Celebrating Advent with Kids - Week Five

My hope for this short series of posts is to help/encourage/prove that celebrating Advent is doable even with little ones. One might argue it necessary to teach kids about seasons and times of preparation and times of celebration - which is why our tree is still in a bucket of water outside and Lee just put the candles in the windows today (maybe he'll forget to turn them on for a few days.... : ) He wants to decorate the tree on the 24th but I told him I'd string the lights but ornaments are off until 12/26 since we are in no rush to get through Christmas 

Veni, veni Adonai!

Qui populo in Sinai

Legem dedisti vertice,

In maiestate gloriae.

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel

nascetur per te, Israel. 

Here's what's been going on:

Advent Week 1
Advent Week 2 
Advent Week 3 
Advent Week 4


Here's our weekly preparation schedule:

1. Daily - The Jesse Tree
2. Daily - O Come Emmanuel
3. Weekly - Act of Service/Charity - you get the point


1. The Jesse Tree - Continued greatness. We read Exodus 40 and all I could think about it - yeah and people nowadays think Catholics are crazy for blessing things over and over and do not see the Biblical connection of the New Covenant priesthood. It is all there. The Jewish people had all these PREPARATION and CELEBRATION periods and had priest (line of Aaron) and had a tabernacle and an altar and HELLO I get it. Catholics aren't as crazy as I thought. Christ is the FULFILLMENT of the Old Law and established the New Law/Covenant and so much of what the Catholic Church does has Old Testament basis (probably because the earliest Christians were former Jews who knew all about at the OT). Call me slow to 'get it' or make the connection but now that I see it, it cannot be ignored.

2. Singing O Come Emmanuel - Oh Grammy went and started something. So Grammy gave us this CD so we could sing along in Latin except the CD only has three versus - not the five we are used to (insert unhappy E). HOWEVER, because I cannot listen to the song but twice maybe thrice on the way to school we've listened to a few others including Tantum Ergo Sacramentum (which E is determined to learn) and a version of Salve Regina which is fun. Oh and the paper with the versus on it... I just found it this morning. In the garage #winning

3. Act of Giving Back/Charity…

Okay... So in my quest for ingenious ideas to round out Advent multiple people suggested going to a nursing home and doing something. Well by chance or by the Lord's own AWESOME timing, E's class was scheduled to go sing at the nursing home across the street (photographic evidence of firemen stopping traffic for the kids to cross the street as my heart is pounding out of my chest). So I rolled with the nursing home idea and took R and M along because well it was our family activity too.

R did not get to sing with the big kids which was fine because we took our seats and seriously no sooner had I sat down then did the older lady sitting next to me grab R and plop her down on her lap. When R was squirmy she grabbed M. That first moment of her immediately wanting to hold R totally solidified going there for me. That was the reason I needed to take off work and go and trudge in the cold and cross the busy street to visit and give our time and our gift of presence. As I looked at the people in the nursing home I couldn't help but wonder how often they get to see their families.

Anyhow, when we got back to school, I deposited R in her proper location and M and I hung out until E's party. I felt like I spend the whole day at school! I did scoot out after the party before carpool to go shopping so now you know what our sixth and final Advent activity was which was more like an act of penance at first but you'll just have to wait to get the full scoop : )

O come, Adonai, Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

10 Top Memories of Baking Pound Cake for the First Time

For the last week of Advent I was running low in the ideas department so I did an impromptu bake session for teachers and neighbors- well it was kinda planned but didn't really go according to plan... 

10. Whipping cream
The recipe my SIL gave me called for heavy whipping cream and the store had 1. whipping cream or 2. heavy cream. First dilemma solved by a quick phone call but would indicate I've NEVER done this before so I'm in for the long haul

9. Baking powder
The last time I baked (as in the bananas were getting old and the freezer was full of brown bananas so I made banana bread - did I mention I've resourceful?) I used the last of the baking powder. I put it on the board to buy and Lee picked it up when he went to the store however I also got it when we were at Trader Joes too... So now we have a bunch of baking powder - which is rarely used.

