Welcome Back to Wreath I: A New Look At Faith

Tonight was our first official meeting and we have now come full circle.  We are back to Wreath I.  There are two girls that are from the original group and have done this wreath already but it really doesn't matter.  We have all changed so much in four years.  In fact as I prepared for the meeting, I realized it felt like I was doing the meeting for the first time.

We have eight girls this year.  A few girls graduated and moved on to our Wild Flowers group.  The feel of the group is so different.  My daughter is struggling with most of her friends being gone but I know she will soon feel that all is well again.  Our group ranges from age four to age 10.  Most of the girls are really young to me.   It really has a different feel and it will take me a little bit to figure out the group as well.  I'm not used to the little ones as much anymore, But we will be having lots of fun.

So tonight I did Faith.  It felt good to have music again.  We really missed not having the songs for Wreath IV.  The girls enjoy learning the memory verses with the music.  I definitely recommended buying the CD to all the moms.  We talked a little about what faith is.  What luck that the gospel on Sunday contained one of the activities for this evening.  We were able to talk about having faith like a child and cross it off our list.  We also talk about Hebrews 11.  Then I read about St. Catherine of Sienna

We did a really fun activity which I found here.  I read the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Only the next step.”  We talked about what it meant and then turned off all the lights.  I had all the girls stand in a beam of light and then read the lesson.  Talk about easy!!!  I had Hershey Kisses wrapped up as roses as the treasure at the end.  It wasn't quite dark enough, but luckily there was a little time at the end so the girls got to play it again.  They really enjoyed it.

For some reason, I felt at a loss finding a good craft for Faith.  Having a different flowers every month will come in handy.  So today we made our pretty sunflowers.  I think this will be the most difficult thing about having such a wide range of ages.  I didn't want to pick a craft that was too simple of the older girls.  This may have been just a little too difficult for the young ones, but that's the good thing about having the moms involved.  They were there to help their daughters as needed.  This was a pretty inexpensive craft.  I bought a package of yellow paper plates and then a thing of yarn.  I did wind up buying plastic needles but now we will have them for years to come.  After using coupons, it cost $10.00.

It looks like I'm signed up to do at least the next meeting as well.  I'm certainly hoping that more moms will start signing up, but I understand how it might feel a little intimidating at first.  I'm also homeschooling my kids this year so I'm not sure how much blogging I will be doing.  It's so great having a record of most of our meetings though so I am going to try to keep at it.  If I disappear for a while, you'll know I'm just going a little crazy with homeschool.

Our Super Sleepover

It is that time of year when things are getting busy, busy, busy!!  Also time for our Little Flowers group to get together for our annual sleepover in the church hall.  The weather was perfect and we had lots of exhausting fun!!

As always, we started off with a pizza dinner and then go into the church for a short prayer.  The girls are so excited to get started with the festivities, but I remind them that we need to give thanks to God before everything else. 

This year, we had a talent show to help the girls with their confidence which was this month's virtue.  It was fantastic.  We even had some moms get up and show off their talents.  It was truly a hit.  It was really neat to see the girls get up and show a part of themselves that perhaps we had never seen before.  We had instruments played, a dancer, a jump roper, a poem reciter and book readers, an balloon animal maker, a singer and even a girl show off the earrings that she makes.  We have decided that it was such a hit that we will continue to do this each year.  You could just see the smiles from the girls when they finished their talent.  What a wonderful confidence booster.  During the evening, we also heard the girls complimenting each other.  It was fantastic.

The weather was so nice that we spent the rest of the evening playing outdoors.  Since usually our meetings are so structured, and the girls don't get a lot of time to just play, that's we let them do.  We have a beautiful grassy area for them to just run around.  I also bought bubbles and glow sticks.  It doesn't take much to keep them happy for hours.

Once it was quite dark,and we could tell that some of the girls were getting tuckered out, we came in for our sundae bar.  Certainly a delicious treat to help cool down after all the running around.  Lots of toppings to choose from!!

Once that was all cleaned up, we had the girls get ready for bed.  I read them a story and then let them giggle and talk for quite a bit longer.  Finally around 11:30 or so, we told them it was time to quiet down and go to sleep.  I think by midnight they were actually all sleeping.  We also told them that they could get up early but needed to stay quiet and in bed until 7:00 am.  It worked!!

