Come Holy Spirit, Come!

Give me grace O Holy Spirit,

Spirit of the Father and the Son to say to You always and everywhere,

"Speak Lord for Your servant heareth."

 Amen

Breathe into me Holy Spirit, That all my thoughts may be holy. Move in me, Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Attract my heart, Holy Spirit, that I may love only what is holy. Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, that I may defend all that is holy. Protect me, Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy

Post to come later on our day, the art, and the novena!

Thank you Lacy for the inspiration.

Southern California Catholic Home Educator's Conference

SCCHE

June 22-24

~

It's a homeschooling conference.

It's a curriculum fair.

It's a used book sale.

~

It's loads of fun.

It begins with Mass,

celebrated by an awesome priest!

~

and best of all....

It will be here

with the

 Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles!

{P, H, F, R}

{Pretty}

May Crowning

of our Blessed Mother

With our homeschool co-op.

And this year it was Rose's name chosen to crown

Our Lady.

Each May we gather with the Poor Clare Sisters.

They graciously open their doors and allow this group of many to roam around, pray, sing praise, hike the hills.  Bless these sisters! 

They are dear to us!

{Happy}

Our yearbook is done and off to print.

Lucy is so, so happy it's finally DONE!

And it looks pretty!

(this is the cover, created by my very talented niece/godchild)

{Funny}

One child's excitement over her first 'ever' solar eclipse,

was another child's anxiety.

Rose wasn't really anxious here,

she was being very cautious not to look at the sun.

{Real}

The school year is just about over, and already the books for next year have begun to arrive.

I love this home schooled life!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here then sharing it with

 Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Rose's Thank You!

Hand drawn 'thank you' cards for all!

May Crowning 2012

Each May our

 Holy Family Homeschool co-op gather together,

with the Poor Clare Sisters in Sylmar, 

for the Crowning of Our Lady. 

We start with the procession of little lambs

We pray the rosary asking for the intercessions of

 Our Lady

Two children are chosen to crown

Our Lady

This year Rose's name was chosen

I love the face on this cutie little gent

Rose got on her tippy toes

and placed the crown of flowers on

Our Lady's head

(a mommy then helped adjust the crown)

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!

Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,

to thee do we send up our sighs,

mourning and weeping in this valley, of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate,

thine eyes of mercy toward us;

and after this our exile show unto us the

blessed fruit of thy womb Jesus;

O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ

and then came the cake

Here in pictures, and 'some' details, is the cake.

Celebrating a

First Holy Communion and an 8th birthday!

I shall start by telling you that I'm no grand baker.  Oh I try!  In my alter ego, I think I can do some fabulous, edible, masterpieces. 

But, that's not always the case.

Here though, I must say it was pretty darn great!

I am disappointed that the whipped cream frosting began to crack on me before the reception. 

That and that I am STILL using Lucy's camera.  So the pictures aren't the best, sorry.

It was a triple layered, whipped cream frosted cake.

White, lemon, white cake;

with a fresh raspberry puree filling in between the layers.

Oh my, it was so good.

I baked two cakes, one white cake recipe and the other was the lemon flavored one.  Once baked and COOLED, I sliced the cakes in halves.  I put each layer of cake in the frig.  This always helps set the cake and, when frosting, keeps the crumblings from attacking the frosting. 

Make sense?

(Where is Barbara when you need recipe explanations?)

~

Assembly:

I took one layered cake, piped (using a Wilton 2D tip) a ring/barrier of the whipped cream frosting around the cake.  Then filled it with the puree.

Repeated the step for the three layers.

~

Decorating:

I used a #3 tip to pipe the scrolls around the cake.  No real technique here, I just wanted something around the cake without it looking too busy.

The center chocolate was a pre made chocolate mold of a cross and then I piped stars around the cake itself.

When we cut the cake there were lots of ooohhhs and aahhhs around. 

Best of all though, Rose loved it!

~ What I used ~

• A Wilton Cross Cake pan
• This Simple White Cake recipe
• One box of Betty Crocker Lemon Cake
• Raspberry Puree Recipe
• Easy Whipped Cream Frosting

Raspberry Puree Recipe

1 -12oz bag of frozen raspberries

1/4 cup of sugar (or adjust to taste)

1/2 tsp of fresh lemon juice (optional, but highly recommend it)

1.  Thaw the raspberries

2.  Put them through a meshed strainer and using the back of a spoon or the bottom of a cup, push the juice out of the berries through the strainer into a bowl.  All that you should have left are the seeds.