Awesome. So I made my list for the store for lb cake shopping and I put baking soda on the list. But as I was going through the store baking soda seemed odd so I picked some up anyway and remembered the plethora of baking powder and discovered it was in fact baking POWDER the recipe called for. (Yeah I probably should have just stopped here)

8. Flour
But I didn't. Who doesn't have flour? All purpose flour? Well we have a ton of bread flour here because Lee makes all the bread for church. As the girls are lined up ready to 'help' the thought crosses my mind if we even have all purpose flour. Well... We did. Score!

7. 4 mini loaf pans
I was warned this recipe might make upwards of 9 mini loaf pans worth of pound cake. Well guess who only has 4... MOI. So as soon as the first batch was out... I had another 45 minutes and change worth of waiting.

6. Kids
This was part of our Advent activity of giving back so I kinda 'needed' to include them but they totally messed with my mind. We did the flour first and then cracked the eggs and then I really got to reading the recipe, and mixing. Bad plan.

Love R's expression

Baking in her Tiara 

R helped with the flour and eggs but I had to actually hold her hands so no pics : (

5. Time to bake
Definitely underestimated the time it would take to bake all this pound cake. I went in with this insanely ambitious idea of baking two batches - 16 loaves of pound cake - and I didn't start mixing until 7:30. Yeah that didn't happen

4. Late
Baking late is also a bad plan in general. I felt the need to set two timers for that second round of loaves because I was laying in bed dozing off hoping I would here the oven timer. Fortunately I did. I pulled them out and popped them out of the pans and that was all folks.

3. Crisco
Something super crazy. I don't bake much. I think I've mentioned that before. I was shopping for Crisco and for some reason I thought the recipe called for 3 cups of Crisco so I bought the largest container I could find. Yeah well turns out the recipes called for a HALF A CUP of Crisco (3 cups of sugar and flour though) so we have a massive container of Crisco in the pantry that will probably sit there for a really long time

(Now enter my moments of glory that would make my mom proud - because here's the cake she baked last weekend) 

2. Creaming sugar and butter
Did I mention baking with kids is not recommended? Also, not reading the recipe off your phone which has the auto-off thing every 22 seconds. So... after the girls cracked the eggs (no eggshells either!) I loaded up the mixer with the butter, sugar, Crisco and eggs. And I'm letting it mix and I'm feeling great because I'm totally rocking this recipe.

Haha...

Pop open the recipe:

"Cream butter and sugar until fluffy"

"Add one egg at a time"

To the expert recipe giver:

Getting bummed about the final product but I mean - does it really matter if you add the eggs before creaming the butter and sugar?

1. Parchment paper
Truly one of my best moments. 

While quizzing my SIL about the whipping cream vs heavy cream she says to use parchment paper in the pans so the cake does not stick. Stick that in the back of my mind for baking day...

Okay that stuff it SUPER annoying but she does this all the time so her world is baking gospel.

Except it doesn't look right.

But it will straighten out once it cooks, right?

WRONG...

Now I'm just getting annoyed. Creaming the sugar/butter and not this crazy parchment paper and I'm SUPPOSED TO GIVE THESE OUT AS TEACHER GIFTS?!?!?!??!?!?

To top it off while the first batch is still cooking:

Me - I found out what I did wrong with the parchment paper (after consulting SIL)

Lee - What?

Me - I'm supposed to cut out a sheet for the bottom

Lee - You didn't hear when when I got it out for you? 

Me - No, why?

Lee - I told you to cut out piece for the bottom 

Me - Ughhhhhh

Lee - What did you do? 

Me - Put it in the pan all the way around and now I'm going to have misshapen pound cakes!

Lee - {chuckles}

Whatta Weekend!

Well we had once of our busiest weekends on record... Or at least that I can remember and my memory is horrible - I have 3 kids so that's a legit excuse, right? So here's a bit of what happened...

Saturday was kicked off by another great breakfast courtesy of Papa. Grits = fantastic. Not nearly as exciting as last Saturday morning. Then after milling around the house and laundering a few piles of clothes we headed off to a playdate...