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast at 8 am.  Everyone just brings something and we have a feast.  Then we go over to the church and pray the Rosary together and end our sleepover with a craft.

This year, I thought the craft went well with the virtue, Confidence.  I found it over at Brave Girls Club. I had the girls pick their faces ahead of time and then had the pictures printed out over at Staples.  The girls got to pick all the different colors and trinkets that they wanted.  I asked the moms to help them with this project and it was wonderful to see the mothers and daughters working together.  This project took a couple of hours and that was speeding up the drying time with hair dryers.  We would not have been able to do it during a regular meeting.  I somehow missed one the portraits but I love how each one is unique just like our girls.

It was a great way to end our time together.  Everyone helped put the hall together and then it was time to go home and probably get some rest.

Confidence - Wreath IV

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this month's meeting so there aren't a lot of notes.  

1. We talked about confidence - what it means, how the girls express it, how they can build it up, how you 

can differentiate between pride and confidence.  

2. I segued to talking about the saint - Clelia Barbieri and how she expressed confidence. If you need a brief

backstory about the saint ---- In the mid 1800's, Clelia was born near Bologna, Italy (we didn't mention the 

country too much as it was covered at the last meeting for St. Gianna). Her mother came from a rich and

prominent family and her dad was dirt poor - a servant. They fell in love and her mom gave up everything to

be w/him. Life was hard for them, and got harder when Clelia's dad died of cholera when she was 8. She and

 her family moved to a better home offered by her uncle. To  help the family, Clelia took to sewing, knitting,

making wool, etc. To make the time go quicker as she did all these things, she focused on God and her faith

and knowledge became so vast that she started teaching others. Her pastor asked her to be a catechist at

the young age of 14. She turned her attentions to the poor and joined a group with that particular

apostolate. At the age of 20/21, she founded a religious order - Sisters Minims of Our Lady of Sorrows. She

became the youngest person ever to found an order - even until this day. Two years after this, she died of
tuberculosis. Shortly before her death, she made a prophecy that she would always be with the religious

sisters and their order would grow, and that came true. She also had the gift of discerning souls. I told one

story of when someone came to visit the sisters, she brought apples. St. Clelia separated the apples, keeping

the ones she knew were gotten honestly and refusing the others because she knew the visitor had stolen

them. She also healed people. On the first anniversary of her death, the sisters were singing and heard a

voice they recognized as St. Clelia's. The voice sang with them. When the sisters moved to the church, the

voice followed and would say prayers with them. To this day, people have reported hearing St. Clelia in any

house or church she visited.

3. I talked at length about Our Lady of Sorrows - why St. Clelia liked that name so much and what the title

means. We listed the 7 sorrows and Gianna passed out a prayer for the families to pray in relation to this. 

4. For the craft, as St. Clelia worked w/textile arts, the girls made cards
using yarn, glue, buttons and jewels. Very simple. 

Tea Cups for our Tea Party

At the beginning of the meeting, we had the pleasure of having our priest come talk to us about the virtue of the month, docility and how he had been docile to God's call.  It was great for the girls to hear about his experience.

While we try to follow the schedule that we put out at the beginning of the year, we have to be flexible.  Our tea party had been schedule to take place over the weekend, but I wound up having surgery a month ago. I knew I wouldn't be up to organizing everything.   So instead of the clean up we were supposed to be doing this evening at our meeting, we needed something to fill the slot.  Jessica came up with the wonderful idea of having the girls paint tea cups for our tea party.

 We first thought about going to one of those do it yourself pottery places, but decided that was just a little more (ok, a lot more)  than we wanted to spend.  Instead we got mugs from the dollar store and used Folk Art Multi-Surface paint.  It was a much cheaper option.  For 14 mugs, 10 bottles of paint, paint brushes, styrofoam plates, and a couple of table clothes, the total was $43.  We actually only used half of the paint.

