Preparing Our Hearts and Minds

The manger is ready and waiting to be filled with soft hay each time one of our children offers a good deed to God during Advent. “Before Our Lady conceived Our Lord in the flesh, she conceived Him in the interior silence of her soul.” ~ Advent Recollection: Silence ~ I hope to listen to this Advent Recollection Series again.…

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2015 in Review

“If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend.” ~ St. Teresa of Avila ~ January On January 5, I gave Kilian his first haircut. He is my first little…

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St. Andrew Christmas Novena

The St. Andrew Christmas Novena begins tomorrow, November 30. Lena over at Joy-filled Family designed a beautiful holy card to assist in praying this novena 15 times a day. We used her holy card last year (I printed and laminated it), and it helps make praying this novena from November 30 through December 24 doable.…

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Advent Catch Up

I have had so much that I have wanted to share, but very little time to do so. During Advent, we were blessed with a visit from my brother. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to spend a lot of time with him due to high fevers and coughs, but he did visit for a little bit.…

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Fourth Sunday of Advent

“And it came to pass that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his o…wn city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out…

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The Beauty of Advent Revisited

The manger is ready and waiting to be filled with soft hay each time one of our children offers a good deed to God during Advent. “Before Our Lady conceived Our Lord in the flesh, she conceived Him in the interior silence of her soul.” ~ Advent Recollection: Silence ~ Last week, as Advent approached, I…

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Friday Finds

Each Friday, I hope to share things of interest that I have found online and elsewhere. If you would like to join me and share your finds, please leave a link to your blog post in my comments. I hope you like some of this week’s finds. Enjoy! Liturgical Calendar I was happy to see…

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Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

On Wednesday, the children and I set up our outdoor Nativity set. Brendan decorated the exterior of the house with Christmas lights. He also strung lights on the tree. We will put ornaments on the Christmas tree sometime between Sunday and Christmas Eve. Stockings have been hung by the chimney with care. Like Jessica, I…

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Advent Daybook

Outside my window it is cloudy. My children had been hoping that it would snow when we had freezing cold temperatures and are lamenting the fact that it warmed up just a little before we got any real precipitation. I say “real” because we did get a slight dusting of snow the one day. In the…

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Christkindl Tradition

Over the years, I have shared many of our Advent traditions. In her book, Around the Year with the Trapp family, Maria Von Trapp shared how she and her family fostered love in their family during Advent with their Christkindl tradition. Once more the mother appears with the bowl, which she passes around. This time the…

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Gingerbread Houses

A couple of days before Christmas, we  made our annual gingerbread houses. And so it begins This year, we decided to have a competition to see who could make the best gingerbread house, the boys or the girls. Having Fun The competition was fierce, until my husband made the boys’ window look like a face.…

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Laudamus Te

On Sunday, I was delighted to finally see a copy of Laudamus Te, a new magazine for those who assist at the Latin Mass. Our pastor surprised many of us when he announced that he had ordered a bulk subscription to the magazine for our parish. I had been toying with subscribing to the magazine,…

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