Four Elsas? You bet 

Post lunch we loaded back up and went home to rest.
Post rest we loaded back up and dropped off our 2nd week of Advent activity (finally!) and played on the playground.
Post that we got home, watched PBS, ate dinner, took showers, watched PBS, and dried hair.
Post that we left for a Christmas party at the start of bedtime

Overheard on the way there AFTER talking about how we needed to behave and use good manners...

R- I mell some-ting
E - It stinks
Me - {with stuffy nose} It is probably a skunk
E - It smells like pierogi
Me - Well it is definitely not a skunk then
R - Hmmm... A cow made gas... A cow made gas!

#parentingfail

So I was pretty much expecting to leave the party after 20ish minutes because I had no idea how we would fair. However we stayed for almost an hour and 20 minutes so that was awesome. R got to see her bestest little friend from school and they followed each other around an had to sit next to each other and eat the same food. It was cute! 

Also I managed the playdate all the way to driving to the Christmas party solo because Lee had a bit of work to wrap up, hold pick up hours for a church fundraiser and preach/homilize (my word not his : ) Saturday night at the church here. I was satisfied with fact I didn't yell too much and the house was not a total WRECK when we did get home from the party. #winning

Then Sunday morning Lee and I headed to the garage at 5:30 to load up the coolers for the big distribution of kielbasa and pierogi (again, church fundraiser - oh the life of a mission parish). 150 lbs of homemade (yes that would be in MY home - but I have about 2% to do with the actually making of it) and 291 dozen potato and cheese pierogis later... we were set. My fingers were so numb at the end I blame any miscounting of pierogi on the cold (yeah, yeah offer it up I know). 

Church was church. Nothing major to report. 

We went to Trader Joes after (yes I cannot stand shopping on Sundays but we needed to kill time) and we walked out to find that M had opened one of the van doors (when I gave her the keys as we were walking in). THANK YOU KIND PEOPLE OF CARY FOR NOT STEALING MY PHONE!

Next stop, Grammy and Grandpa Joe's for Uncle Kevin's birthday... Homemade dumplings and made from scratch gingerbread cake - it was AWESOME

E was super concerned about the wax on the cake

Uncle Kev and R ate off each others plates and it looked something like this...

M is in this super cute stage of being very animated...

Are you tired yet because, yeah I was at that point... BUT then I dragged M to get shoes for Christmas (thanks Jibbe) and I knew I HAD to go before rest otherwise I wouldn't be able to at least try for Christmas card pics (more on that later)

THEN... Yes there is more. I walked drove down to get some expert advice on finishing Papa's stocking and leaving it to get finished. See the cross stitching is only part of it... You have to get it backed or know someone who really likes you who will do it for it. Fortunately I know someone... and she's the reason I wanted to do cross stitched stockings in the first place. 

Also got to see a sweet little bebe who I could not hold because of my sniffles (grrrrr) and I didn't even get a pic because I was furiously stitching the top where the name... Anyways, it is always great to catch up with good friends especially ones like these : ) 

Then I raced back to Grammy's to get the Christmas card pic taken. We don't have a good place for taking them inside our house. Our couch is a weird greenish color and the fireplace is not the best for M and we didn't have poinsettias and Lee was bugging me (legitimately) about when are the Christmas cards going to be done (I like to send them about a week before Christmas). Well the stars aligned and I went for it.... Rapid fire. You get what you get. Let's get at least a decent one of each of them and if a group pic happens, great. If not then it'll be another card like last year. 

I won't spoil it for anyone but M did eventually realize that I snuck a bow band on her head... 10 minutes... 100 pics. I got what was needed.

Then back to dinner and harassing Grammy and Grandpa Joe's dog. Seriously, seriously. If I could tell you how much this dog does NOT appreciate the grandkids presence. M snuggled him and shared her bear with him and crawled around him and Grady just sat there. Annoyed as all get out. 

E could not convince Grandpa Joe to eat brussel sprouts at dinner (not lying, they are her favorite). M thinks everything is hilarious including putting asparagus on her head...

Grandpa Joe literally put out a small fire that had to do with the grill (Lee supervised) and we got pajamas on and headed back home. We left G&Gs kitchen like a tornado ran through - I think we managed to get the toys put away but for real... If/when (in the LONG distant future) we have grandkids and they come I solemnly promise to let them and our kids leave the house in the state we left G&Gs. Promise!

