Simple Celebrations :: Our Lady of the Rosary

My girls put together this decoration/treat for today's feast day all by themselves. These are candy roses {affiliate link} made from both white and dark chocolate. The cross {affiliate link} was made with a mixture of both to give it a lighter color. The centerpiece of the rosary is a little blue flower in honor of our lady. Sunshine offered her lovely Our Lady Help of Christians statue for the middle and cut some roses from our bush outside. I love my big girls!

Simple Celebrations :: Feast of St. Francis

 Shortcake put together this table decoration this morning to honor her confirmation saint and Heavenly friend, St. Francis of Assisi. She even went outside and hunted down the small handful of fall colored leaves she could find (mostly yellow and brown with tinges of red on the edges.

We will have a simple celebration with our favorite animal crackers. I had another idea for today's feast day but it will have to wait until next year. Miss Mary, or Courtney's Mama as she's known around here, posted a link to this yummy looking Chicken Pot Pie soup recipe (which is basically just a cream of chicken soup) with cooked pie crust "crackers" tossed on top. Since we eat meatless on Fridays, it wasn't going to work for us today but I thought it would be a fun idea to cut out the pie crust crackers in little animal shapes using some very old little animal cracker sized cookie cutters I had (like as old as my oldest child, I think). Similar to these. {affiliate link}

A tiny bunny, cross, and dog bone shape. I also used a tiny fish, pig and a dove. 

BigBoy helped!

I made the soup a couple of nights ago and took pictures and thought I'd post it here to save for next year. I followed the recipe exactly but found it a little bland. I would probably try to jazz it up a little if I make it again. I guess you could do the same thing with a meatless soup recipe like a cream of potato or vegetable. I didn't think of that so I didn't think to put soup on the menu for tonight. Oh well.

O God, You enabled St. Francis to imitate Christ by his poverty and humility. Walking in St. Francis' footsteps, may we follow Your Son and be bound to You by a joyful love. Amen.

Happy Feast of St. Francis!

Here is a roundup of our celebrations past.

Simple Celebrations :: Feast of St. Therese

Have you seen Jessica's Apple Roses this morning? Go peek at them, they are adorable! Her version was very simple; mine was not quite as simple as I would have liked. I didn't have any puff pastry on hand so I thought I could use a scone recipe that I have turned into quick cinnamon rolls before. It worked OK except that I forgot this recipe has a tendency to spread out as it bakes. 

And because the dough warmed up as I was rolling them, the later ones didn't hold their shape as well as the first ones. Our roses definitely looked like they fell from Heaven, but they were still lovely and delicious and made the house smell like fall!

Sunshine, who has developed quite a little friendship with St. Therese, put together our table decoration using some roses from our own rose bushes outside.

Happy Feast of St. Therese! 

Dear Little Flower, help me to always believe as you did, in God's great love for me,  so that I may imitate your "Little Way" each day.

Simple Celebrations :: Feast of St. Michael

I had some plans for today's feast, The Feast of St. Michael (The Professor's confirmation name saint and personal patron), that included trying to make a pull string pinata out of a paper bag but God made it aware that other plans were more important. So, my simple celebration today included picking up a small pre-made cake piled high with brownies and frosting creating the look of a mount... we called it

our Mont Saint-Michel cake.

The Professor helped pick it out. We also took some time to check out the real Mont Saint-Michel and told everyone the legend behind the famous Abbey. Apparently, if you are a bishop and St. Michael comes to you in a dream, you better pay attention because you don't want him to poke you in the head (and burn a hole in your skull)!

Not a great picture but Cupcake was so excited! And you can see the mounded top better.

The Professor also let us borrow his custom designed St. Michael mini-figure...because he's awesome like that!

Simple Celebrations: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

 A Mexican Shepherd's Pie in the oven. Red velvet biscotti and Mexican Hot Chocolate for dessert. Our Lady of Guadalupe Roses rescued before the freeze we had here a few nights ago.

Happy Feast of Our Lady!

Simple celebrations: Bl. John Paul II

How excited are we to get to celebrate today? Very!!! But nobody is in the mood for a treat so we will save our Kremówka Papieska for another day. We did read over the Office of Readings for the day. Right now, our JPII roses are blooming like crazy and are producing the biggest blooms we have ever seen. This is a picture of Shortcake's hands holding the biggest blossom...

Simple celebrations: St. Teresa of Avila

 Little homemade Caramel Lattes for the kids...

