Last week in pictures

Last week was a week of wonderful feasts and an amazing astronomical event. Here is our week in pictures.

~Super Blood Moon~

Last week was also the beginning of BigBoy's foray into altar serving...

He's the one snuffing out the candle that's twice as tall as he is!

This week is one of my favorite weeks in the liturgical season, but it also sneaks up on me just about every year. This year, Miss Cupcake became aware of feast days and quickly picked up on the concept of special feast day treats. After Michaelmas, she pretty much woke up every day asking what special treat we were making that day. A quick recap...

~Feast of St. Michael~

Blackberry Jam for Michaelmas... the Smuckers turned out to be the favorite in the blind taste test.

~Candy Roses for St. Therese~

OK, this is a real rose. Not candy.

 Candy roses made with her big sis, Rain. 

~Angel Kisses for the Feast of the Guardian Angels~

These are just a simple meringue cookie recipe, not the pepperminty ones I made last year. I made some with M&M's inside and some with crushed peppermint sticks sprinkled on top. 

~Wolf's Paw Cookies for St. Francis~

Left over chocolate chip cookies were turned into Wolf's Paw cookies using some melted chocolate and white chocolate chips. Rain made these to celebrate St. Francis, her Confirmation saint. 

Reading a story about St. Francis with Sunshine 

Cupcake's new glasses came in. She tells me she's seeing better and I'm hoping that the convergence we were seeing will go away. Personally, I think she looks just so darn cute in her glasses. Like a teeny, tiny little librarian. 

Our Lady of the Rosary is coming up this week. If you are looking for some coloring pages, you can find them here. 

Feast Day Round Up

It's been a busy week with some major feast days to celebrate. Our celebrations used to be more elaborate, but as my kids have grown older, they've become more subdued.  I think that's only natural, but sometimes I feel guilty about my littler ones. Are they missing out by not celebrating the way we used to? I think I need to try to make a few things a little more festive, but I like this more relaxed pace too. It's such a balance, isn't it?

September 29th (Michaelmas, Feast of the Archangels, The Professor's Confirmation saint)

Blackberry jam spread on homemade bread

This is some Blackberry Cobbler jam that I ordered for Sean a while back from the winery that we visited on our honeymoon. The kids prefer plain blackberry jam.

October 1st (Feast of St. Therese the Little Flower, special friend of Sunshine's and Confirmation anniversary for Sunshine and The Professor)

Pumpkin Cupcakes with super easy Frosting Roses

My babies 6 years ago.

October 2 (Feast of the Guardian Angels, special friends to all of us)

Angel Kisses (peppermint meringue cookies)

October 4th (Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Rain's Confirmation saint)

Pot Pie Soup over at Catholic Cuisine… Rain is going to spoil us with some of her Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread today!

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

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!

 

One handed photo shoot

subtitled... bleary eyed blurry pictures

The girls whipped up some Devil's Food cupcakes for Michealmas today and BigBoy decorated them with the only kind of blackberries my kids like... candy ones. (They used extra cocoa and coffee instead of water in the recipe.) I can't tell you how much they are delighting in having the run of the kitchen while my hands are full! 

St. Michael is The Professor's confirmation patron. He asked if he could show off this LEGO minifigure he designed and built. Yep. It's St.Michael.

Again, sorry for the blurry pics. I confess... my other hand was holding a cupcake.

See!

Happy Feast of the Archangels

Our rodent situation is only partially taken care of (they travel in pairs, you know?), so we won't be doing a pinata today, not even a paper bag one being as the only place to hang one is in our garage... where the mice are. Grrrrr! BigBoy was very disappointed. I didn't realize how much he loved that little tradition. I will have to find a way to incorporate a pinata into another feast day in the future.

But we are planning to enjoy an angel food trifle today. Since my kids aren't very fond of real blackberries, we opted for the gummi version!

Check out the recipe over at Catholic Cuisine!

And don 't forget the coloring pages! 
St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael

St. Michael and all the Mighty (insert fist pump here) Archangels, protect us!

Our Michaelmas

~a blackberry pound cake candle Husband picked up for me!

~ an angel food trifle for the kids with blackberries on top for Husband!

~a little boy ready to strike

~the end~