We got back home and in bed and I asked myself where'd my weekend go and now I can look back and see... 

7QTs - 2 weeks left of Advent

Here we go...

--- 1 ---

This girl is kind of getting over hanging out with me at work. 

So she has taken to consuming lots of food to pass the time and when she's full... She saves it for later in places that are not meant for food storage. Can you find the Cheetz?

--- 2 ---

How about this girl...

She loves her Papa so much. So much that when she got home from school and Papa was home from work (thank you winter) that she just HAD to put on pajama pants too. Goodness she is cute!

--- 3 ---

We hit up the pool for another two rounds of swim class. Tuesday I thought we were going to have to leave but E powered through thanks to a lifeguard

She did great on Thursday after I showed her a few videos of her swimming on Tuesday. I think her jury is still out on the teacher because he is new and she doesn't like change. 

--- 4 ---

We completed our fourth week of Advent activity... And Saturday we might finally seal the deal on the second week's activity because we haven't actually brought the food to where it needs to go. Details I tell you... 

Caught this on the way home : ) 

--- 5 ---

Oh and this girl...

It wacky clothes day... 

E had to be in the pic too but was disappointed it was not her wacky clothes but she's had her time in 2 yr old class and 3 yr old class... twice in fact. R didn't quite 'get it' but she loved wearing her Frozen shirt and Crocs which I never let her wear to school

--- 6 ---

This is what happens when you cross stitch in bed with dim light...

The grey thread gets mistaken for the light blue thread and then you have to PULL OUT ALL YOUR WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when you are sitting in good light and then you realized you wasted a bunch of time. I cannot stand pulling out stitches.... Any how, M's stocking is coming right along aside from my setbacks

--- 7 ---

Hopefully we won't have a controversial Friday like last week...

On tap for the weekend, the pierogi army will be reloading the coolers for our fundraiser distribution, celebrating Uncle Kev's birthday, taking Papa's stocking to get it backed, getting M some shoes so they can be wrapped under the tree for her in 13 days and trying to find the best deals on books (new and used) to wrap up for Lee. 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

                               

Celebrating Advent - Week Four

My hope for this short series of posts is to help/encourage/prove that celebrating Advent is doable even with little ones. One might argue it necessary to teach kids about seasons and times of preparation and times of celebration

Veni clavis Davidica!

Regna reclude coelica,

Fac iter Tutum superum,

Et claude vias Inferum.

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel

nascetur per te, Israel. 

Okay now I'm totally back on track. Here's what's been going on:

Advent Week 1
Advent Week 2 
Advent Week 3 


Here's our weekly preparation schedule:

1. Daily - The Jesse Tree
2. Daily - O Come Emmanuel
3. Weekly - Act of Service/Charity - you get the point


1. The Jesse Tree - PEOPLE! DO A JESSE TREE. Even if you aren't Catholic and you want to do daily reading from the OT to get from Adam and Eve to Christ and you want to make it visually interesting for kids GET A JESSE TREE. Hands down best *new* Advent tradition we added this year.

This week's readings have included some pretty long passages which have been broken up over morning/lunch/dinner if necessary. Like ummm... THE ENITRE BOOK OF JONAH. Okay it was not that long but how about 4 chapters of Tobit? Anyhow, I peaked ahead we are getting into some of the prophecies of in Isaiah and short(er) little snippets.

2. Singing O Come Emmanuel - If I could just remember the second and third versus in Latin we'd be golden without the stinking sheet of paper with the words on it that I have not seen for at least 4 days... but #momfail. One day in future years hopefully the girls will put together the 'Key of David' and 'Rod of Jesse' and other part of the song dwith what we are reading about in the Jesse Tree. That's one of the reasons I love singing it (aside from the Latin is just really pretty) is the song has TONS of theology in it.

3. Act of Giving Back/Charity…



{while stopping for gas on the way to our destination}
R - We going back home?

Me - No we are going to the graveyard

R - Ohhhh mer-sea. That sounds alittle fun

The girls did well the during the Panikhida at both cemeteries...