A bigger mug for mama...

 Caramel sauce with apple slices for the kiddos... easy peasy!

No GF apple crisp. : (

Actually, I did make it, but it was terrible. Really awful!

Sean came home with a fever anyway, so he had no interest in apple crisp!

Note to self: never, ever, ever try a recipe that has no reviews.

Homemade Caramel Sauce

1/4 C. butter

1C. brown sugar 

(I used dark brown sugar and mine ended up tasting a little like toffee)

1/2 C. heavy cream

pinch of salt

Melt in a saucepan over medium low heat. 

Cook until thick, about 7 minutes.

Add a teaspoon of vanilla and cook a minute longer.

Caramel Lattes

1 Tbl. brown sugar

1/4 C. half and half

1 Tbl. caramel sauce 

(I used homemade but you can use caramel ice cream topping.)

1 C. hot brewed coffee

Stir brown sugar into half and half until dissolved. 

Whip with a milk frother or a small whisk. Pour coffee in a mug and stir in caramel sauce 

until dissolved. Pour frothed half and half into coffee. Serve.

Simple celebrations: Feast of St. Francis

Simple because that's life. Simple because we go back to the doctor today.  

St. Francis, please intercede for my sweet Shortcake who chose you as her special Confirmation patron.

 

Simple celebrations: Guardian Angels

Sunshine came up with today's table decoration which was a little harder to put together than yesterday. Our best Guardian Angel pictures are over my children's beds and are too big for a table centerpiece. Instead, she came up with one of our angel dolls from our Easter scene, a guardian angel holy card from ModHMary, the Our Lady of the Angels statue reminding us to pray extra hard for our missionary friends and the work they are doing in Costa Rica and one of our books with a little story about the Guardian Angels. Not pictured (because my printer was being stubborn this morning but seems to have had a change of heart this afternoon... a photo of our angelic friend as a reminder to offer some birthday prayers for her today!)

Our simple celebration snack took a little more time to put together but was still simple enough. Inspired by an idea from Jessica, I saved some of the cookies from yesterday...

...cut them in half and dipped them in some white candy melts to make wings.

Then we attached a Gingerman cookie on top with another glob of candy melt on the back.

We popped them in the fridge for a few minutes before transferring the angel cookies to a serving tray and giving them a Gingerman cookie to watch over.

Ta-dah! Simple celebration #3. Simple today because my girl is still running a fever!!! If it doesn't break by tomorrow, we go back to the doctor. Please offer a prayer for her!

P.S. My kids chuckled at some of the Gingermen with broken hands. I told them, "That's what happens when you don't listen to your Guardian Angel!"
 

Simple celebrations: St Therese

The Feast of St. Therese...

First we gathered up a collection of little Thereses. These are not all the ones we have, just the ones we chose for our table decoration. We read from one of our books and had a great discussion about how as a child, St. Therese had to battle her impulsive side. As a mom with two teenagers and a "tween" in the house, we talked about how she could be a powerful intercessor during those moments when their emotions want to rule their actions. These are the kinds of talks I love with my kids. As they get older, our celebrations turn from cookies and coloring pages to a deeper understanding, developing a personal relationship and connection with our heavenly friends.

But then again, cookies are always a good way to begin a conversation! :)

BTW... my husband deserves the credit for this treat. I sent him to the store and said, "Find something edible that looks like a rose." He brought back these lemon creme cookies.
 

Simple celebrations

We are all still on the mend. (If I type it enough, maybe it will be true.) Actually, the rest of us are mostly better, it's just Shortcake. She's been running a fever since Thursday. Pretty high at times which tests a mama's nerves. We finally got it to drop last night but she woke up with it at it's highest again so... on to some serious meds.

Anyway, seeing as how she's on a 10 day course to feeling better and the rest of us are still coughing and sputtering trying to clear out all the gunk, our liturgical celebrations for this "Mardi Gras of feast days" (as a sweet Cajun friend put it) have been and will continue to be very simple. I'm talking like plate of cookies simple and not necessarily the homemade kind!

For example... we celebrated Michaelmas by all sitting down to a real dinner! Well, all of us minus the feverish kid. The Professor did offer his custom designed St. Michael minifigure and a picture from his desk as a table decoration.

 St. Michael...

...defend us!

(This picture was an experiment. If you take a sideways picture, Instagram rotates it for you!)

We've got some other simple celebrations coming up this week. Sometimes, simple is sweet!