While the paint is non-toxic, the mugs are not supposed to go in the microwave and we taped off the lip of the mugs so that when the girls use them, their mouths do not come in contact with the paint.  After the paint dries which takes about an hour, it goes in the oven to "cure".  From the Plaid website,
 Place project in a cool oven.  Set oven temperature to 350ºF.  Once temperature has reached 350ºF, start timing for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn the oven off.  Glass must heat gradually with the oven to avoid breakage. Do not place glass in a hot oven. Let glass cool completely in oven. Do not use for 72 hours.  I copied the instructions for everyone to take home.  It worked great.

The girls seemed to all enjoy making their creations.  We also had a little excitement in the middle of the painting.  We got the alert that there was a tornado warning.  We put the painting on hold and headed down to the basement.  Luckily it was Nina's birthday and she had brought cookies to share with the group.  We kept things lighthearted and enjoyed the little break.  After a while, the storm passed and we headed back upstairs.  Luckily the paint brushes didn't get dried up.   I am sure they will like getting to use them at the tea party in June. 

Embroidery

For our second meeting of the month of silence we had the girls embroider burp cloths for our baby shower in May.

Since embroidery is (usually) done in silence and doesn't occupy the mind as much as the hands, it is a great way to quiet down and to listen to ones own thoughts...

Unless, of course, you get twelve girls together in a room to embroider LOL

We asked a lady from our parish to come in and give the girls a beginner's course on embroidery. She did a fantastic job! First she showed them some examples of her own work so the girls got an idea of what embroidery is and what all is possible if you put some effort and time into practicing. Then she explained step by step how the girls should go about embroidering the burp cloths. 

Some girls caught on fast and added their own touch to their work, others followed along step by step. But all of them did a great job and they all enjoyed it!

Kindness - Complete Notes

One problem with waiting to write up a blog after a meeting is that I tend to forget!!  Boy is my memory getting bad as I get older.  Anyway, fortunately for me, the mom who led it, had her notes written up.  Here are the notes for Kindness.  Thank you, Christie.

-Tonight we are going to talk about kindness, its such a simple word, such a simple action and it can have huge results!

-our memory verse is…be kind to one another, compassionate and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ.

-If I say to you, kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless, what do you think this means?  This was actually a quote from Mother Teresa.  This quote is true because acting with kindness is so easy to do that it is also easy to forget.  Kindness comes out of charity, out of love.  Kindness could be said to be the motivation for every virtue we practice.

-Kindness is not a complex virtue to explain, its challenge comes in making it a habit that is never broken.  We are kind to those we know, our own circle of friends but not with those who look different or act different.  We are kind to our own but cold with the stranger.  Your goal is to practice kindness even when it is uncomfortable to do so.

-How many of you have heard the phrase random acts of kindness?  Some examples would be paying for someone’s toll or picking up a friends dropped keys.  This is great encouragement; however our faith would encourage us to be kind on purpose.  Not randomly, not without thought, but done on purpose and out of habit.  We shouldn’t have to think about stooping to pick up a drop paper or holding the door for the next person we just do it.

-This is #4 in your books,   I want you to think about the last week, think about when people were kind to you, your siblings and others, (after they give some ideas) now, from these ideas of how others were kind to you, let’s make a list of ways you can be kind.

-In the bible Paul speaks of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit.  Paul challenges us to act out of freedom and love and kindness.  I want to read part of this now….read   Galatians chapter 5 verse 13.  In a few minutes we will be making a fruit tree illustrating the fruits of the holy spirit, this way you can hang it in your house to help your family remember.  This is #5 in your books

-Our Saint this month is St. Marie-Marguarite d’Youville, here is a little information about her:

She was born in 1771 in Quebec Canada.  Marguarite was able to attend the Ursuline school in Montreal.  She married Francois d’Youville a fur trader in 1722 with whom she had 6 children.  In 1730 her husband died and she had also lost many of her children to sickness and hardship.  By 1737 both of Marguarites remaining sons had become priests and Marguarite had joined with other women in serving the sick and the poor.  They formed the first Canadian Sisters of Charity and became known as the Grey Nuns.  These women attracted others to join their order and spent their lives doing good for others.  Her Grey Nuns spread throughout Canada founding schools, hospitals, orphanages and more.  They are especially known for their great work among the Eskimo.  Margurite died in 1771 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1990.  Her feast day is April 11.

