Lent ~ 2015

Yesterday, February 18, 2015, marked the beginning of the Lent Season.  The kids and I started off our day by creating a 40 Day Calendar of Sacrifices, Good Deeds and Acts Of Kindness that we could do together as a family and on our own as well.  We each also gave up 1 food-related item as our personal sacrifice.  I gave up meat, Jim - ice cream, Kyle - peanut butter and Bella & Savannah both gave up Pop-Tarts.  We spent some time discussing the significance of Lent and why we, as a practicing catholic family, wanted to "do our best" to succeed in our 40 Day sacrifices.

Although we put numbers on our 40 Day Calendar I told the kids that each day they could choose any "square" that they wanted to - they just need to agree on which one (which might be challenging, but it's a perfect way for the little ones to learn how to cooperate!)  Yesterday they decided to do square #1: Make A Card For Someone Special.  Within seconds my dining room table was full of construction paper, markers, crayons and stickers!  I enjoyed watching the kids unleash their unique creative sides; I knew Kyle would draw an army tank somewhere on his card, just as I knew Savannah would plaster hers with random stickers.  Bella had fun creating a "Noah's Ark" card with some random boat, shepard, bird and animal stickers.

Seeing as how it was Ash Wednesday I really wanted to take the kids to Mass.  St. Brendan's masses were being held at 8A and 7p but we missed the boat on the 8A one and I knew that taking the kids out at 7p could be quite difficult given the time frame so I reached out to our Church Religious Coordinator who informed me that St. Luke's in Barrington was having a 12p Mass.  PERFECT!  Although I was feeling kind of anxious about taking all 4 kids to Mass without Jim, I knew that my in-laws and neighbors would be there to help if need be.  My anxiety level climbed a bit higher when I saw how packed the church was but, much to my relief, ALL of the kids behaved PERFECTLY!  Afterwards our neighbors treated us to munchkins and hot chocolate; a nice little "reward" for the kids (and me!).  Don't get me wrong - the kids are never "bad" in church..but sometimes they can be a bit of a handful...like Bella will talk too loud or Savannah will start humming loudly..or they won't sit still...all typical little kid behavior but when I have Jim with me we can use our "divide and conquer" method, where he puts one girl on his lap and I take the other on mine..

All in all we had a very nice, religious oriented day.  I had my final Cub Scouts meeting that night and one of the boys asked me about the ashes on my forehead.  Kyle and I took turns explaining about Ash Wednesday to him, which was nice.

Stay tuned for pictures showing some of the things we will do during Lent!