Our Lady of Sorrows

Our parish has the blessed privilege of being named for Our Lady of Sorrows and today was an absolutely beautiful day to honor Mary, our Sorrowful Mother.  Father had an amazing morning planned for all the classes, having each participate in a Eurcharisitc Procession from the school chapel to the church for prayer and adoration.  It was such a neat experience for all involved.

  

Bug on left in blue.

Birdie on right with white bow.

Our church has such a beautiful side alter dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows and it was the perfect place for our moments of prayer. 

The procession at school was a great way to start the day.

We ended the day with some crafts and baking. 

We mixed up some little heart-shaped white cakes to decorate in honor of the seven sorrows.  While they were all baking, the girls colored the heart of Mary, glued it to a little red envelope and wrote out the seven sorrows to place inside it.  We found arrow-shaped toothpicks at Kroger which worked perfectly for the craft as well as the cakes.

Our Lady of Sorrows, Pray for Us!

Happy Birthday, Mary!

I'm finally getting around to posting our day last Wednesday, as we celebrated the Nativity of the Blessed Mother. Of course, we had to be in school, but we did have a birthday party for Mary with several of the classes. The cake was beautiful and absolutely delicious! It had been kept in the freezer and was still partially frozen, which, for some reason, really made it good!!

YUM!

After school, we went to evening Mass, followed by Adoration. We haven't been to the Wednesday evening Mass for quite a while. (It tends, unfortunately, to be a wintertime routine that we loose the habit of in the summer.) Mary's birthday prompted us to go this evening and it was nice to get ourselves back into that habit.

The girls enjoyed the extra time spent with Jesus, too. We prayed the Rosary in honor of Mary, then we had the opportunity for reconciliation.

Once at home, the three of us made blueberry muffins (more for the next day's breakfast, but they were perfect for Mary's birthday celebration!).

Bug formed them into a cross and chose blue candles...interestingly enough, there were seven blue candles and seven muffins made a perfect cross. Just enough for the seven sorrows (although that's next Wednesday, isn't it!?)

With a little bit of extra time before bed (and no homework!) the girls got creative on their own. They dug into the "old clothes" box and pulled out two old uniform shirts. They decorated the fronts with markers just for fun, making "I belong to God" shirts!

There is a story there...Father has a T-shirt that says the same thing and he happened to have it on at school. Evidently the girls liked it!

Happy Birthday, Mary!

Blessed Mary, Mother of us all, Pray for us!

The Queenship of Mary

A table set for Mary!

These yummy little brownie bites are called, fittingly for the day, "Crowned Cupcakes". It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's a brownie with a peanut butter cup crowning the center. They are an absolute favorite at our house but they never last very long!

We had these paper crowns left over from a birthday party years ago...I think it was when Birdie turned five! I pulled them out of a box in the basement and the girls had so much fun adding the glitz. Bug was very disappointed that her statue of Mary (Our Lady of Lourdes) didn't have on a crown too, so up to her room she went. Of all things...a Polly Pocket crown that fit perfectly!

Mary Queen of Heaven, Pray for Us!

The Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

It's been a while since I've posted! We've had some busy days with school starting but we did take some time to enjoy the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary this past Sunday. We chose to go to the Saturday evening Mass, so Sunday morning the work table was ready with a neat craft.

I had some gift boxes from Michael's craft store left over from organizing my classroom, so I found a beautiful picture of heaven-bound Mary on-line that the girls could cut and glue to the inside bottom of the box. They added silver stars around her head and TONS of cotton clouds on the sides around her. We had a coloring sheet of angels at the Nativity, so we used a few of those as well.

They turned out so cute, we still have them sitting on the kitchen table, but I think the neatest part for me when Birdie (mind you...almost in junior high...) said, "I love doing stuff like this!" Smile!

Then we ended the day right as well! This is a Little Debbie strawberry shortcake roll (too bad they don't make blueberry shortcake roll!) with piles (and I do mean piles) of whipped cream and blue sprinkles.

Birdie and Bug had the perfect jobs. Birdie loves whipped cream and Bug loves things to have sprinkles. They each made sure the shortcake had its share of both...and boy did it! YUM!

Oh Mary, conceived without sin,

Pray for us who have recourse to thee.