed the verses in pink bond paper and my eldest cut the paper into strips, folded them into two and taped them with masking tape to form a chain. Once the 14 strips were made into a long chain, I cut a pink ribbon and attached it to a heart-shaped pink board (that I cut as well). I taped it at the back of the door of our master's bedroom. What we do is get 1 heart from the countdown chain every night after evening Mass, read it and try to memorize it. Then, we stick it on the door. Our goal and challenge this month is to memorize all 14 Bible verses about love. Aside from reading the verse several times and memorizing the verse for the day, my husband and I also try to explain the meaning of the verses to our kids.

These are the verses on love that we have read so far.

John 3:16
1 John 4:7
Mark 12:31
Deuteronomy 6:5
1 John 4:16
John 13:34
Luke 6:35
1 Peter 4:8
1 John 3:13

You can still do this activity starting tonight or Thursday this week.

 

 

After this activity, we proceed to our next Valentine activity.
 

2. Q and A on how we expressed love and felt loved - Every night, we tell each other how we felt loved by the different members of our family. It's a good exercise to teach kids that there are different ways of showing love. Through this activity, our eldest son is slowly learning how to show love in many different ways. I remember one night when he said that one way he showed love to his younger brother was when he accompanied him to the bathroom to wash his hands even though he was annoyed that it takes his younger brother a while before he is done. I praised him for doing that and emphasized that love is doing something good to another even when you don't like it. Our 3-year-old is still a bit challenged by this exercise. His concept of love is still limited to hugs and kisses as of now even though we have explained to him the different love languages. hehe That or he is simply a physical touch person! ;)

 

 

3. Love Poster - The boys and I made a love poster inspired by the Bible verse "If you love me, you will obey my commands." They helped glue the pink hearts. My eldest wrote the verse on top of the poster.

I told them that every time they obey me, they can draw a flower inside "my heart" and they can draw a smiling face inside their "Daddy's heart" every time they obey him this month. I thought of this activity to further emphasize the virtue of obedience to my little boys.

4. Valentine Card-Making Activity - This is a yearly tradition in our home. I lead the boys in painting or crafting cards each year. This morning, we finished making cards for their grandparents, for my brother and for our pianist in the church who inspires my boys a lot! First, I cut hearts out of a white board then asked them to paint on them using watercolor. They chose the colors that they wanted to use on their works of heart. ;) After letting them dry, I put some glitter glue on the hearts and glued them to folded papers. Then, my eldest wrote messages on them and signed them. My 3-year-old wrote his name beside his older brother's name. So, that was our arts and crafts project for today with writing and spelling practice.

 

The Valentine card made by our boys for me and my husband today (February 11).
They each painted a heart. The blue one was painted by my 3-year-old
and the pink and purple one by my 6-year-old.

 

 

5. Valentine-themed Worksheets - Since we are a homeschooling family, I incorporated Valentine's Day lessons into our activities. My eldest has just finished answering some Math and English worksheets. My youngest started coloring a Valentine-themed Math worksheet also the other day. There are many that you can find in the internet. Just choose what is appropriate for your kids' current needs and interests. We got some of our worksheets from Education.com.

 

 

6. One-to-One Dates - We will be going out on one-to-one dates this week. There's an ice cream store near our house where I plan to bring each of my boys this week. It's just a few minutes away so perfect for when my newborn baby needs to breastfeed from me. Our maid can just go there and inform me that the baby needs me.

Took this photo during my Valentine date with my eldest son this afternoon (February 11).
We had ice cream at the park then had a light snack here in this place.

My handsome little Valentine today, February 12.

7. Book-Giving - Last but not the least, I will be giving my boys a book as a gift on Valentine's Day since we love books and it's International Book-Giving Day. I have a perfect book in mind already. I hope there is still a copy available in the bookstore of A Little Boy After God's Own Heart. This book was written by one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth George. I believe that this book is something they could reread over the years and grow up with. I pray that they would grow up to be boys with hearts burning for love of God.

What activities do you plan to do with your family this week or this month? Feel free to share them with me in the comments. Advance Happy Valentine's Day to you!

How Our Family Followed the Example of the Magi

Our family had another meaningful and fun celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord yesterday. It's our second time to celebrate it in our new home but it's our first time to celebrate it with our new baby, our third son. This made it more fun because we now have three boys who remind us of the three kings or three wise men from the East.

We had similar activities as in the previous years but with a couple of modifications. You may read about our previous celebrations here. This was our way of continuing our family tradition every year on the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord and at the same time engage the kids to be involved and to learn about our faith in a fun and memorable way.

 

Our first activity was reading a book about the shepherds and kings who followed the Star of Bethlehem to see the Newborn King.

