St. Joseph Coloring Page

St. Joseph coloring page

~ click here ~

St. Brigid of Ireland Coloring Page

St. Brigid coloring page

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St. Blaise Coloring Page

St. Blaise coloring page

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St. Valentine Coloring Page

St. Valentine coloring page

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St. Josephine Bakhita Coloring Page

St. Josephine Bakhita coloring page

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St. Paul Coloring Page

St. Paul coloring page

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St. Agnes Coloring Page

St. Agnes coloring page

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Patrons for the New Year

My family really likes using Jenn's Saint's Name Generator to assist us in choosing new patrons for the new year. I usually print everyone a homemade holy card to use as a bookmark or just a reminder of who they chose, or rather... who chose them. Here are our special friends for this year...

The Professor

Sunshine

Shortcake

BigBoy

Cupcake

Mom

Dad

I hope you all rang in the New Year in health and happiness. We had a very quiet movie night with some fancy popcorn and our traditional Puppy Chow treats. Then headed off to a nice, quiet (read: sparsely attended) 9AM Mass. I am assuming everyone else went the night before. The children have the rest of the week off from school, but we will be working on our schedule for the next half of the year and getting some things better organized. I hope to share it all with you soon!

 

St. Agnes Coloring Page

I found this beautiful image of St. Agnes last year and have had it saved for coloring page inspiration. I thought it very appropriate considering the oranges in the background and the double feast of Our Lady of Altagracia today. (Check out Jessica's beautiful celebration over at Catholic Cuisine.) I have no information on the tapestry other than: St. Anne Tapestry 1887 Standen, UK. If you know more about it or where we can see it in its entirety, please let me know.

St. Agnes Coloring Page

Also, to placate the perfectionist in me... please let your children know that lambs have hooves and not paws, so they should ignore the slip of my pen that wasn't corrected before scanning! Just tell them that my head was too full of gunk to notice the problem. Also, by my count, there are 8 oranges in my drawing. The one behind St. Agnes's head was supposed to be part of her head wrapping, but it just kept looking like an orange to me. I blame the gunk.

Updated to add: Michelle found some information on the tapestry. The link is in the combox! Thanks Michelle!

Colonial Brown Bread

For St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's feast day!

You have to try this quick bread recipe. Super easy and delicious!

You can find the recipe over at Catholic Cuisine.

Patron of Soldiers

Pray for them!

 To all veterans and families of veterans:
Insufficient though these words may be, I still want to say... 
thank you for your service!
Happy feast day!

St. Charles Borromeo Coloring Page

When I was gathering pictures for our Church Triumphant, Expectant and Militant poster, the children asked several times if there was a St. Charlotte. I was named for my aunt and godmother who passed away shortly after I was born. Having never found an official St. Charlotte, I have always claimed St. Charles Borromeo as my name saint, Charlotte being the French feminine form of Charles.

Today is the feast day of St. Charles, so that makes it my name day. I decided to celebrate by making a coloring page in honor of this holy bishop and wanted to share it with you. You can read more about him over at Catholic Culture. FYI, if your kids ask, like mine did, the rope around his neck was an act of penitence, not a method of martyrdom.

St. Charles Borromeo Coloring Page

Enjoy!

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

From the archives...

Go read Jessica's plans for celebrating tomorrow. Aren't those paper dolls precious? And that bread sounds delightful! Thanks, Jessica!

St. Teresa of Avila

Games for All Saints

Susan asked about other ideas in the combox below.  I took these pictures at our party last year, but never posted them so I thought it might be a good idea to share them now. I've posted about them before, but for those of you new to this blog, here they are again.

These are a couple of games that were inspired by others but have become staples at our All Saints Eve party. In fact, when I was asking the children about ideas for new games this year, they looked at me like I was a little crazy. Then again, they do that a lot. So, here are our favorite All Saints Games, thus far...

I made these "perfume jars" a few years ago with some empty salt and pepper shakers, tissue paper and glue. I place cotton balls on the inside with drops of extract. There will be two of each flavor of extract and to make it easy on myself, I write on the bottoms what extract is inside. The idea is for the children to sniff the "perfume" and match the scents. This can even be a self checking game for older kids who can see how they did by looking on the bottom. For younger kids, just have them match up two of the same if matching all of them seems too challenging. Does this make scents? (Tee hee hee!)

