Liturgical Calendar - The Week in the Church

While this isn't totally related to Little Flowers, I thought I would share the liturgical calendar that I made for our church.  It's right above the drinking fountain so that anyone who gets a drink can see it.

I got the calendar from the USCCB website.  While I would have loved to include all the saints from both the old and new calendar, I stuck with what the USCCB calendar had on it.  I thought it best to keep things simple.    I also used information from the Catholic Culture website.  They have great ideas on activities to do on each feast day too.

This was super simple to make.  I used a regular bulletin board and just nailed a very thin piece of wood for the clothespins to hang.  Each season, I will change the background colors.  Of course when I took the picture, we were in Ordinary Time.  One each saint card, I try to find a picture of the saint, a quote by the saint and what they are a patron saint of.  There just isn't enough room to be writing bios about each one.

This was a fun project.  I love sitting down each week to learn about the saints for the week and the  seasons in the Church.   This would be a great tool for a group or family to have.

 

First Service Project of the Year - Get Well Cards

Over the summer, I received a letter from the Pastoral Care Department of a local Catholic hospital.  They were asking for handmade pick me up or get well cards.  I thought it would be an easy and fun idea for our group.  Also, it was a great way to get the girls thinking about helping others.

I had to really think about how to do this project.  My daughter can work on one card for an hour if she is really into it or spend a minute slopping it together. Because I wanted to make sure the cards were thoughtfully done, I decided to pick out 5 designs for the girls to choose from and let them assemble the cards.  They were then able to write some encouraging words inside and draw a picture if they wanted to.

I wrote some suggestions up on the chalk board for what they could write inside.  It's important to remind the kids that God is capitalized.  From past experience, kids forget to do this a lot!!  I also had a handout with ideas.  It would have helped to actually hand it out.  Next year, I won't forget.  The girls certainly needed help with ideas.

Here are the designs we used.  Having a die cut machine definitely comes in handy.  I had a sample of the design with all the pieces for the girls to assemble themselves.  They did a great job.  The girls and moms were able to complete almost 70 cards!!!  I can't wait to take them to the hospital.

Family Fun Night

While this post isn't just about our Little Flowers group, almost the whole group showed up to Family Fun Night.  It was a great way for us to practice some Eutrapelia with our families.   

This is the second year that our parish has had this event.  We supplied the hot dogs, and a baked potato bar, and the families brought a side dish or dessert to share.

There were games and crafts for the kids, and of course, the adults were welcome to join in.

There was St. Katereri's Bow and Arrow Shoot.  A chance to knock away the sins and draw closer to God. This was truly a hit.  There was a line there the whole night.  Certainly a keeper.

 

Next was St. Isidore's Pumpkin Patch.  Just in case you don't know (I know I had to look it up).  St. Isidore is the patron saint of farmers.  I made sure to use small enough pumpkins so that they wouldn't break open.  This one was another hit. 

 

 

Of course a party wouldn't be complete without a St. Martha's Cupcake walk.  This was perfect for the Little Flowers.  They had just learned that St. Martha was a busy bee.   There were 6 different saints and when the music stopped, a saint's name was called out.  If you were sitting on that chair, you won a cupcake.

We had a couple more games, the Halo Toss and St. Peter's Keys.  I think the St. Peter's Keys game was a little too tame for the kids.  They were much more interested in the more active games.  Oh, and one more game, the saints memory game.  I saw quite a few kids over there playing with their friends. 

There were also plenty of crafts to do.  

I do want to thank Shower of Roses, Catholic Inspired, and Memories of a Catholic Wife and Mother for some of these ideas.  I have been busy pinning away waiting for a chance to use some of their ideas.  Made planning this party so easy.

This was such a wonderful chance for the families of the parish to come together.  I enjoyed watching them relaxing and visiting.  It was also great seeing the kids really enjoying themselves.  How wonderful that they will have such fond memories of these get togethers at the church.

Aprons

A couple of years ago, I took on the crazy task of making aprons for all the girls.  God is so good!!  I had never sewn an apron before so I know it had to have been His idea. I don't have a pattern, but I did write down the measurements.  They are fairly easy to make, one size fits all and there's plenty of room on them for all the badges. 