-Our Country this month is Canada, our neighbor to the north.  The US shares a border with Canada it this border is the longest shared border between two countries.  It is a peaceful border with altercations between the 2 countries virtually nonexistent.   Has anyone ever been to Canada?  What can you tell us about it?

-we have two short crafts tonight the first one I already told you is the fruit tree, and we will be also making a craft that illustrates a quote about being kind.   This is #7 in your book.   There are a number of beautiful quotes about being kind from the scripture, here are a few…read the quotes.   

Then explain the crafts.

Here is the first craft.  It came from Oriental Trading. 

I will need to add a picture of the second craft. The girls got to use different scrapbook paper to cut out apples.  They pasted their "fruits" of the spirit onto each and glued them onto a tree.

Quotes about being kind

-Acts 20:35b - It is more blessed to give than to receive.

-“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” 
 Mother Teresa

-Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

-Matthew 25:35 -For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

-You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.  Ralph Waldo Emerson 

-It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. ~Author Unknown

-Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. ~Author Unknown

-Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud. ~Maya Angelou

-Kindness is the greatest wisdom. ~Author Unknown

-A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. ~Amelia Earhart

***We will be doing our Baby Shower in May so that will take care of #8

***After the lesson  #’s  4, 5, 7, and 8 are completed.

Acceptance

I had to think about this virtue for a couple of weeks before starting to plan out the meeting.  For some reason, I was trying to make it a whole lot more difficult than it needed to be. If you start looking for ideas online, you will find lots of lessons on acceptance of others and perhaps their lifestyles.  I realized that it is always best to keep it simple.  Since everyone appreciates being able to check off some of the activities, I decided to just work on them.

The girls and I tried to figure out the definition of acceptance.  It's always hard to give a definition!  Got lots of examples of what they had to accept.  Then we moved on to #5.  Using a children's Bible, I read the story of the Agony in the Garden.  I got the moms involved and asked them to share something that they had to accept and perhaps how they dealt with it.  It was great for the girls to have their moms sharing. 

We also worked on #4.  It was easy for them to think of the things they had to accept this week.  Well it was really easy to for them to think of all the hard things that they had to accept.  Our "Hard" list was much longer than the "Easy" list. 

While I was preparing for this virtue, I really struggled on how St. Josephine Bakhita was the right saint for this virtue.  How could a person who had been a slave teach us about acceptance?  I read the blurb about St. Josephine from the Member's Guide.  The connection was made with this statement, "Though slow of movement—perhaps on account of the torture she had suffered as a teenager—she did every job lovingly, with a contagious joy. To those who had more visible roles, she would say, 'You go and teach. I will go to the chapel and pray that you may do it well.'" from From Slave to Saint The Story of St. Josephine Bakhita.  She accepted whatever job was given to her and she did it joyfully.  

The girls were really fascinated by St. Josephine's story.  I think more so than any other saint thus far.  They asked a lot of questions about her being kidnapped and also about the scars she had on her body and about her family.  I was a little concerned that I had frightened them so I reassured them with this statement taken from the above article, “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me,” she wrote, “I would kneel and kiss their hands. For if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”  It was important for them to see that she was "okay" even after going through such a horrible ordeal. 

We switched gears then to take about Sudan.  I learned more than I ever knew about the country preparing for this lesson.  A good resource to share is http://www.our-africa.org/sudan/welcome-to-sudan.  Lots of videos, maps and facts.  I took my ipad to the meeting so that we could watch one of the videos and see the maps and pictures.  I also passed out their pages for their passports.

I took our craft from activity #5.  String art wass an inexpensive craft costing less than $5.  My husband cut some of his scrap wood for me.  The boards measure 8 x 6.  I painted them and used a cross that I printed out on paper as my template to pound in the nails.  I used crocheting thread as the string.

We all have crosses to bear and it may be one that we just need to accept.  We need to remember the one that Jesus bore for us.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of all of the different crosses the girls made.  None of them were exactly the same just as the crosses we must carry are all different.  The heart in the middle is to remind us that God is always there for us. 

An Epiphany Party

Last week, we celebrated the Epiphany.  I just thought I would share some of the festivities.