3.  Put the berry pulp (if any), berry juice, sugar, and lemon juice into a blender.

4. Puree away!

The lovely thing about purees; if covered well, they it keep for a week in the frig.  They also do well frozen and used for cakes, cheesecakes, over ice cream. 

Yum!

Saving for a later post are the cookies.

Oh yes, there were cookies.

April 29, 2012

Rose's First Holy Communion

It's been nearly three weeks since that beautiful Sunday. 

 I'm blushing with embarrassment that it's taken me even one week to write the first sentence. 

But, here I am (posting this day for her) and here she is,

my girl Rose!

I wish I can tell you that the days leading up to this special Sunday went smoothly.

I wish I could tell you that

but

I can't.

There was the cake to bake and decorate,

the cookies, the cleaning,

the last minute of running around.

And stuff that life just likes to throw at you when you least expect it.

What I can say, is that, Sunday morning was

peaceful and beautiful!

Nothing mattered other than

knowing that on that day,

our Rose would know a closeness to Jesus,

a special bond, that would guide and by His grace, strengthen her.

"I am the bread of life..." (John 6:35)

It's my prayer for her to know and believe that

He is always there waiting for her,

just her;

to receive Him and believe how much He loves her.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life." (John 6:47)

She was surrounded by many who love her, her Nina.

She, by the way, made this beautiful veil for Rose.

Friends and family.

In the presence of our parish community

at Holy Mass

Rose received the 

Body, soul and divinity of Jesus!

"What wonderful majesty!

What stupendous condescension!

O sublime humility!

That the Lord of the whole universe,

God and the Son of God,

should humble Himself like this

under the form of a little bread, for our salvation."

~ St. Francis of Assisi

The homily given by our wonderful pastor, Fr. Steve, can be listened to

 here on St. Joseph Communications. 

I totally recommend it, it was awesome!

{P,H,F,R}

{Pretty}

Rose made her First Holy Communion this past Sunday. 

It was a blessing that the first time she received Christ in Holy Communion was among our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. 

She looked so pretty!

{Happy}

"Happy"

is being surrounded by family!

{Funny}

Soon after Mass was over Rose took my hand; as she was skipping along she says, ""Now I can go up with you to receive Jesus...it's like being in a club."

 :-)

{Real}

A picture share of the damaged of my sister-in-law's home,

damaged from the fire a couple of weeks ago.

I first wrote about it here

Vintage maps on the wall, charred.

Their Lady of Fatima statue from Portugal, see her there on the mantle?  The intense heat melted it from the base.

Crazy!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, over at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

SSShhh!

Don't tell my kids I'm trying to write a post. 

It's been nearly impossible to sit for any length of time, be it 5 minutes or 10, without someone or something needing my attention.

Yes, it's been just NUTS around here.  But there is so much to share.  So, in the couple of minutes it'll take for my pot of coffee to be ready; I'm just going to quickly jot down a few details of the past few weeks.

1.  Rose made her First Holy Communion!
It was sweet, emotional, and just lovely.  I spent a lot of time on making the cake and cookies.  And though, I didn't get to do a few things, we had great food, awesome company, and best of all Rose is now "part of the club".

A picture of her special day

2.  We've had family over for the last two weekends.  First, my mom and some of my siblings were here for Rose.  Last weekend they were in town for a triple baptism.  My mom's side of the family are pretty big on get together(s).  This past Saturday was no exception.  Cecilia danced with my nephew, Rose saved a baby chick, I spent time with my Tias and several cousins.  It was a super fun day.... and night!

3.  School, school, school.  My goodness, we are up to our ears in math, grammar and Romeo & Juliet.  I don't know if I succeeded exactly what I had envisioned for this school year back in August, but the kids seems happy.  So hey, that works for me :-).

4.  Lucy is chief editor for her high school co-op, St. Anne's Academy.  We are only about 8 families, but doing any sort of yearbook; regardless of size, has been quite time consuming.  It's been fun, no doubt.  But going through so many pictures, family pages, sending out deadlines, and emails... she's taken on a lot of responsibility.  For a 14 year old, I think she's done great.

5.  We have a quartet meeting here twice a week.  Lucy was asked to organize this quartet of young people to play at a wedding in June.  Would you please offer a little prayer for them?  They've been working hard for this to sound pretty, and they're nervous about it.  300 guest at this wedding.... yea, they probably should be nervous.

6.  My sister-in-law is struggling to find a temporary home for the 6 months it'll take her home to be repaired.  Please keep praying.  They are a large family and home owners are refusing to rent to them.  So sad!!! 

Okay coffee is ready and I'm out of time.  I'll post soon the full details to Rose's First Holy Communion and another post on that cake.  It was so good!

God bless!