 

I made crowns for our three boys while my husband read them the story. I cut out the colored papers for their crowns then I asked our two older boys to decorate their crowns by tracing circles using a coin and coloring these with crayons. These colored circles will be the precious stones on their crowns.

 

 

Our next activity was the making of the Star of Bethlehem. I cut out a bond paper in the shape of a four-point star then I asked my second child to color it with a yellow crayon. At first he was eager to color the cut out but he got tired eventually so I had to help him finishing coloring our star by holding his hand.

 

 

This activity was followed by a song teaching activity wherein the boys learned a song about the three kings. I asked my husband to show the boys some videos in You Tube of this song.

 

While the boys were learning the song and practicing it, I wrapped the gifts that they will give to our new neighbor who became their playmates. 

 

After lunch and after their bath, I dressed them up and helped them wear their crowns so they can go to our neighbor's house and bring their gift. My husband carried our baby who also wore a crown while the two boys walked carrying their gifts. Once in our neighbor's garage, our eldest sang the song We Three Kings. Then, they gave their gifts to their playmates who are also two brothers. Incidentally, the younger brother was celebrating his 4th birthday also yesterday. We were all very happy to find that out. I felt that we were truly led to bring gifts to them yesterday.

 

 

When our eldest son woke up from his nap, I asked him to answer some worksheets about the Feast of the Epiphany which I found in the internet.

 

 

On our way to the church to hear Mass, my eldest son also had an interesting observation that he shared with all of us last night. He said that we went to our next door neighbor's house to deliver gifts to them because there's a star hanging on their balcony just like the star on top of the stable in Bethlehem.

 

I enjoyed listening to the priest's homily last night. It was informative and insightful at the same time. First, he discussed the meaning of the gifts. Then, he encouraged us to follow the example of the Magi who sought the Lord (by following the Star of Bethlehem), brought him gifts (which according to him were actually declarations of faith), adored him and who allowed God to change the course of their lives (symbolized by their decision to take a new way/route going home). He said that like the Magi, we should also seek the Lord. God may use many instruments in leading us to an encounter with Him. These could be people, events or things. He encouraged us to bring gifts to Jesus on Christmas and not just pray that we receive gifts. Of course, our best gift to Jesus is our faith in Him and our lives. Like the Magi who chose to have faith in Jesus as symbolized by the gifts they brought Him, we were exhorted by the priest to look beyond the physical and see God's presence even in the sadness, gloom, lack or pain just like the Magi who saw beyond the darkness, filth and lack of class of the stable. The stable was not even fit for humans, how much more for a king and the King of Kings but the Magi saw beyond all these. And they bowed in adoration before Him who is in the form of a newborn baby. The priest also said that we are called to shine our lights so that after our encounter with Jesus, we'd be able to lead others to Him as well like the Start of Bethlehem. He ended his homily by reminding us that if we have truly encountered God, our lives would be changed and we would walk in a new path, the path of righteousness.

 

After Mass, we had our photos taken at the church's Nativity Scene, ate dinner and did our annual Epiphany blessing of our house.

My husband blessed our chalk, our house and used the chalk to write on the doors of our house. We also gave our eldest son a chance to help in this activity by writing the blessing on top of two of the doors in our new home. My husband carried him so he can reach the top of the doors. Our second child helped by holding the bottle of Holy Water. We told our younger son that next year when he already knows how to write all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers, he will have a chance to write on top of our doors as well. He wanted to write also. He kept saying that he already knows how to write his name. Cute! We told him that he will not write his name on top of the doors but the blessing. My husband led the prayer and blessing while I prayed aloud the responses to the prayers.

The prayers we recited were from this website.

 

It was another simple celebration but definitely meaningful because I believe that we did not only encounter Jesus in our celebration but we also brought Jesus to our neighbors.

Celebrations on the 4th Day of Christmas

The fourth day of Christmas gave me and my family more than one gift to be thankful for.

 

First, our baby Georg Daniel (Geordan for short) celebrated his first month of life. I was amazed to realize that he's already one month old. I still feel like it was just yesterday when I gave birth to him. Time flies so fast indeed!

 

 

 

Second, our baby has been gaining weight steadily. We had been weighing him every week and so far he has gained weight every week. His biggest weight gain so far was last weekend! He gained 1.6 pounds! Hurray! This was surely an encouraging development for me as I strive to give him the best milk to nourish him.

 

Third, I was able to breastfeed our baby exclusively in the past month! Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of milk! I thank God for helping me endure the early challenges I experienced. Just like in my previous breastfeeding journeys, I had sore nipples again during the early days. I thank God for the grace and strength to persevere and endure the pain. I survived the crucial first month! Things are better now and I'm happy to see my baby growing bigger as I nourish him with my milk.