 

 This game involves an old Nerf basketball hoop, sans net, and a few fake roses. I used three red and three white, for no particular reason at all and wrapped the stems of the silk roses with ribbon to make them pretty. You can't see them in this picture because the roses are all in that blue vase. Anyway, The hoop is very lightweight. We usually hang it using a ribbon to that we can raise and lower it for big kids and little kids.  It's pretty self explanatory.

 St. Anthony's Lost and Found is another self explanatory game. This is a box filled with packing peanuts and an assortment of medals and crucifixes inside. The children stick in their hands and try to find a lost item. I recommend having a parent "stir the pot" so to speak otherwise, the medals will eventually all make their way to the bottom.

A new game that the girl cousins came up with last year was called "Posing for Holy Cards". It was basically a game of Freeze Dance. Find the funkiest music you can and dance around like crazy but when the music stops, freeze! I don't have any pictures of that game, but you get the idea. If you are looking for more ideas, check out Jessica's round-up at Shower of Roses especially the post titled Saintly Games and Lacy's collection of other's ideas at Catholic Icing.

Saints Costume Round-up

The Stat Fairy is telling me that it's that time of year again when some moms start hunting for costumes for All Saints parties. Here is a quick round-up of some past posts that might help get those creative juices flowing:

A Costume for St. Dwynwen

Costume Sneak Peek (St. Blaise)

Costume for St. Thomas More

More Costume Ideas from the Combox!

All Saints Costumes Cheap and Easy

Happy All Hallows Eve!

Feast of St. Edward the Confessor

From the archives with updates...

Today is the feast of St. Edward the Confessor and "Godfather Day" in our house. Both of the girl's godfathers share a birthday today. How uncanny is that? One of them is even named for St. Edward because that was the tradition in his family. Good thing he wasn't born a day or two late!

"Happy Birthday, Uncle Burke" who will have another sweet new baby to hold any day now and "Happy Birthday, Tio Eddie" who is proud papa to precious Little O who is now a year and a half old and is walking, talking, running and playing! She is their miracle child!

Oh, yeah and for a cute little boy I know, here's St. Edward....

St. Edward the Confessor Coloring Page

And if you don't know the story of St. Edward's Sapphire (like we didn't), here's it is:

Many legends sprang up about Edward the Confessor both during his lifetime and after his death. One that has stood the test of time happened towards the end of his life. Legend has it that Edward was riding to a ceremony at a chapel dedicated to St John the Evangelist in Essex when a beggar asked for alms. Edward had no money with him so he took off his ring and handed it to the poor man instead. A few years later two English pilgrims were travelling through the Holy Land and became stranded. They were helped by an old man who told them he was St John the Evangelist. He was carrying the ring Edward had given to the beggar some years previously. He asked the pilgrims to return it to the king telling him that in six months he would meet St John in heaven.

St. Bruno's Feast Day

To all my friends of Germanic heritage, don't forget dear St. Bruno!

St. Bruno Coloring Page

St. Bruno (1030-1101)
Highly educated, Bruno taught theology. One of his students later became Pope Urban II. He routinely challenged the worldliness of other clergy. Following a vision he received, he retired to a mountain where he founded the first house of the Carthusian Order. While there he wrote a number of scriptural commentaries.

Feast of St. Jerome

From the Word on Fire Blog:

There is another quality of St. Jerome’s character that will console many of us who struggle to be virtuous and holy, a quality which surprises many whose image of sanctity lacks a sense of how Christ’s holiness transforms human character. Jerome was known for being a cantankerous fellow. He struggled at times with the virtue of patience, could be overbearing with those who disagreed with him, and had a reputation for being cranky. One commentator on Saint Jerome’s life noted that perhaps Jerome chose to be a hermit, not so much as a heroic act of sacrifice, but because had he not lived alone, he most assuredly would not have been a saint!

The spiritual lesson for us in this might be to remember that saints are not born with perfect characters and that even the holiest among us has become that way over time. This means that saints have shared with us all the qualities and weaknesses that vex us. However, flaws in character did not assuage them from seeking to know Christ and to live in such a way that their relationship with him was evident in their way of life. 

Feast of St. Padre Pio

Coloring one of these, again.

Reading this post, again.

Making Cappucino Mousse, again. This time with some biscotti. Yum!