Still brings a tear to my eye going here...

We even got a "Eeeeee-ternal memory" chime in from R when we sang 'Blessed repose and eternal memory'. It was cute. It lightened the mood. 

This was a repeat activity from last year and I think it is an important one. It is definitely not as fun as filling shoeboxes by any means. E is still trying to wrap her finger around the concept of death since we went to a funeral last year. Then we've recently been talking about a friend whose baby is in heaven and how he is there but his mama and papa and sister are alive (on earth). Oh the mind of a child. 

Any-who, on tap for this week is trying not to get overly excited about our tree. 

Seriously I have wanted one of these little babies forever and now we have a perfect reason to have one since come December 24 the bare bones, not overly festive Jesse Tree (and ornaments) will have to be replaced by a decked out Christmas tree (and corresponding ornaments). I'm sure these won't disappoint either. For now, our ridiculous tree is getting used to life outside the box in the corner of Lee's office. Now I just have to figure out how to run an extension cord from the kitchen table to a plug without getting tripped over a million times by three little girls!

Also, I'm up for ideas on a charitable act or service or something for this week. I'm thinking I might have the girls exchange names among them and get their presents but that is not really what I'm going for plus I might rig it so:

E has M
R has E
M has R

since have pretty good idea about 'suggestions' that will be put forth.

I don't know. I really don't want to drop the ball on the charity the last two weeks of Advent because we were slackers last year too. I'd love an activity that does not involve spending a bunch of money because we did that the first two weeks. Going to a soup kitchen or something like that would be ideal but bringing small kids is generally not an option unless one exists that is outside of the ordinary.

Baking cookies for firefighters and police officers? There was an episode of the Duggars when that did that so that might work...

IDEAS people... I need them please.

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav'nly home ;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Celebrating Advent - Week 3

My hope for this short series of posts is to help/encourage/prove that celebrating Advent is doable even with little ones. One (my oldest daughter included) might argue it necessary to teach kids about seasons and times of preparation and times of celebration

Veni, veni o oriens!

Solare nos adveniens,

Noctis depelle nebulas,

Dirasque noctis tenebras.

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel

nascetur per te, Israel.

Again... super late but whateva!

If I had a $100 bill for each time E asks why everyone is decorating for Christmas when it is Advent? or Why do some people not celebrate Advent? I think I could pay off our house early.

Here's our weekly preparation schedule:

1. Daily - The Jesse Tree
2. Daily - O Come Emmanuel
3. Weekly - Act of Service/Charity - you get the point


1. The Jesse Tree - Continued Jesse Tree / Advent Tree greatness. So great. So so great. I might have mentioned this but if you have not read the story of Joseph (the one with the colorful coat) forgiving his brothers READ IT. The girls like picking out ornament locations on our tree that is filling out quite well

2. Singing O Come Emmanuel - I need to make a copy of the words I know. It drive E crazy when I fill in the blanks with hums instead of words.

3. Act of Giving Back…  The girls collected some of their toys to give to St. Nicholas. It is a fantastic opportunity to weed out some stuff that is not used or we have in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate, quintuplicate, sextuplicate... Yes we had 6 of the EXACT SAME BABY DOLL!

Then we left them for St. Nicholas

Saw his after vespers

And enjoyed what he brought us

For the full St. Nicholas recaps with a million pics go here.


Overall, I think our St. Nicholas tradition is a step outside the 'typical' St. Nicholas box. I know most people leave their shoes out for him to put gold coins in and that's all. And that's fine - to each family their own.

Around here we don't use Santa and St. Nicholas interchangably. We have not really been asked about Santa and what his deal is and why he goes down some people's chimneys - I am sure we will one day though!

I like that there is still this element of surprise on St. Nicholas Day. I also like that the kids get some small things before Christmas - no one said the preparation part of Advent couldn't be fun! But also, on Christmas we give the girls one thing each and they will exchange names to give a present among themselves. So there is somewhat less emphasis on gobs of gifts on Christmas - because there aren't as many - thus we can spend more time on 'true meaning of Christmas' and spend more time with family rather than counting whose pile has the most gifts.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.