 

 

I have mentioned previously in one of my blog entries here that Georg Daniel's birth (he was born on November 28) inspired me to move our traditional family outreach to street children from Christmas Day to December 28, which is also the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The brown bags that we make will be like his and Jesus' loot bags and the street kids who will receive them will represent the poor children who were massacred on that same day more than 2,000 years ago.

 

 

 

I involved our two older kids in preparing our loot bags. I asked my husband to look for a photo of the Nativity scene in the internet and to print it in pink paper. I cut the photos and asked our older kids to glue them in front of the brown bags.

I also asked our 3-year-old to help sort/group the food that we will put inside the brown bags. When my eldest child finished sticking the photos in our brown bags, he helped his younger brother in adding the juice to the food that he has grouped/sorted.

I asked our maids to prepare the sandwiches and wrap them in napkins. I punched holes on our brown bags and cut the yarn which will be used to close our brown bags. My husband and older kids placed the food and juice inside the brown bags while one of our maids placed the sandwiches inside after they have finished preparing them. We also added some chocolates and candies inside them. Then, I tied our brown bags with pink and blue yarn.

 

Then, we all rode our vehicle and drove around the city to look for street kids. On our way out of our village, I prayed in my heart that God would lead us to the street kids who need these brown bags the most. It took us around an hour to distribute our brown bags.

 

I thank God for this fourth gift: the gift of family bonding over doing an outreach or work of mercy/act of charity towards our homeless, hungry and thirsty brothers and sisters. 

 

After that, we had some snack before going to Mass in our parish. Incidentally, it was also the Feast of the Holy Family. I thank God that we were able to go to Mass as a family. What perfect way to celebrate this wonderful day!

 

Our parish priest blessed our family after the Mass then we went to the Nativity Scene in our church and had our family picture taken there.

 

 

 

How is your Christmas celebration coming along? Hope you'd find time to savor the gift of Christmas.  

Halloween and All Saints' Day Celebrations in our Home (Keeping it Hallow)

It has been a blessed and fun-filled weekend for our family! My sons had a great time celebrating Halloween and All Saints' Day!

We do not participate in trick or treat activities. (You can read why here in my previous post.) We do not decorate our home with spooky/scary objects. My kids do not dress up in popular Halloween costumes like scary characters or super heroes.

My kids dress up as Saints or Bible heroes instead. Our activities during these days are centered on things that are hallow or holy. Our discussion is centered on the Saints. You may read my previous posts on why we celebrate Halloween or All Saints' Day differently here and here.

I learned about this alternative celebrations of Halloween (short for All Hallows' Eve) and All Saints' Day when my husband and I decided to pursue homeschooling as a way of life for our family. I "met" Teacher Mama Tina (Truly Rich Mom) through her blog and through her blog posts, I discovered the Catholic Icing blog maintained by another blogging and homeschooling mama. These women behind these popular blogs opened my mind to alternative ways to celebrate these holy days with my family/young children. It was also through Teacher Mama Tina that our family became part of ROCKERS, a Catholic homeschool group. We've been participating in the All Saints' Day party organized by ROCKERS in the past years. These activities have blessed our children a lot! I'm so grateful to God for leading us to this group! Finding other parents who have the same beliefs and stand on these topics is truly a big blessing!

Now, let me share how we celebrated these holy days in our home this weekend.

1. Saint Dress-up - I gathered the costumes and props that the boys can use for this activity early on Friday morning. Since we had been  participating in All Saints' Day parties in the past couple of years, we have some costumes already. Add to that the costumes that they will wear this year. (Our ROCKERS activity for All Saints Day will be on November 7.)

I'm so thankful to God for inspiring me with this activity. It was very simple but the boys had a blast playing pretend the whole two days! They just could not get enough of this pretend play.

Mateo as St. Michael Archangel minus the wings.

Mateo as St. Peter.

Yanthy as San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Yanthy as St. Joseph.

While they enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be little saints, I enjoyed taking photos of them in their costumes.

2. Guess the Saint Matching Game - I also prepared a simple game for the boys to help them become familiar with the Saints in a fun way. I gathered some of their toys and other items in our home that we can use in this game. Then, I printed out some photos of Saints. (I got the photos from Happy Saints website.) I lined up the toys/props together with the corresponding photo of Saints.

I briefly introduced the props and the Saints to the boys. Then, after playing pretend for some time, I asked the boys to identify the Saints by simply looking at the items/props. I asked my eldest son to match the photos with the items/props. As for my toddler, I asked him to simply voice out his answers. I was one happy and proud mom last Friday! My eldest son answered our matching game almost perfectly, making only one mistake but correcting it quickly afterwards. My toddler (2-year-old) was also able to identify a number of Saints! These are days when I'm so thankful to God for leading us to homeschool our kids! I felt rewarded and honored by God by simply witnessing these 'achievements' in my kids. Seeing them enjoy learning about our Catholic faith and living it out gives me a sense of fulfillment.

