By Your Holy Cross...

Cookie Man took this picture of Michelangelo "La Pieta" while on our honeymoon. Truly a magnificent piece of work!

Holy Thursday

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

 John 13: 1-15

Art Courtesy

Crown of Thorns from Paper Nest

I saw this idea in a Magazine at the Dr's Office! 

I thought it could also make a great visual for a Crown of Thorns.

So easy to make:

-Lunch Paper bags

-Sticks

-Tacky Glue

TRES demonstrating how to open the bag

Scrunch up the bag and make into a circle

DOS

UNO waiting on another paper bag

  Now the fun part goes here...

when you dump the glue onto a paper plate 

and the kidlets go psycho over glue and sticks!

Yup...you guessed right, no pictures were taken

during this process!! 

Mommy's Nest

UNO's nest

DOS' nest

TRES' made with mommy's help

I think they turned out great!!

 Here are our "Crown of thorns"
...watch for their transformation on Easter Morning!!

I am linking up to

Ultimate Guide for Celebrating Holy Week with kids!

Meaningful Easter: Tips, Ideas and Traditions

Stations of the Cross

I have found lots of great ideas for the Stations of the Cross. 

This one-by far- is my favorite.

I also added tea light candles that are turned off after each station is read.

I got the Printable Stations from The Bookworm.

Laminated them.

Placed them in a box.

Added the symbols for each Station.

DOS repeated the Stations after Cookie Man read them.

The Littles really took to the "story of Jesus".  

The picture above does not do justice to how they took it all in.

Capirotada- Mexican Bread Pudding

Capirotada is traditionally eaten during Lent. 

Growing up, my mother made it during Holy Week.

Family would come over to enjoy their "favorite aunt's" bread pudding.

I never knew the religious side of it until I watched my mom make it.

  ...and asked her to give me "the recipe".

Here is my mother's recipe... if you are looking for exact measurements, 

you won't find them here!

Take close look at the "bandejas" (pots & pans) in the pictures.

They belonged to my 'mama' and my mother now has them... 

adding to the 60-70+ cooking years my grandmother put them through.

Toasted bread use any type

Oil heating in pan... notice handle is missing

Once bread is toasted, dip in hot oil.

Boil water and add brown sugar or Piloncillo (Mexican Brown Sugar). One stick of butter, cinnamon sticks and whole cloves

Cinnamon Sticks  represent our sins and the wood used to crucify Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Cloves- Nails used to nail Jesus to the Cross

Bread- The Body of Christ

Raisins-People you are praying for family, friends, government officials, enemies, etc

Brown Sugar mix- represents the Blood of Christ

Cheese- our connection with Jesus Christ's suffering and our own suffering

Nuts are the hardened hearts or bad habits we need to let go

Layer Bread & cheese

then pour brown sugar mixture between layers

repeat in layers until all ingredients are used

bake at 350 degrees for 2-3 hours

my mother and her Capirotada!

Check out other Lenten Ideas here!!

QUATRO

Our family is now complete!

Hello World!

QUATRO

Born 3-09-2011

11:47 am

9 lbs. 11.2 oz.

20 1/2 inches long

Daddy and Quatro!

Quatro was named after his Abuelo

I love this picture of the kids meeting their brother!

The Littles!

Probably the closest thing we will get to a a picture with 'everyone' looking at the camera.

Quatro was born on Ash Wednesday...he received Ashes within 1 hour of his birth!

March Playdough

This month I was originally going to do Mardi Gras colors of Purple, Gold and Green but decided to just focus on Purple, for the season of Lent and Green for St. Patrick's Day.

Purple and Green Playdough

I added Mardi Gras beads for fun!

The kids loved the beads.

Looks fun and the littles are amazed at the results!

Chocolate Crown of Thorns

Today we made these super-duper easy Chocolate Crown of Thorns.  I saw them on a post from Catholic Icing and knew they would be a messy fun project for UNO and DOS.  Evann from Homeschool Goodies also said to add eggs to it to transform it to a bird's nest!

All you need is Baking Chocolate and Pretzels.

I just followed the directions for melting the chocolate.

I lined a baking sheet with wax paper and drew a circle on the back side.

I was thinking the circle would be easy for the kids to "shape" the Crown.

UNO stirring the pretzels and chocolate...

BUSTED!

DOS added her pretzels...one at a time...YAWN!!!

TRES looking on with a red star sticker stuck to her upper lip...too cute!

I made this one earlier in the day.

Our crown of thorns

NOTE: Less is more. 

The one Evann made was thinned out a lot better than this one but hey...

It was my first one. 

UNO and DOS ended up eating their bowl of chocolate covered pretzels, while watching an Easter Video...which was ok with me.

I LOVED this idea and look forward to making this one of our Holy Week Traditions.