St. Lucy Feastday....And A Few Odds And Ends

Today is the feast of St. Lucy and we celebrate following the Swedish traditions. You can read more about it here.   Last year I had trouble with my yeast, so this year I was very careful.....and oh my did it rise well this time!!  It came out huge.  This is a traditional braided St. Lucy bread.  It is seasoned with orange zest and orange juice and some dry cranberries.  It came out so delicious!  I might make it for Christmas morning since my stepmother loves orange cranberry flavors.

Anna is dressed in a white dress with a red sash to symbolize St. Lucy's purity and martyrdom.  And she has a wreath with candles on her head.  The bread was VERY heavy and so she is concentrating very hard on not dropping it LOL..

Tradition has the oldest daughter waking early in the morning to bring treats to everyone in their bed, but I just didn't have time to make to bread yesterday and at 33wks pregnant I am not up to getting out of bed before my three early risers....so we did our celebration after dinner and it worked great.

My odds and ends...Just a pic of our Jesse Tree...

 

Daddy came through with his saint peg dolls at the last minute again....So St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and St. Katherine Drexel 

 

 

 Buggy had been very unhappy about her crib lately.  So Claudio turned it into a toddler bed.  She is happier now but she has kept us on our toes for sure!!  This is where I found her the other night.  Poor Anna is such a trooper.  Buggy just really wants to sleep in the bunkbed.  So Anna thought it would be best to bring her regular bed into the room, remove the crib, and let Buggy have the bunk.  This has worked out much better and so things are settling down in the kiddie room!

St. Nicholas Has Been Here!

The kids put their shoes out before bed and lo and behold St. Nicholas showed up right speedy!!  He left them gold coins and candy canes in their shoes and the Three Wisemen....they have shown up to find the Baby Jesus!!

First Sunday of Advent

It's our most favorite time of the year!! Today was the first Sunday of Advent..

Advent is the official beginning of the new year in the Catholic Church and it is a time of hopeful waiting and penance for the coming of Christ at Christmas at the end of the month.

 It is a liturgical season filled with such wonderful traditions.

On the first Sunday of Advent we always set up out Nativity scene.  We have a large Fontinini set and we set it up on a large table in our dining room.  These pictures are a bit out of order, but you will get the idea.

At the left side of the table is our "desert".  Towards the back the Roman soldiers are declaring the census and Mary and Joseph are off for their journey. 

Some shops in the middle..

In the back is the stable.  Currently uninhabited.  Next to the stable is the "chicken house" and we assume they own the stable.  The sparkly stuff behind the well is our running river.

a view of the whole scene

Our Advent Wreath.  One candle is lit for each week of Advent.  Three purple candles and one rose.  The rose candle is lit on the third Sunday, which is known as Guadete Sunday.  Guadete means rejoice...the birth of Christ is ever closer.

Our mantle is pretty stripped down.  All the way to the left is a little statue of St. Lucy, whose feast is on Dec. 13th.  Then a wooden St. Nicholas, whose feast is on Dec. 6.  In the center is our Advent calendar.  Behind each door is a scripture reading for the day.  And then the three round containers next to it contains a treat a day for each day lovingly prepared and wrapped for each child by my stepmom and dad.  Next to that is a little statue of the Three wisemen.

This is a little Holztiger nativity set for the kids to play with.  And next to it there  you can see a little St. Nicholas nesting doll we found at a flea market a few years ago.

And a reminder of what the season is about.  Not quite time to celebrate yet, but a time to prepare our hearts and mind for the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas.

We also set up a Jesse Tree but things have been busy around here and we just have not had the time to get it set up yet.  It is on my list for tomorrow. 

The Wind by Robert Louis Stevenson

Wordless Wednesday..I Keep Forgetting to Mention...

Three Year Anniversary/One Year Anniversary

I realized a week or two ago that the three year anniversary of Anna's surgery had come and gone without my noticing.  It was October 20th.  It was also the one year anniversary of removing her feeding tube.

Her health was always such a huge focus of our lives....a constant issue every day in this house, constant specialist appointments and therapies, constant deliveries of medical supplies, constant hours wasted trying to deal with insurance.......

But the forgetting of this anniversary just shows how much things have changed.  Anna is the healthiest child in this house (not that the others are sickly, but we have allergy and asthma, vision issues etc).  She is still quite thin for her age, but which Salvucci child isn't???  But she maintains her curve on her own with absolutely no supplementation.....the first time in her life.  Her weight is checked by her pediatrician, not by specialists.  She is on no medication and receiving no therapy.  I can't remember the last time I made a trip to CHOP with Anna.

So, Deo Gratias that we are able to just pass these anniversaries unnoticed!!  Anna is a strong, full of life, little girl who loves to swim and to go to her dance class, to play with her siblings, and keep us all on our toes!

Martinmas

The Feast of St. Martin is traditionally a big feast marking the end of the growing season and the start of the harvest, the end of Autumn and the beginning of winter, and the end of the Octave of All Saints. It was celebrated in Europe like our Thanksgiving with large celebrations with food, bonfires, lanterns, and treats.

We try to have a very small, humble St. Martin celebration.

We made and lit some lanterns.  These are just mason jars with colored tissue paper glued to it.  Makes a beautiful stained glass effect once lit.