3. October Saints and Feast Day Word Search - I got this free printable from this website. I asked my eldest son (6-year-old) to answer this last Friday. He started answering it in the afternoon but he was not able to finish looking for all the words that day because he was too eager to play pretend Saint. So, I asked him to finish it yesterday.

4. Saint-Themed Food - I got most of my inspirations for this from Catholic Icing's posts. Thank God for the internet and for blogger moms like her! The kids and I enjoyed our 'feast' of Saint-themed food in the past days.

That's me with little St. Joseph the Carpenter and little S. Matthew the Tax Collector.

Little St. Matthew and little San Lorenzo Ruiz.

5. Participating in the Holy Mass - Our main activity for our All Hallows' Eve celebration was participating in the Holy Mass. The boys and I went to Mass in our parish. My eldest was dressed up as St. Michael the Archangel. My toddler wanted to dress up as Moses but I convinced him to dress up as San Pedro Calunsod instead.

Our cute San Pedro Calunsod.

Our little Saint Michael the Archangel minus the wings. ;)

After the Mass, my eldest son invited the priest celebrant who has become our friend to have donut with him at home. The good priest granted my son's request so as not to disappoint him. My son was so happy and proud to share to our priest friend that he has been pretending to be Saint Michael and other Saints that day. He also shared about the Saints that his younger brother pretended to be in our past costume parties and in our upcoming party.

6. Praying the Holy Rosary - It was really part of my plan to pray the rosary with our whole family on All Saints' Day but initially I thought of doing that at home. But since we got to the church where we were supposed to attend Mass yesterday very late (I forgot that the traffic to the church would be horrible on November 1 since we need to pass a cemetery on our way there.), we've decided to pray the rosary in the church instead.

7. Cloud of Witnesses Art Activity - After some more pretend play yesterday, we officially closed our All Saints' Day celebration by doing this activity. Before packing away all the toys, props and costumes, I asked my eldest son to draw a cloud. I cut the white cartolina and asked the boys to glue the photos of the Saints that we used on the cloud. I asked each child what they know about the Saint that they choose to stick to the cloud before letting them glue it on the cartolina/cloud. It's like asking them to make a recap of our lessons on Saints. Again, I was so proud of my little saints. They remembered a lot of what I have shared/discussed with them. All my efforts in preparing for these holy days and in homeschooling them primarily to mold their faith and character paid off. I felt so blessed! 



The boys with their cloud of witnesses.

8. Singing of Songs - Of course, we had to sing songs! haha My boys love music so I let them enjoy songs that are related to our celebration of All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day. We played worship songs in the background as we engaged in our activities. One of our favorites during Halloween or All Saints' Day is Friend of God. I let my sons sing San Lorenzo's song over and over. My eldest son even played it in the keyboard repeatedly in the past days.

9. Watching Saint Videos - We also watched videos of Saints on our pc and in my laptop. We watched their favorites -- St. Matthew and St. John the Baptist. (Click here to watch these videos.) They were named after these Saints. I also showed them other videos of Saints and Bible heroes.

 

10. Reading and Storytelling about Saints - We read books about Saints and I told them stories of holy men in the Bible. My sons could not get enough of the story of Moses and how God used him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians. They repeatedly asked me and my husband to read about this miracle from our book One Mighty, Awesome, Incredible Rescue. The boys kept pretending to be Moses and Aaron most of the time! 

Mateo as Moses and Yanthy as Aaron.

They also loved the story of Daniel and the lions. Good thing, I found a video in YouTube about Daniel.

Below are the books we read in the past days.

Before I forget, let me mention that we also invited one of my kids' playmates to our house. I told the boys that they can invite our neighbor who usually plays with them to have snack with us last Friday. The boys happily shared our Saint-themed food and toys with their friend. It was during our conversation with their playmate that I realized that my husband and I truly made a wise decision to homeschool our kids. At 2 and 6 year old respectively, our sons know much about our Catholic faith already. They are familiar with a number of Saints and the Holy Mass. Their playmate who is already 7 years old and who is studying in a Catholic school inside our village was not able to identify/recognize any of the props or Saints that my boys were playing with. He also didn't know what Holy Communion is although he said that there is a Mass in their school every Wednesday. I felt sad for the little boy. I asked my eldest to introduce the Saints to his friend/playmate. My son eagerly introduced the Saints and their props to his friend and they played with these toys afterwards. We also shared to their playmate briefly about how we celebrate Halloween in our home. Their playmate went home just before we went to Mass.

It has been a grace-filled weekend for us! We didn't have  a perfect celebration but it surely filled our hearts with joy and made our spirits soar. We are looking forward to our homeschool group's celebration next week and our celebrations again next year. I'm hoping and praying that next year, there would be an All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day celebration for kids in our parish so my sons can participate there.