Using a coupon from Joann's, I was able to buy a bolt of fabric fairly cheap and all the moms chipped in.  If I remember right, it was about $5.00 each.   The great thing is that we had so much material left that I will be able to continue making aprons for new members for the next few years.  While they will  have to purchase their aprons, that money gets put right back into the group.  When the time comes to buy more fabric, the money will be there.

I love the way the girls look when they all have on their aprons.  If we want them to all look uniformed, all they have to do is put on a white shirt.  It doesn't matter what they wear on the bottom.  They just tie on their aprons and they all look great.

Time to get started sewing aprons for new members.  So much for getting a head start over the summer.

Spreading the Word

I'm a very happy leader this evening.  A while ago, my co-leader suggested that we send an article about Little Flowers to our diocesan newspaper.   Since I don't fancy myself to be much of a writer, I told her to go for it.  Well this evening I was able to see it online.  The article got published!!!

I love the idea that Little Flowers is making the news.  It seems the Girl Scouts makes the diocese's newspaper a few times a year.  Hopefully this will encourage other moms or parishes to start Little Flower groups of their own.

If you are a leader of a Little Flowers Girls Club, I encourage you to get the word out.  Submit an article to your diocesan newspaper.

Here's a link to the article about our group.  It's on page 14.

Eutrapelia

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about doing this virtue.  I mean, it took me forever to even learn how to pronounce it!!!  So, I did what I always do.  I worked on it, set it aside for awhile and prayed on it.  Yesterday, it all came together.  It amazes me every time.  God just puts it in my heart, and then I get excited!!!

Tonight was the first meeting that I wasn't nervous at all.  Not sure if it's because I'm finally getting comfortable or what, but it was great.  It always makes it interesting having two daughters in the group.  My youngest was just a little too energetic and talkative this evening, but I know she is just excited to be at Little Flowers.

We started the meeting by taking care of business.  Since I handed out the registration forms at the pizza party, we were able to collect activity fees and money to place an order for badges and books.  Last year, I made the mistake of letting moms place a few different orders.  I decided not to drive my husband crazy with lots of charges on my credit card.  This year one order would be placed after the first meeting.  Worked great.

So onto Eutrapelia.  So what is it?  Well it's a virtue of pleasantness, playfulness, and moderate relaxation.  It can be a type of playfulness, joking and amusement.  St. Thomas Aquinas said that just as the body needs rest when it is tired, so does the soul.

God is so good to us.  He gives us the perfect opportunity to practice this virtue when he gave us Sunday!!!  While we should always begin the day by going to church, we also have the day that we can spend with our family relaxing, and enjoying each others company.

The flower for the month is just perfect for Eutrapelia, the dandelion.  For kids, it's a beautiful little flower that they make into pretty crowns, beautiful necklaces, and make wishes on when they turn fluffy and white.  Now for grown ups, dandelions are weeds and most of us would like nothing more than to get rid of them.  Somewhere along the line, we lose the simple joy of blowing on a dandelion.

So you see, this is a good virtue for us moms to work on as well.  There are probably quite a few of us who have a hard time relaxing or finding that playfulness.  Now on the other hand, the girls may want to have too much playing around or amusement.  Eutrapelia is about finding that balance.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about having too much of a good thing (of course my words, not his).  He points out that there can be too much playing or relaxing, that humor can be rude or hurtful, or that having fun can be at inappropriate times.  I had the girls help come up with examples for these things.  Seemed like an easy concept to understand.


We then moved on to our saints of the month, Martha and Mary.  I read about them from the Catholic Children's Bible and we talked about which saint was practicing Eutrapelia.  This was perfect as it led us into one of the activities of the month which was to read Luke 10:38-42 and then rewrite the story or draw a picture.

We also went around the room and told our favorite joke or riddle.  This helped complete #4 of the activities.  The girls really enjoyed this.  Lots of laughs.  One little flower even had a joke book with her and shared some of them with us.

For our craft, I tied it into another activity.  They had to write out five ways in which they like to relax.  I had them work with their moms to write them out and then they made fluffy white dandelions out of yarn and attached them to their lists. Here is the link with the directions for making them.  They turned out great and were easy enough for each of the girls to do on their own.

While we might not be able to work on the badge activities at each meeting, I know how much it is appreciated by the moms (including me).  Tonight we were able to get four of the activities completed!!  More time to practice that Eutrapelia during the rest of the month.