For a treat we made Martinshörnchen (St. Martin's Croissants).  Croissants are a semi-circle to remind us of the cloak he cut in half to save a beggar from the cold.  There is a traditional recipe here: martinshornchen recipe.  I used a can of crescent rolls because they are egg and dairy free that way.  I just brushed them with dairy free margarine and sprinkled some sugar before rolling them up.  Then brushed the tops with more margarine and a little sugar.  So easy and quite yummy!

And some simple St. Martin pictures to color in.  You can find the free printable here

this kid is hilarious

Buggy photo bomb??

don't let this smile fool you  ;)

All Hallow's Eve..

Our very first jack-o-lanterns!!  I think they came out great!!!  The one on the left is Beatrice's pumpkin (which I carved while she napped), The big one next to it is Ben's and he drew the face and I did the cutting, and the one on the right is Anna's...I helped her with her drawing, but the design was all hers.

Have a good and fun All Hallow's Eve and remember to pray for your faithful departed!

Yarn Along - Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan Blocking

Joining Ginny over at Small Things. Finally finishing up Anna's new cardigan. I swear I take the most terrible pictures, but here is the sweater being blocked. Then I just need to add a few buttons and then it is ready to wear! The yarn was a beautifully hand dyed yarn from my old fiber shop in NY, Woolbearers.  It is beautiful, will match Anna's hair and coloring perfectly, and was so nice to knit with.

I had pulled a book off my shelf a few weeks ago that I have had for a really long time and not read.  The Golden Road by LM Montgomery.  I really enjoyed it, but after reading a few chapters in I realized it was a sequel.  So now I am readying The Story Girl....which I should have read first, but either way nice, light, and enjoyable bed time reading.

Easy Fall Suncatchers

 

We made these easy suncatchers earlier in the week.  All you need are colorful leaves, some clear contact paper, a hole puncher and some yarn (or whatever you want to use to hang them).

We got the leaves from our yard.  The fresher the leaf the better.  In fact some we plucked right off the trees and those worked the best.

I cut large rectangles of contact paper and peeled back just half of it then we stuck leaves to it.  Then I peeled off the rest of the contact paper and folded it over itself the leaves were stuck between the two halves.

Then I punched holes, laced some yarn through and found some sunny windows to put them in.

Our Latest Quietness

 Did the pictures giveaway what we have been busy doing??  That is right...we have been busy with the chickenpox!!  It is going around and we were just one of many families at our church struck down.  Ben got it on labor day and our last pox scabbed over, officially ending our bout about a week or so ago.  Overall it was pretty much a non-event.  You would never know Ben and Anna were sick if you didn't see the spots all over them.  School went on as usual and they played and road bikes and made messes just like any other day.  Just as I assumed that Beatrice had somehow missed it she broke out with the pox.  She had it the worst of the three.  For whatever reason she had pox from the top of her head to her rearend....but nothing on arms or legs which left her with a very dense case of pox on her body.  But other than one day of really being uncomfortable and requiring constant distraction she came through like a trooper as well.  Now I have three happy, healthy, immune kiddies.

Somehow I didn't get a single pic of Anna when she had the pox.  So instead here she is all dressed ready to go to her ballet/tap class.  She is so cute!  And she is even cuter IN her class.  Such a petite little thing listening very intently to her teacher.  It is delicious to watch!  After I took her picture she asked that I also take a picture from the back LOL...so I obliged..

For information about why my children have not received the chickenpox vaccine please check out the information at this site: http://www.cogforlife.org/vaccine-overview/

My Beloved Mud Room!

When we started looking for a new house one of the features I was hoping to have was a mudroom. In our old house the front door opened up right into the living room and so the living room became a total dumping ground. Shoes, jackets, gloves, wet things, bags, mail, etc etc...It drove me NUTS!!!

So, I dreamed of a place where the dirty shoes lives and the jackets could hang and everything could be found when it was needed.

Our new house has a large, enclosed breezeway that attaches the side of the house to the garage. And it wasn't set up as a mudroom but it had plenty of potential to become one!  One side was basically empty space and the other side has our slop sink and the door to the back yard.  In the middle is the side door to our house.

This is the side of the breezeway closest to the front of the house.  The door just to the right of the picture opens to our driveway, the entrance most used to enter our house.  A perfect mudroom spot!!  This is obviously our before picture.  Just a big ole empty space.

And the after!!  I love love love!!!  Cla made a quick trip to Lowes, bought lumber and set to work.  A nice bench to sit and get your shoes on, storage under the bench where each kid has their own crate to keep their shoes in.  Enough hooks to hang the jackets.  And storage above for the currently unneeded boots, scarves, hats, gloves.

Celebrating The Feast of St. Michael the Archangel

Yesterday was the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, or Michaelmas. The beautiful FSSP parish we attended is called St. Michael's and so this feast was raised to a first class feast. So this was a special day of celebration at our Church. A beautiful Mass was celebrated and then a potluck meal.

Since our Sunday was so busy and full we held off our home celebration until today. Any printables or ideas I got from Jessica's wonderful blog, Shower of Roses.

Devil's Food Cake cupcakes.  St. Michael stabbed the devil with his sword.  So we stabbed our Devil cupcakes with our swords before devouring them!  Claudio tried to piece together a St. Michael out of Playmobil, but he looks a bit like he has some sort of hormonal imbalance LOL...Ben said it was GOOD ENOUGH!!

Ben's copywork for the day: St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle

And some beautiful coloring work done of this image of St. Michael.

Ben lead us in the St. Michael prayer before we ate our cupcakes.

stabbing his cupcake!

And finally EAT the cupcakes ;)