Hymn For The Morning ~

Surely it is God who saves me;

I shall trust and have no fear.

For the Lord defends and shields me

And his saving help is near.

So rejoice as you draw water

From salvation's healing spring;

In the day of your deliverance

Thank the Lord, his mercies sing.

Make God's deeds known to the peoples:

Tell out his exalted Name.

Praise the Lord, who has done great things;

All his works God's might proclaim.

Zion, lift your voice in singing;

For with you has come to dwell,

In your very midst the great and

Holy One of Israel.

(Taken from The Magnificat -  Meter:87 87 D

Can be sung to the tune used for There's a  Wideness in God's Mercy)

Daily Prayer Rhythm and Materials

I try to begin my day with the Magnificat.  It is a wonderful little book that has morning prayers, the daily Mass readings, evening prayers and much more.  I pick up a copy at our local Catholic bookstore. 
 Then I look for a coloring/activity sheet that follows with the message of the day and include the link in the tab at the top of my blog.

Next I use this amazing resource to see who's the saint of the day.  The list starts with Jan 1 and lists various resources you can use to read about the saint of the day. 

If you read this and you are the hard working person who compiled this list, please let me know so I can give you the praise you deserve! 

Some of the books included on the list are ~

    

I also organized a list of stories by month of the saints from the Once Upon a Time Saint stories series.  We also include this story in our daily rhythm.  Feel free to print and use it if you'd like :)

Sometimes I check out Faith Filled Days to see if there is a coloring sheet of the Saint for that day, a craft idea, or a recipe we might want to try. This is a great resource! Filled with lots of ideas for living the liturgical year.

 I also check out the Catholic Mosaic booklist for the day/month, to see if I need to order something from the library. You can also find this link on my sidebar :)

Other times, I take out our St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism and corresponding Angel Food for Boys and Girls book. Jennifer over at Wildflowers and Marbles has put together a wonderful lesson plan that links these two resources together beautifully! The stories in the Angel Food series really help the religion lessons "come to life" for the little ones. Thanks Jenn for sharing this!

You can also create a copy work sheet using Writing Wizard also found on my side bar.


 We also try to watch the Liturgy of the Word on EWTN (channel 370 if you have Direct TV).   This is aired at 7:00am , 11:00am, 6:00 pm, and 11:00pm.

Lately we've been watching at 6:00pm so that dad can watch with us.  During the homily, I let Buck and Honeybee color the picture I've found correponding to the daily Mass reading, the saint of the day or trace "something they heard" during the readings.

Waltzing Matilda generously shares her wonderful saint drawings to print and color. Thanks so much, Charlotte!


Prayers For Each Day
(These are prayers I pray sometime during the day)

Prayer For Our Husbands
O Good St. Joseph, Patron of Fathers and workers, please come to the aid of my husband. Assist him in his daily efforts to provide for our family, and help him to find his work interesting and fulfilling. Also, help him to be a holy husband and father; may he imitate thy patience and gentleness, yet be unafraid to lead our family on the straight and narrow path that will bring us all to heaven. As breadwinner and head of our family, he does not have an easy job, as thou dost well know, St. Joseph, from thy own life time as provider and head of the Holy Family. Pray for and assist my husband, dear St. Joseph, that his courage and perseverance may not fail and that the trials and hardships which he encounters in this life will only serve to strengthen his love for his family and his devotion to our Lord. Amen.
(Taken from Your Vocation of Love. Agnes Penny)


Parent's Prayer for Our Children
O Good God, we thank You, that You have given us children, made them heirs of heaven by Holy Baptism, and entrusted their training to us. Fill us with a sense of our responsibility; assist us in the care of their health, but especially on the preservation of their innocence and purity of heart. Grant that we may teach them early on to know and serve You, and to love You with their whole heart. May You in Your generosity, see fit to grant to at least one of our children the grace of a vocation in religion. Grant that we ourselves may carefully avoid all that we must forbid them, and may faithfully practice all that we should teach them. Help us to further at home by example the work of the priest and religious. Give us the spirit of sacrifice to study with our children. Never allow us to grow soft nor to make life too easy for our sons and daughters. Help us teach them the eternal value of self discipline. We commend them, O God to Your paternal care, to the motherly protection of the Virgin Mary, and to the guardianship of Your holy angels. Bless our efforts, O heavenly Father, and let our children advance in wisdom and age and grace before You and everyone. Amen.
(Taken from The Mother Love prayerbook)


Daily Prayer For The Children

O Mary, Immaculate Virgin and Sorrowful Mother, commend our beloved children to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Who refuses nothing to His Mother.

Holy Guardian Angels ~  pray for them.
Saint Joseph, Powerful Patron  ~ pray for them.
Saint John, beloved disciple of the heart of Jesus ~ pray for them.
Saint Augustine ~ pray for them.
Saint Anthony ~ pray for them.
Saint Aloysius ~ pray for them.
Saint Anne, Mother of Mary ~ pray for them.
Saint Elizabeth ~ pray for them.
Saint Monica ~ pray for them.

In the evenings we have family prayer time.
This varies depending on where we are in the liturgical season.


We also love watching movies about the Saints and movies that inspire us to be what God has created us to be. 

Our days are far from perfect.  But, we are trying :)  When we fail,  we remember that tomorrow is a new day ~ fresh with no mistakes in it!

God Bless you.  Please pray for us!

Good Morning Dear Jesus

~Our Morning Prayer for the month of November ~

Good morning, dear Jesus, my Savior,

Good morning dear Mary, my Queen,

Good morning bright Angels, fair sentinels

Of Jesus Who dwells here unseen,

Dear Lord, I bring Thee red roses

All wet with the dew of Thy grace.