Now what would be an Epiphany party without a bunch of crowns?

 Then we moved onto making beautiful watercolor designs using star stickers and kosher salt.

  I love the results!

They were so much fun to make using these simple ingredients. Here is a link to the tutorial.

Then it was time to munch on some star cookies and other goodies and listen to The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola.  

When they were done, we played a short game and then we gave the girls their stars.  They probably could have spent the entire party just playing with them.

Before they left, they were given some blessed chalk and prayers to take home and bless their homes.

Just as a note to myself.  Next year, I think I would like to start with a little lesson about the Epiphany.  Otherwise, I would say it was a success!!

Orderliness/Organization - Wreath III

Feels like I haven't been to a Little Flowers meeting forever!!  My girls and I missed our December meeting due to travel and then we had our Christmas party.  Our main January meeting had to be postponed due to a pipe bursting in our social hall.

This seemed like the perfect virtue for January.  How many of us make a resolution in the new year to get organized?  Well perhaps our meeting, along with some of the activities will help to get some of the girls and moms motivated to keep those resolutions.

I'm not sure why I struggled with this virtue.  Perhaps my mind was still spinning from Christmas.  What's so wonderful is that I was able to fall back to the workbook.  We focused on working on some of the activities.  I've never heard a mom complain about getting some of the activities completed during the meeting.  It's always nice to get a jump start on getting them completed.

We started by having the girls all tell me about their Christmas vacation - ALL AT ONE TIME!!!  No order whatsoever.  It was loud and of course, no order.  We learned fast that it is important to have some orderliness at our meetings.

To work on our first activity, we talked about how God presented us with the first opportunity to see order, Creation.  I talked about how God had a plan and He had a purposed for putting each day in a certain order.  Then we talked about what would happen if God had decided to just mix things up.  It just wouldn't work that way!

Using the Leader's Manual, I encouraged the moms to make sure that they didn't just expect their daughters to know what goes on in their heads.  Explain why we always hang up our keys.  How it keeps things running smooth and we don't run around like crazy women in the morning looking for them.  Of course, if we do happen to lose our keys, we can always ask St. Zita to help us find them as she is the patron saint of lost keys.  We can use this handy little prayer, "Zita, Zita, help me please.  Help me to find my missing keys" (Sorry, I can't remember where I found like).

Then we talked about two women who really knew something about being organized.  The first being St. Zita.  The second is the Proverbs 31 woman.  I gave the girls a little background info on how it was a mom telling her son about the kind of woman he should find.  I can take absolutely no credit for this part of the lesson.  I found a wonderful guide which I borrowed.  I cut out the bible verse and used the one from my Catholic Bible but otherwise it was very helpful in breaking down the different virtues that the woman should have. You can find the guide here.  We talked about how Little Flowers is helping them to develop all those wonderful virtues.

Lastly for our activity, I had the girls make hot cocoa cones.  This was so perfect!!!  The girls had to layer the ingredients in order.  We also passed out the ingredients in an orderly fashion.  Just a warning if you decide to do this activity.  I totally lucked out finding the plastic cones to layer them in.  There were some clearanced right after Christmas at Michael's.  At first I couldn't find them and I was a little panicked thinking of a craft that I could do.  Then at the last moment, they appeared!!  I got this idea from the Catholic Missionary Family.  The post was a few years old so maybe Hobby Lobby no longer carries the cones she used.  Ours definitely didn't look as nice, but it got the job done.

Here are the instructions.

- Each girl received 4 packets of hot cocoa mix, a small cup with 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips and a cup of mini marshmallows. 

- Empty the hot cocoa mix into a snack size baggie and then stick down in the cone bag.

- Dump the mini chocolate chips in and then layer it with the marshmallows.  Add a twisty to close it and you are done!!

I typed out a little card with the instructions that Catholic Missionary Family had posted.  It reads, "Heat 5 cups of milk and chocolate chips over medium heat until the chocolate chips have melted. Reduce heat to low and stir in the cocoa mix until the drink is smooth. Serve with marshmallows. Makes 4-6 servings."

With the cold weather that is headed our way, I know the girls are going to be enjoying their creations right away!!