Every thought, every word, every action

And my heart I give for their vase.

This offering I make through Thy Mother

Whose Heart is so sinlessly white,

Whiter than wings of the Angels

Who watch and pray by me here all night.

One favor, sweet Jesus, I ask of Thee,

Inflame my poor heart with Thy love

So while I toil in this valley

My spirit may dwell far above.

I've been really struggling to stay consistent in my daily schedule lately. I know, I'm still recovering from surgery.... But, I say enough already! So, I guess it's time for a change. I had the inspiration to change up our morning prayers a little. Maybe this will help motivate me. We tend to get stuck in a rut with our prayers. We say the words but do they reach our hearts? I find change helps to ward off dryness in prayer.

Years ago, The House Cat made up the sweetest melody for this prayer. For the month of November, I plan on us singing it together each morning. It's such a beautiful prayer. I look forward to Buck and Honeybee learning it. I thought it was sweet this morning when Honeybee said, "I like the part with the roses." It reminded me of the novena I prayed to St. Therese. By the way, I did see my rose. God Bless

7 Quick First Blogging Anniversary Takes

Had I not been Blessed with so much rest lately, I'm sure this day would have slipped by without notice. I've been labeling all of my old posts and was surprised to notice yesterday that I began blogging a year ago today! It's been nice to have the time to travel back through our last year together. I think back to a year ago and remember saying yes to another of God's callings. He has called me to do so many things I'd never dreamed of doing. I always feel inadequate but, know through Him I can answer His call. As always, I've been tremendously blessed in doing so.

So, I thought I'd share 7 ways my life has been wonderfully blessed this first year of blogging.

1. First of all, I must thank my dear friend Mary for telling me about Catholic Cuisine. This was my introduction into the world of blogging. Catholic Cuisine is a wonderful site to visit for recipes to use in celebrating the liturgical year.
2. I wondered who it was that came up with this site and was blessed to click over to Jessica at Shower of Roses. Boy did she open up a new world to me! She is full of inspiration and to think she's way across the country.
3. I also discovered another beautiful blog thanks to Catholic Cuisine. Wildflowers and Marbles is also a treasured site and she's actually here in Alabama! So many of Jennifer's post have been extremely helpful. Her morning basket, A Mother's Rule of Love seeking Harmony, and Pretty Notebook posts are few of my favorites.
4. I've read Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss several times and been blessed by it. Her blog In the Heart of My Home is another of my favorites. Serendipity, home of the Alphabet Path and much more, is also incredible!
5. I'm always on the look out for better ways to be organized. Dawn, By Sun and Candlelight, had a wonderful post on her file crate system and weekly folders. These are helping me to stay on track.
6. Participating in The Simple Woman's Day book helps me to appreciate all of the beautiful people and things around me that are so easily taken for granted. I'm so blessed by reading other day books. They are full of inspiration and comfort.
7. Last but not least, I'm so blessed to hear that so many people read and find my blog helpful. I give all of the glory to God. This is His doing and I pray that you may be blessed by it. Let me say, we are by far NOT a perfect family. We have our trials and imperfections like everyone else. I just choose not to share them here. I feel as though God wants me to share the "blessings" here. Please pray for us. God Bless You

Visit Conversion Diary for more quick takes.

A Blessed Way To Begin Each Day

Beginning our day gathered together with our morning basket is such a beautiful way to start the day. I'm so thankful to Wildflowers and Marbles for sharing this inspiration. Actually, this is not the only thing I have picked up from her. And to think - she's here in Alabama! I really hope to meet her one day.

My schedule states 8:30 is our start time. However, this is very flexible. We begin our day at the Holy Water Font by blessing ourselves with Holy Water. We repeat a beautiful line a special priest uses, "Let us begin, as we begin all things; "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We tell Jesus good morning and pray our scapular morning offering.

Then we move over to the sofa and have our morning "together" time. We look up the saint of the day and light our candle. A dear friend once gave us globe candle holders representing the different liturgical colors. We check the church calendar for the color of the day and light the insertable candle, which we buy at our church's gift shop.

We read about the saint of the day and also the Daily Mass Readings. The House Cat and Snuggle Bug take turns reading aloud the first reading and the Gospel. I read/sing the Psalm and Buck and Honeybee lead the Alleluia for us. We might reflect for a moment on a line that has touched us or I might have found the Bible story in one of our Children's Picture Bibles to re-tell the story with. Next we incorporate some sort of music. We have been studying songs for Benediction in English and Latin. So we will sing those. Sometimes we will pop in a CD and listen to a song that goes with one of the readings of the day. There are so many wonderful Catholic artist out there! We especially love Danielle Rose, Donna Cori Gibson, and Adrianne Price.

What comes next varies, I may read from:

Once Upon A Time Saints or

Angel Food For Boys and Girls or

Catholic Mosaic or

Our Birds and Their Nestlings

This is such a treasure I stumbled upon on Amazon.

I have reserved an hour block for our morning gathering. By no means is it to the minute, or sometimes even hour. If I'm getting a slow start and the big girls are ready on time, they might go ahead and complete their math lessons before we begin. The important thing is that we do come together sometime in the morning to offer our days to God.

We close our time together by praying The Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, O My Jesus, Come Holy Spirit and the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. We thank God for the gift of homeschooling and ask Him to bless dad in his work and be with all of those we have promised to pray for.

May God Bless You in All You Do!